FBI Papers Indicate Intelligence Violations

October 24, 2005 11:43 AM

FBI Papers Indicate Intelligence Violations...Records turned over as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit also indicate that the FBI has investigated hundreds of potential violations related to its use of secret surveillance operations, which have been stepped up dramatically since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but are largely hidden from public view...
posted by Postroad (14 comments total)

I love how many times "secret" is used in that article. Secret courts, secret judges, secret evidence.

Shhhh, it's a secret.
posted by wah at 11:52 AM on October 24, 2005

It seems to me the real news in this article is that the FBI is conducting internal auditing and reporting their screwups. The more suspicious among us will still wonder what they're not reporting, but this relative candor contrasts sharply with how the FBI has played close to the vest for most of its existence.
posted by alumshubby at 12:07 PM on October 24, 2005

The courts and judges aren't themselves secret: the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has been around for a couple of decades (as has the Intelligence Oversight Board). The types of cases the FBI was permitted to bring it were increased under the PATRIOT Act, and a key problem is that the Act only requires that they report to Congress annually on the number of such cases.

I would suggest that part of the problem here -- and the article is probably correct that most of the errors are administrative -- is a lack of statutory authority and staff for the IOB and FISA. Somebody should be keeping closer tabs on these individual warrants and it shouldn't be the FBI.
posted by dhartung at 12:27 PM on October 24, 2005

The vast majority of the potential [violations] reported have to do with administrative timelines and time frames for renewing orders.

Those "administrative timelines and time frames" are an essential step in ensuring that agents are acting with authorization under the law. Without that, what claim to legitimacy can the FBI make?
posted by eddydamascene at 12:40 PM on October 24, 2005

You know, I've always wondered if the FBI doesn't actively try to get stories like this out to scare people it wants to scare. There's no concrete info in here and it's hardly like the FBI has to answer to anyone anyway. I read this and I think "great, they're using EPIC to do their dirty work. I like EPIC a good deal, but there's a reason this FOIA request went through (and hundreds are turned down for no reason at all).

Let me know when the Truth and Reconciliation committee is set up to investigate the crimes of our era. Until then, I'm suspicious.
posted by allen.spaulding at 12:42 PM on October 24, 2005

George Bush is an intelligence violation, am i rite? lololol
posted by keswick at 12:43 PM on October 24, 2005

Freedom ain't free.
posted by hatchetjack at 12:55 PM on October 24, 2005

“In other cases, agents obtained e-mails after a warrant expired, seized bank records without proper authority...”
[from the article]


Lemme get this straight - the PATRIOT act (et. al) allows them to do much of this by simply asking permission from a body which hasn’t refused them anything since the ‘80s, but they didn’t bother to?
Why the hell wouldn’t the renew the warrant?
Weird man. I’d say these kinds of botches were indictative of in-fighting in the organization.
posted by Smedleyman at 1:19 PM on October 24, 2005

Freedom ain't free.

Actually... I'm pretty sure it is.

Hold on...

Yup.

It is.
posted by poweredbybeard at 2:07 PM on October 24, 2005

The flip side of that argument, Smedleyman, is that since they've been getting a free ride since the 80's, why bother asking any more?

That's why they trivialize them - if you're going to give them permission anyway, what's the point of all this fuss?

I'd be more worried about the fact that some of them were able to perform such unwarranted intelligence activities for months or even years without oversight, without notice, and apparently without even having to report it to Congress - the article implies that the FBI may have committed the sin of omission when disclosing such operations to Congress.
posted by FormlessOne at 2:20 PM on October 24, 2005

"That's why they trivialize them - if you're going to give them permission anyway, what's the point of all this fuss?"
posted by FormlessOne at 2:20 PM PST on October 24 [!]

Indeed. Rendered into the slang from my old neighborhood the senior FBI official's statement is the rough eqivalent of:
"Wha? Wha? .... forgetaboudit."



Vigilance.
posted by Smedleyman at 2:55 PM on October 24, 2005

In this age where people live under the neverending fear of large-scale terrorism, 80 to 90 percent of surveillance-related court orders are for... [drumroll]... drug-related crimes.

Terrorism schmerrorism. The Feds clearly saw 9/11 as the golden opportunity to push through their "shopping list" of things they wish they could have gotten away with before but couldn't. By and large it's got nothing to do with terrorism -- unless an embarassing refusal to show up at a mayoral debate is involved, apparently.
posted by clevershark at 3:22 PM on October 24, 2005

After careful consideration, I think I'm starting to see a trend - both on the part of our government & your posts, Postroad......
posted by Pressed Rat at 5:55 PM on October 24, 2005

"powerdbybeard",
good catch, my bad
thanks.
posted by hatchetjack at 7:43 AM on October 25, 2005