Home > Watchdog says FBI violated surveillance rules
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by From Terry Frieden
WASHINGTON (CNN) — A government watchdog is calling on the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate at least 13 occasions of alleged improper use of FBI surveillance, including searches and seizures of e-mail and bank records.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) released 93 pages of internal FBI documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The documents previously were classified, The Associated Press reported.
The center told Senate Judiciary Committee members there may have been hundreds of such cases.
"We believe there is particular urgency for the committee to pursue this matter," the group said in a letter to Sens. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, and Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont. Specter heads the Judiciary Committee, and Leahy is the ranking minority member.
"Over the last several years the FBI has been granted significantly expanded authority to undertake intelligence investigations in the United States," the center said in its letter.
The alleged violations centered largely on FBI failures to renew surveillance orders before they expired, or to inform the Justice Department lawyers of significant changes in the surveillance.
Many of the alleged violations involved failure to file required annual updates on the continued surveillance. The requirement allows Justice Department lawyers to monitor the progress of long-running clandestine spying operations.
But, according to the AP, the violations included an alleged violation of bank privacy laws, and improper physical search, and improper collection of e-mails after warrants expired.
The FBI issued no formal response, but a veteran FBI official, authorized to speak for the bureau without attribution, said there were no deliberate or systemic violations.
"Nearly all of these technical violations are of an administrative nature, and very few involve any substantive violations pertaining to searches," the FBI official said. "FBI employees are encouraged to over-report to minimize the possibility that any violation is overlooked."
The heavily censored documents reveal 13 cases from 2002 through 2004 in which top FBI lawyers investigated alleged FBI violations of law or a presidential directive.
The watchdog group said case numbers assigned to the matters referred to the Intelligence Oversight Board, an arm of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, indicate "at least 153 instances of alleged misconduct occurring in 2003 alone."
Domestic surveillance against potential terrorists has increased sharply since the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.
The release of the documents comes as Congress weighs final changes to the Patriot Act, which expanded the authority of federal law enforcement investigators.
The ACLU, which has led the fight against the expanded federal powers, issued a statement saying, "The revelation was only further proof that Patriot Act reforms are needed."
But the FBI official rejected the argument, saying the process of reporting every potential violation of even the most technical mistakes is a 20-year-old practice that long predates the Patriot Act.