History > 2007 > USA > FBI (I)

FBI Watched

McCarthy Anti - Hoover Effort

October 25, 2007
Filed at 2:11 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- When Eugene McCarthy ran for president in 1968, he pledged to fire J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI director who had outlasted presidents from Calvin Coolidge to John F. Kennedy.

Before long, McCarthy's calls for new FBI leadership were cataloged and commented upon by FBI officials in a nearly 500-page file, obtained by The Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act. The file became available after McCarthy's death in December 2005.

Much of McCarthy's file focuses on law enforcement duties surrounding the 1968 campaign, when McCarthy helped galvanize opposition to the Vietnam War by challenging President Lyndon B. Johnson for the 1968 Democratic nomination. The Minnesota senator's strong showing in the New Hampshire primary led to Johnson's withdrawal from the race.

According to McCarthy's file, FBI agents looked into death threats against the candidate, and kept records of his public travel and demonstrations. In the process, they also paid close attention to McCarthy's calls to replace Hoover, collecting several news clippings, letters and memos on the subject.

For example, the FBI's Special Agent in Charge in Indianapolis wrote to Hoover on April 22, 1968 to inform him of a speech at Indiana University in which McCarthy said the U.S. should ''re-examine the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and even reflect on who its director is.''

''I think this man is misguided and irresponsible and in my opinion does not deserve the status of a presidential candidate,'' wrote the agent, James T. Neagle. ''I am certainly setting the record straight as to your ability and tremendous record as director of the FBI over the years,'' added Neagle, who included a newspaper clipping with the memo.

Although Vietnam was the driving force behind McCarthy's campaign, the calls for Hoover's ouster fit with the campaign's general themes. (Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, a fellow Minnesotan, wound up winning the Democratic nomination, but lost the presidential election to Richard Nixon.)

Hoover had been running the FBI since 1924, and would hold the position until his death in 1972 -- nearly a half-century at the helm.

McCarthy's son, Michael McCarthy, said that their father warned about the ''personalization of power,'' seeing that in both Hoover and Johnson.

''Dad felt very strongly about the danger of having the head of the FBI so unaccountable, so permanent,'' recalled his daughter, Ellen McCarthy. ''In the late '60s and early '70s, we had a wonderful family dog, Eric the Red. He who would go crazy at the mention of J. Edgar's name -- growling and carrying on. It was one of Eric's tricks most appreciated by Dad.''

The file includes several other letters from people defending Hoover from McCarthy's criticism -- with copies sent to Hoover. One Hoover admirer wrote to McCarthy, calling the criticism ''in very bad taste, to say the very least, and without reason, logic or merit. I am certain that there are millions of Americans who feel as I do!''

Once, Hoover took note of a memo circulated by the mayor of Jackson, Mich., which defended the FBI director from criticism by McCarthy. A newspaper story in the Jackson Citizen Patriot about the initiative is included in the file.

''I have learned of your expression of support of my administration of the FBI and want to extend my thanks,'' Hoover wrote to the mayor, Maurice B. Townsend, Jr. At the bottom of the letter, the FBI adds this note: ''There is no record of Mayor Townsend in Bufiles (Bureau files). We have had cordial relations with the Jackson Citizen Patriot and its editor, Honorable Herbert W. Spendlove, is on the Special Correspondents' List.''

That list referred to reporters the FBI had identified as friendly, said Athan Theoharis, a retired Marquette University history professor who has written several books on the FBI and Hoover. Another list had reporters who were not to be contacted, Theoharis said.

The FBI even took note of the state of McCarthy's campaign hotel bills. In August 1968, Joseph D. Purvis, Special Agent in Charge in the Washington, D.C. Field Office, wrote to Hoover to tell him about a conversation he had with ''one of our good friends at the Mayflower,'' a famous Washington hotel. The person's name is redacted from the file.

Purvis wrote that the campaign had four rooms booked since June, and hadn't made any payments -- with the hotel bill exceeding $20,000 by the end of July. He also noted that his Mayflower source was not aware of the nature of the campaign business in those rooms, ''but he has observed those who use them are primarily young people, both white and colored.''

''By and large, he said, 'they are a pretty crummy bunch.' They seem to enjoy room service immensely,'' Purvis wrote.

The FBI's interest in McCarthy's activities extended to the senator's family as well.

Once, when she was 20 years old, McCarthy's daughter Ellen took a tour of the FBI. The FBI file includes a memo from August 1968 that is almost certainly a report of that trip, although the names are redacted.

The memo, titled ''SPECIAL TOUR OF BUREAU,'' reports that a man waiting for a special tour appointment asked if the person who had just left the room was the (redacted) of McCarthy.

When told that was the case, he said ''that he thought it was quite ironic that the individual who had stated he would force Mr. Hoover to retire if elected president was now sending his (redacted) down to the FBI ...'' the memo states. ''All in the room appeared to be quite amused by this aside, and their laughter plainly indicated on which side their sympathies were in the J. Edgar Hoover-McCarthy matter.''

When shown a copy of the memo, Ellen McCarthy said she and a friend toured the FBI around that time.

FBI Watched McCarthy Anti - Hoover Effort, NYT, 25.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Eugene-McCarthy-FBI.html

Report: FBI Still Vulnerable

October 1, 2007
Filed at 12:46 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Six years after arresting turncoat Robert Hanssen, the FBI remains vulnerable to espionage from within, the parent Justice Department said in a report Monday.

The reason for this, said the Justice's Office of Inspector General, is that the bureau has failed to fully adopt security measures to track suspicious behavior involving its own employees.

The investigation by the IG's office sought to examine the extent of internal security at the nation's lead law enforcement and domestic spy agency following the 2001 capture of Hanssen, who admitted spying for Moscow for cash and diamonds over two decades.

The 41-page unclassified report credits the FBI for taking at least two critical steps to crack down on internal spies -- creating a new unit designed specifically to detect security penetrations within the agency and installing senior operational posts in its counterespionage section. These posts were filled with representatives from the CIA or elsewhere in the intelligence community to ensure ''impartiality and an objective evaluation of source information.''

Such measures, proposed by the IG in 2003, were initially resisted by the FBI.

However, the internal investigation found that the FBI had yet to put in place internal monitoring procedures other recommendations by the IG -- such as creating a central repository to collect and analyze bizarre or otherwise derogatory information -- concerning FBI employees.

The report also found that the FBI's program to review suspicious employees periodically over their years of service also remained spotty because it hadn't created full case files on them. This was due at least in part to faulty technology, it said.

As a result, such gaps expose the nation to internal spy threats and could have been to blame for security breaches by FBI intelligence analyst Leandro Aragoncillo, who was arrested in October 2005. He was later sentenced to 10 years in prison for passing secret U.S. documents in an effort to topple the Philippine government.

The FBI did not have any immediate comment.

''The circumstances surrounding Aragoncillo's activities and the FBI's response to them are stark reminders of the vulnerabilities that persist within the FBI's security program and the need to address these vulnerabilities,'' states the report by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine, which called the security failures unacceptable.

''We believe the FBI must be vigilant in attempting to deter and detect the internal penetrations that have occurred in the past and that may occur in the future,'' the report said.

------

On the Net:

Executive summary of report: http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/s0710/final.pdf

    Report: FBI Still Vulnerable, NYT, 1.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-FBI-Missed-Spying.html

F.B.I. Data Mining Reached Beyond Initial Targets

September 9, 2007
The New York Times
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 — The F.B.I. cast a much wider net in its terrorism investigations than it has previously acknowledged by relying on telecommunications companies to analyze phone-call patterns of the associates of Americans who had come under suspicion, according to newly obtained bureau records.

The documents indicate that the Federal Bureau of Investigation used secret demands for records to obtain data not only on individuals it saw as targets but also details on their “community of interest” — the network of people that the target was in contact with. The bureau stopped the practice early this year in part because of broader questions raised about its aggressive use of the records demands, which are known as national security letters, officials said.

The community of interest data sought by the F.B.I. is central to a data-mining technique intelligence officials call link analysis. Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, American counterterrorism officials have turned more frequently to the technique, using communications patterns and other data to identify suspects who may not have any other known links to extremists.

The concept has strong government proponents who see it as a vital tool in predicting and preventing attacks, and it is also thought to have helped the National Security Agency identify targets for its domestic eavesdropping program. But privacy advocates, civil rights leaders and even some counterterrorism officials warn that link analysis can be misused to establish tenuous links to people who have no real connection to terrorism but may be drawn into an investigation nonetheless.

Typically, community of interest data might include an analysis of which people the targets called most frequently, how long they generally talked and at what times of day, sudden fluctuations in activity, geographic regions that were called, and other data, law enforcement and industry officials said.

The F.B.I. declined to say exactly what data had been turned over. It was limited to people and phone numbers “once removed” from the actual target of the national security letters, said a government official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of a continuing review by the Justice Department.

The bureau had declined to discuss any aspect of the community of interest requests because it said the issue was part of an investigation by the Justice Department inspector general’s office into national security letters. An initial review in March by the inspector general found widespread violations in the F.B.I.’s use of the letters, but did not mention the use of community of interest data.

On Saturday, in response to the posting of the article on the Web site of The New York Times, Mike Kortan, a spokesman for the F.B.I., said “it is important to emphasize” that community of interest data is “no longer being used pending the development of an appropriate oversight and approval policy, was used infrequently, and was never used for e-mail communications.”

The scope of the demands for information could be seen in an August 2005 letter seeking the call records for particular phone numbers under suspicion. The letter closed by saying: “Additionally, please provide a community of interest for the telephone numbers in the attached list.”

The requests for such data showed up a dozen times, using nearly identical language, in records from one six-month period in 2005 obtained by a nonprofit advocacy group, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that it brought against the government. The F.B.I. recently turned over 2,500 pages of documents to the group. The boilerplate language suggests the requests may have been used in many of more than 700 emergency or “exigent” national security letters. Earlier this year, the bureau banned the use of the exigent letters because they had never been authorized by law.

The reason for the suspension is unclear, but it appears to have been set off in part by the questions raised by the inspector general’s initial review into abuses in the use of national security letters. The official said the F.B.I. itself was examining the use of the community of interest requests to get a better understanding of how and when they were used, but he added that they appeared to have been used in a relatively small percentage of the tens of thousand of the records requests each year. “In an exigent circumstance, that’s information that may be relevant to an investigation,” the official said.

A federal judge in Manhattan last week struck down parts of the USA Patriot Act that had authorized the F.B.I.’s use of the national security letters, saying that some provisions violated the First Amendment and the constitutional separation of powers guarantee. In many cases, the target of a national security letter whose records are being sought is not necessarily the actual subject of a terrorism investigation and may not be suspected at all. Under the Patriot Act, the F.B.I. must assert only that the records gathered through the letter are considered relevant to a terrorism investigation.

Some legal analysts and privacy advocates suggested that the disclosure of the F.B.I.’s collection of community of interest records offered another example of the bureau exceeding the substantial powers already granted it by Congress.

“This whole concept of tracking someone’s community of interest is not part of any established F.B.I. authority,” said Marcia Hofmann, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which provided the records from its lawsuit to The New York Times. “It’s being defined by the F.B.I. And when it’s left up to the F.B.I. to decide what information is relevant to their investigations, they can vacuum up almost anything they want.”

Matt Blaze, a professor of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania and a former researcher for AT&T, said the telecommunications companies could have easily provided the F.B.I. with the type of network analysis data it was seeking because they themselves had developed it over many years, often using sophisticated software like a program called Analyst’s Notebook.

“This sort of analysis of calling patterns and who the communities of interests are is the sort of things telephone companies are doing anyway because it’s central to their businesses for marketing or optimizing the network or detecting fraud,” said Professor Blaze, who has worked with the F.B.I. on technology issues.

Such “analysis is extremely powerful and very revealing because you get these linkages between people that wouldn’t be otherwise clear, sometimes even more important than the content itself” of phone calls and e-mail messages, he said. “But it’s also very invasive. There’s always going to be a certain amount of noise,” with data collected on people who have no real links to suspicious activity, he said.

Officials at other American intelligence agencies, like the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency, have explored using link analysis to trace patterns of communications sometimes two, three or four people removed from the original targets, current and former intelligence officials said. But critics assert that the further the links are taken, the less valuable the information proves to be.

Some privacy advocates said they were troubled by what they saw as the F.B.I.’s over-reliance on technology at the expense of traditional investigative techniques that rely on clearer evidence of wrongdoing.

“Getting a computer to spit out a hundred names doesn’t have any meaning if you don’t know what you’re looking for,” said Michael German, a former F.B.I. agent who is now a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union. “If they’re telling the telephone company, ‘You do the investigation and tell us what you find,’ the relevance to the investigation is being determined by someone outside the F.B.I.”

    F.B.I. Data Mining Reached Beyond Initial Targets, NYT, 9.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/washington/09fbi.html?hp

Court Rules Against F.B.I. in Raid on Lawmaker

August 3, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:51 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI violated the Constitution when agents raided U.S. Rep. William Jefferson's office last year and viewed legislative documents in a corruption investigation, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

The court ordered the Justice Department to return any legislative documents it seized from the Louisiana Democrat's office on Capitol Hill. The court did not order the return of all the documents seized in the raid and did not say whether prosecutors could use any of the records against Jefferson in their bribery case.

Jefferson argued that the first-of-its-kind raid trampled congressional independence. The Constitution prohibits the executive branch from using its law enforcement powers to interfere with the lawmaking process. The Justice Department said that declaring the search unconstitutional would essentially prohibit the FBI from ever looking at a lawmaker's documents.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected that claim. The court held that, while the search itself was constitutional, FBI agents crossed the line when they viewed every record in the office without giving Jefferson the chance to argue that some documents involved legislative business.

''The review of the Congressman's paper files when the search was executed exposed legislative material to the Executive'' and violated the Constitution, the court wrote. ''The Congressman is entitled to the return of documents that the court determines to be privileged.''

The raid was part of a 16-month international bribery investigation of Jefferson, who allegedly accepted $100,000 from a telecommunications businessman, $90,000 of which was later recovered in a freezer in the congressman's Washington home.

Jefferson pleaded not guilty in June to charges of soliciting more than $500,000 in bribes while using his office to broker business deals in Africa. The Justice Department said it built that case without using the disputed documents from the raid.

The court did not rule whether, because portions of the search were illegal, prosecutors should be barred from using any of the records in their case against Jefferson. That will be decided by the federal judge in Virginia who is presiding over the criminal case.

''Today's opinion underscores the fact that the Department of Justice is required to follow the law, and that it is bound to abide by the Constitution,'' defense attorney Robert Trout, said, promising more legal challenges to ''overreaching by the government in this case.''

The Justice Department did not immediately return messages seeking comment on the decision. Officials have said they took extraordinary steps, including using an FBI ''filter team'' not involved in the case to review the congressional documents. Government attorneys said the Constitution was not intended to shield lawmakers from prosecution for political corruption.

The court was not convinced. It said the Constitution insists that lawmakers must be free from any intrusion into their congressional duties. Such intrusion, even by a filter team, ''may therefore chill the exchange of views with respect to legislative activity,'' the court held.

The case has cut across political party lines. Former House Speakers Newt Gingrich, a Republican, and Thomas Foley, a Democrat, filed legal documents opposing the raid, along with former House Minority Leader Bob Michel, a Republican.

Conservative groups Judicial Watch and the Washington Legal Foundation were joined by the liberal Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in supporting the legality of the raid.

Following his indictment, Jefferson's supporters accused the Bush administration of targeting black Democrats to shift attention from the legal troubles of Republican congressmen.

''We are confident that as this case moves forward, and when all of the facts are known, we will prevail again and clear Congressman Jefferson's name,'' Trout said Friday.

Despite the looming investigation, Jefferson was re-elected to a ninth term in 2006. His win complicated things for Democratic leaders who promised to run the most ethical Congress in history.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., stripped Jefferson of his seat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee and placed him instead on the Small Business Committee. He resigned that committee assignment after being indicted.

The case was considered by Chief Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg, Judge Karen Lecraft Henderson and Judge Judith W. Rogers.

Ginsburg and Rogers served in the Justice Department and Henderson served as deputy South Carolina attorney general. None of the judges served in the legislative branch, though Rogers was counsel to a congressional commission formed to review Washington's municipal structure. Ginsburg and Henderson were appointed by Republican presidents, Rogers by a Democrat.

    Court Rules Against F.B.I. in Raid on Lawmaker, NYT, 3.8.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Raid-on-Congress.html

Judge: FBI Helped Frame 4 in 1965 Murder

July 26, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:51 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BOSTON (AP) -- A federal judge Thursday ordered the government to pay more than $101 million in the case of four men who spent decades in prison for a 1965 murder they didn't commit after the FBI withheld evidence of their innocence.

The FBI encouraged perjury, helped frame the four men and withheld for more than three decades information that could have cleared them, U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner said in issuing her ruling Thursday.

She called the government's argument that the FBI had no duty to get involved in the state case ''absurd.''

Peter Limone, Joseph Salvati and the families of the two other men who died in prison had sued the federal government for malicious prosecution.

They argued that Boston FBI agents knew mob hitman Joseph ''The Animal'' Barboza lied when he named the men as killers in the 1965 death of Edward Deegan. They said Barboza was protecting a fellow FBI informant, Vincent ''Jimmy'' Flemmi, who was involved.

The four men convicted on Barboza's lies were treated as ''acceptable collateral damage'' because the FBI's priority at the time was taking down the Mafia, their attorneys said.

A Justice Department lawyer had argued that federal authorities couldn't be held responsible for the results of a state prosecution and had no duty to share information with the officials who prosecuted Limone, Salvati, Henry Tameleo and Louis Greco.

''The FBI's misconduct was clearly the sole cause of this conviction,'' the judge said Thursday. ''The government's position is, in a word, absurd.''

''No lost liberty is dispensable. We have fought wars over this principle. We are still fighting these wars,'' Gertner told the packed courtroom.

Salvati and Limone were exonerated in 2001 after FBI memos dating back to the Deegan case surfaced, showing the men had been framed by Barboza. The memos were made public during a Justice Department task force probe of the FBI's relationship with gangsters and FBI informants James ''Whitey'' Bulger and Stephen ''The Rifleman'' Flemmi.

Limone, now 73, and Salvati, 75, stared straight ahead as the judge announced her ruling. A gasp could be heard from the area where their friends and family were sitting when Gertner said how much the government would be forced to pay.

The men's attorneys had not asked for a specific amount in damages, but in court documents they cited other wrongful conviction cases in which $1 million was awarded for every year of imprisonment. Gertner ordered the government to pay $101.7 million.

''Do I want the money? Yes, I want my children, my grandchildren to have things I didn't have, but nothing can compensate for what they've done,'' Salvati said.

Salvati had been sentenced to life in prison as an accessory to murder and served more than 29 years before his sentence was commuted in 1997.

''It's been a long time coming,'' said Limone, who served 33 years in prison before he was freed in 2001. ''What I've been through -- I hope it never happens to anyone else.''

Justice Department lawyer Bridget Bailey Lipscomb declined immediate comment on the ruling.

    Judge: FBI Helped Frame 4 in 1965 Murder, NYT, 26.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Wrongful-Convictions.html

New Agency Develops Spy Tools

May 31, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:04 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Using a new laptop and a satellite link, FBI agents can find out within two minutes whether the fingerprint from a newly captured suspect overseas matches a terrorist database in Virginia.

Intelligence officials are running documents in languages such as Arabic through a new computer program called ''English Now.'' It converts the foreign characters into the Roman alphabet and makes words such as Baghdad, President Bush or Osama bin Laden jump out to spies who can't read Arabic.

The language software and the fingerprint-recognition system are examples of new spy gear that the national intelligence director's office bought last year. They may seem like tools that should have been available years ago, but the government isn't noted for its ability to quickly develop new technology.

A fledging center called IARPA is hoping to change that. The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity will try to develop groundbreaking technology for the 16 spy agencies.

One potential tool sounds like it comes from an episode of Star Trek: ''cloaking'' technology that can bend radar around an object to make it appear it's not there. Others include power sources shrunk using nanotechnology and quantum computers that can speed code-breaking, says IARPA acting director Steve Nixon.

''The world has changed in dramatic ways with globalization of technology,'' Nixon said in an interview. ''These are the things that might not get done otherwise.''

But not everyone is convinced this is the right way to make new spy tools. The House Intelligence Committee has questions about whether the government truly needs it.

''Much of this research is already going on,'' said Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee's panel on technical intelligence. She said IARPA raises questions about the role of new National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell, who was supposed to coordinate U.S. intelligence agencies -- not get into their daily operations.

''Is it to fund these things and pull them into the DNI's office and give itself its own turf and projects and pet rocks?'' she asked.

There is even resistance within the CIA itself, according to officials who spoke about the concerns privately. The agency gets money that is supposed to go for spy tools that can be shared across the government. CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano denied any friction, saying the agency welcomes ideas that promote collaboration on new technology.

In the last half-century, U.S. spy agencies have made technical breakthroughs large and small. In the 1970s, the CIA shared its lithium-iodine batteries with the medical field, which now uses them in pacemakers. Its scientists developed microdot cameras that can produce images so small that they can be hidden in the period of this sentence. They also built a life-size robotic dragonfly that could have been used for surveillance, if only it could have handled crosswinds.

If IARPA can clear some crucial hurdles, including convincing its congressional skeptics, the new office will be modeled after a similar agency that develops gee-whiz toys for the Pentagon.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency was created after the Russians launched Sputnik in 1957, driving home the U.S. competitive disadvantage in space. Since then, DARPA researchers have brought the United States much-heralded advances including stealth technology, global positioning systems and the Internet.

But it also brought controversy. The agency's Total Information Awareness data-mining program was launched after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to use technology to find terrorists; critics saw it as a step toward Big Brother-style mass government surveillance. Congress eliminated the program's funding at DARPA in 2003, but portions were moved to secret accounts at other agencies.

The new intelligence organization will be significantly smaller than DARPA, which has a $3 billion annual budget. It will be based at the University of Maryland and staffed with 56 intelligence professionals from the CIA and from McConnell's organization.

Rather than funding IARPA in the House intelligence budget bill passed this month, lawmakers directed technology dollars to centers developing tools that can be shared across government, including offices within the CIA, National Security Agency and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

The measure included criticism of McConnell's office for failing to provide details on how IARPA will work and raised questions about whether it would harm existing research for spy tools.

Nixon says IARPA won't have labs and electron microscopes, but will sponsor research at universities, national labs and other organizations.

IARPA is thinking broadly, he said. It won't limit itself to hard sciences, but will also tackle social-science problems such as finding tools for language research or to help analysts measure cultural habits of another society. He also said the organization will work on privacy protection. NSA and other agencies want to be able to make better use of foreign intelligence information from overseas, which often contains information on U.S. citizens.

Given the lack of oversight in intelligence agencies, ''this is an area where the research community has to step gingerly,'' said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center.

    New Agency Develops Spy Tools, NYT, 31.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Better-Spy-Tools.html

Mueller: FBI Can Properly Use Its Powers

March 27, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:36 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- FBI Director Robert Mueller labored Tuesday to persuade skeptical senators that the FBI can properly use its Patriot Act authority to gather telephone, e-mail and financial records of Americans and foreigners while pursuing terrorists.

He appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee after the Justice Department inspector general revealed abuses in the FBI's use of documents called national security letters to gather such data without approval from a judge.

''We're going to be re-examining the broad authorities we granted the FBI in the Patriot Act,'' Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., told Mueller.

Mueller urged the panel not to revise the law.

''The statute did not cause the errors,'' Mueller said. ''The FBI's implementation did.''

He said he instituted procedures to police the use of these letters. ''What I did not do and should have done is put in a compliance program to be sure those procedures were followed,'' the FBI chief added.

He said he has now begun to do that, has ordered an audit to determine the full extent of the problem and to determine if any agents should be disciplined.

''We are committed to demonstrating to committee, the Congress and the American people that we will correct the deficiencies,'' Mueller said.

''I still have very serious qualms,'' Leahy replied.

Citing the inspector general report on national security letters and his previous reports criticizing FBI reporting of terrorist cases, of weapons and laptops losses, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said, ''Every time we turn around there is another enormous failure by the bureau.''

''There's another headline virtually on a daily basis,'' Specter added, citing a Washington Post report Tuesday that agents had submitted inaccurate data to a court that issues warrants for foreign intelligence surveillance.

''The question arises as to whether any director can handle this job and whether the bureau itself can handle the job,'' Specter said, proposing that the panel give serious consideration to establishing a separate domestic intelligence agency like Britain's MI-5.

Mueller said he had reduced the problem since learning of it in 2005 but noted that the warrant applications are very long and contain thousands of facts.

''I'm not impressed with your assertion that there are thousands of facts,'' Specter said. ''That's your job. You asked for these powers; we gave you them. If these applications are wrong, you're subjecting people to an invasion of privacy that ought not to be issued.''

But Republican Sens. Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Orrin Hatch of Utah made clear they opposed altering the law to curb FBI authority. ''You've acknowledged the problems and pledged to fix them. That's what Congress and the American people need,'' Hatch said.

The committee plans to hear April 17 from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who is struggling to keep his job amid criticism of the NSL abuses and the firings of eight U.S. attorneys.

''Last year the administration sought new powers in the Patriot Act to appoint U.S. Attorneys without Senate confirmation and to more freely use National Security Letters,'' Leahy said in opening remarks. ''The administration got these powers, and they have badly bungled both.''

In a review of headquarters files and a sampling of four of the FBI's 56 field offices, Inspector General Glenn A. Fine found 48 violations of law or presidential directives during 2003-2005. He estimates there may be as many as 3,000 violations throughout the FBI that have not been identified or reported.

When Fine testified before the Senate panel last week, Leahy said, ''In light of this report, we need to consider whether Congress went too far'' in the Patriot Act in removing restrictions on FBI use of national security letters.

In a House Judiciary Committee hearing with Fine, Republicans and Democrats warned the FBI could lose that broad power.

If the FBI doesn't move swiftly to correct the mistakes and problems, ''you probably won't have NSL authority,'' said Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif., a supporter of the power.

In 1986, Congress first authorized FBI agents to obtain electronic records without approval from a judge, using national security letters.

The letters can be used to acquire e-mails, telephone, travel records and financial information, like credit and bank transactions. They can be sent to telephone and Internet access companies, universities, public interest organizations, nearly all libraries, financial and credit companies.

In 2001, the Patriot Act eliminated any requirement that the records belong to someone under suspicion. Now an innocent person's records can be obtained if FBI field agents consider them relevant to an ongoing terrorism or spying investigation.

-----

On the Net:

Senate Judiciary Committee: http://judiciary.senate.gov/

FBI: http://www.fbi.gov/

    Mueller: FBI Can Properly Use Its Powers, NYT, 27.3.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-FBI-Patriot-Act.html

Audit: FBI underreported Patriot Act use

9.3.2007
USA Today
From staff and wire reports

WASHINGTON — The FBI will take immediate action to prevent the inappropriate — and possibly illegal — use of the USA Patriot Act information requests, its director promised today as a furor built over the practice.

"I am the person responsible. I am the person accountable, and I am committed to correcting these deficiencies," FBI Director Robert Mueller said at a news conference this morning. He said the FBI should have provided "the appropriate training and oversight" on the use of so-called national security letters to obtain a variety of private information without a judge's approval.


ON DEADLINE: FBI Director Mueller says, "I should be held accountable."
The controversy was triggered by a Justice Department audit, released today, that indicated the FBI underreported by about 20% how often it used the Patriot Act to force businesses to turn over customer information in suspected terrorism cases.

One government official familiar with the report told the Associated Press that shoddy bookkeeping and records management led to the problems. The FBI agents appeared to be overwhelmed by the volume of demands for information over a two-year period, the official said.

"They lost track," said the official who like others interviewed late Thursday spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the report was not being released until today.

The FBI in 2005 reported to Congress that its agents had delivered 9,254 national security letters seeking e-mail, telephone or financial information on 3,501 U.S. citizens and legal residents over the previous two years.

Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine conducted the audit as required by Congress and over the objections of the Bush administration.

At issue are the letters, a power outlined in the Patriot Act that the Bush administration pushed through Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The letters, or administrative subpoenas, are used in suspected terrorism and espionage cases. They allow the FBI to require telephone companies, Internet service providers, banks, credit bureaus and other businesses to produce highly personal records about their customers or subscribers — without a judge's approval.

The Justice Department, already facing congressional criticism over its firing of eight U.S. attorneys, began notifying lawmakers of the audit's contents late Thursday. Justice spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said Attorney General Alberto Gonzales "commends the work of the inspector general in uncovering serious problems in the FBI's use of NSLs."

The audit results caused near-immediate outrage on Capitol Hill today.

"I'm convinced that the director of the FBI and the attorney general will stop this abuse, but the Judiciary Committee will hold follow-up hearings on this to make sure it does stop," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said this morning. He said the panel would go into the practice "at great length."

"I am very concerned that the FBI has so badly misused national security letters," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the top Republican on the panel. "When we reauthorized the Patriot Act last year, we did so on the basis that there would be strict compliance with the limitations included in the statute.

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., another member of the judiciary panel, said the report "proves that 'trust us' doesn't cut it when it comes to the government's power to obtain Americans' sensitive business records without a court order and without any suspicion that they are tied to terrorism or espionage."

Mueller said the letters "were absolutely essential for us to do our job protecting America against terrorist threats." But he said the FBI also had an obligation to protect civil liberties and use the letters lawfully.

National security letters have been the subject of legal battles in two federal courts because recipients were barred from telling anyone about them. The American Civil Liberties Union sued the Bush administration over what the ACLU described as the security letters' gag on free speech.

A federal appeals judge in New York warned in May that the government's ability to force companies to turn over information about its customers and keep quiet about it was probably unconstitutional.

Contributing: Randy Lilleston in McLean, Va.; the Associated Press

    Audit: FBI underreported Patriot Act use, UT, 9.3.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-03-08-patriot-act_N.htm

FBI: Rehnquist used powerful sleep aid for a decade

Updated 1/4/2007 7:54 PM ET
AP
USA Today

WASHINGTON (AP) — A physician at the U.S. Capitol prescribed a powerful sleep aid for William Rehnquist for nearly a decade while he was an associate justice of the Supreme Court, according to newly released FBI records.

The records present a picture of a justice with chronic back pain who for many months took three times the recommended dosage of the drug Placidyl and then went into withdrawal in 1981 when he abruptly stopped taking it.

Rehnquist checked himself into George Washington University Hospital, where he tried to escape in his pajamas and imagined that the CIA was plotting against him, the records indicate.

Although Rehnquist's drug dependency was publicly known around the time he was hospitalized in 1981, the release of the FBI records provides new details.

The justice was weaned off Placidyl in early 1982 in a detoxification process that took a month, according to the records. The hospital doctor who treated Rehnquist said the Capitol Hill physician who prescribed Placidyl for Rehnquist was practicing bad medicine, bordering on malpractice. Both doctors' names were deleted from the documents before they were released.

The FBI documents were prepared in 1986 when Rehnquist — who began serving on the court on Jan. 7, 1972 — was nominated for chief justice, years after his problems with the drug had ended. They were released by the agency in response to requests under the Freedom of Information Act. The agency said one of the seven folders of Rehnquist documents could not be found.

A psychiatrist told the FBI that Rehnquist's family in 1981 noted "long-standing slurred speech which seems to coincide with administration of Placidyl," one FBI interview report stated. The psychiatrist also indicated that Rehnquist's chronic back pain led to his heavy use of such substances as Darvon and Tylenol 3, which the psychiatrist said also played a part in Rehnquist's condition.

An attending physician at the U.S. Capitol detailed Rehnquist's problems with Placidyl for the FBI, saying that prior to his seeing the justice in 1972, Rehnquist was prescribed the drug by another doctor for relief from insomnia. The attending physician told the FBI he continued to prescribe Placidyl for the entire 10-year period that he treated Rehnquist.

The physician said that Rehnquist had been prescribed 500 milligrams of Placidyl per evening, but that Rehnquist was actually taking 1,500 milligrams each night. The doctor said this increased consumption may have coincided with Mrs. Rehnquist's illness and treatment for cancer.

Rehnquist had told the physician that he was taking one pill before going to bed and he would take other pills if he awakened during the night.

The physician indicated that he decided to discontinue the drug's use and to try another medication. Rehnquist said the new medication was not strong enough, an FBI interview report stated. The physician said he then prescribed a substitute and then another, at which point Rehnquist went into the hospital.

The hospital doctor who successfully weaned Rehnquist from the drug told the FBI that the toxicity of Placidyl causes blurred vision, slurred speech and difficulty in making physical movements. Once a patient stops taking the drug, the withdrawal symptoms of delirium begin, which is what happened to Rehnquist at the hospital.

The doctor who helped Rehnquist get off the drug said the justice's wife was highly upset and felt that the prescribing physician and the pharmacist who filled the prescription were probably intimidated by such high-ranking officials as Supreme Court justices and senators and probably would have agreed to almost any request.

    FBI: Rehnquist used powerful sleep aid for a decade, UT, 4.1.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-01-04-rehnquist-fbi_x.htm

FBI: Guantanamo interrogator squatted over Koran

Wed Jan 3, 2007 11:25 AM ET
Reuters
by James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - FBI agents at Guantanamo saw a military interrogator squat over the Koran in order to anger a prisoner and observed a detainee whose head was wrapped in duct tape, according to recently released FBI documents from a 2004 internal inquiry.

The documents stemmed from a survey of nearly 500 FBI employees who were asked if they saw any aggressive interview techniques, interrogations or mistreatment of prisoners at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. More than 25 incidents were reported.

The 244 pages of documents were released on the FBI's Web site on Tuesday and were turned over to the American Civil Liberties Union as part of its lawsuit.

"The FBI believes this or substantially similar information has already been released in this litigation," the agency said.

In one incident in October of 2002, a detainee was put in a plywood hut, where interrogators yelled and screamed at him, according to the documents. One military interrogator squatted over the Koran which "incensed" the prisoner, the document said.

The Pentagon has said the population of the prison now stands at approximately 395 inmates. Most were captured during the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks.

Another day, an FBI employee was taken to an interrogation room and saw a detainee with a full beard whose head was wrapped in duct tape.

In another incident, a civilian contractor asked an FBI special agent to see a detainee who was gagged with duct tape that covered much of his head. The contractor said the prisoner had been chanting the Koran nonstop, according to the documents.

The FBI said the survey found no evidence that its employees mistreated detainees. An FBI spokesman said the information from the survey has been turned over the Defense Department's inspector general.

    FBI: Guantanamo interrogator squatted over Koran, R, 3.1.2007, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2007-01-03T162507Z_01_N03391841_RTRUKOC_0_US-GUANTANAMO-FBI.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-domesticNews-3

11.45am

FBI files detail Guantánamo torture tactics

Wednesday January 3, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Mark Tran

Captives at Guantánamo Bay were chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor for 18 hours or more, urinating and defecating on themselves, an FBI report has revealed.

The accounts of mistreatment were contained in FBI documents released yesterday (pdf) as part of a lawsuit involving the American Civil Liberties Union, a civil liberties group.

In the 2004 inquiry, the FBI asked nearly 500 employees who had served at Guantánamo Bay to report possible mistreatment by law enforcement or military personnel. Twenty-six incidents were reported, some of which had emerged in earlier document releases.

Besides being shackled to the floor, detainees were subjected to extremes of temperature. One witness said he saw a barefoot detainee shaking with cold because the air conditioning had bought the temperature close to freezing.

On another occasion, the air conditioning was off in an unventilated room, making the temperature over 38C (100F) and a detainee lay almost unconscious on the floor with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been pulling out his hair throughout the night.

In October 2002, one interrogator squatted over a copy of the Qur'an during intensive questioning of a Muslim prisoner, who was "incensed" by the tactic, according to an FBI agent.

On another occasion, an agent was asked by a "civilian contractor" to come and see something.

"There was an unknown bearded longhaired d (detainee) gagged w/duct tape that had covered much of his head," the FBI document said.

When the FBI officer asked if the detainee had spit at interrogators, the "contractor laughingly replied that d had been chanting the Qur'an non-stop. No answer how they planned to remove the duct tape," the report said.

After an erroneous report of Qur'an abuse prompted deadly protests overseas in 2005, the US military conducted an investigation that confirmed five incidents of intentional and unintentional mishandling of the book at the detention facility.

It acknowledged that soldiers and interrogators had kicked the Qur'an, had stood on it and, in one case, had inadvertently sprayed urine on a copy.

An FBI agent called W also heard that female interrogators would sometimes wet their hands and touch detainees' faces in order to disrupt their prayers. Such actions would make some Muslims consider themselves unclean so they would stop praying.

The detention of terrorist suspects at Guantánamo Bay has been strongly criticised by human rights groups. In a rebuff for the Bush administration, the US supreme court last year rejected its claims that detainees at the facility were not entitled to the protection under the Geneva convention.

The department of defence consequently issued a memo stating that prisoners would in the future be entitled to such protection. As of November 2006, out of 775 detainees who have been brought to Guantánamo, approximately 340 had been released, leaving 435 detainees.

Of those 435, 110 have been labelled as ready for release. Of the other 325, only about 70 will face trial by military commissions, criminal courts run by the US armed forces. That leaves about 250 who may be held indefinitely.

    FBI files detail Guantánamo torture tactics, G, 3.1.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,,1981955,00.html

FBI details possible detainee abuse

Updated 1/2/2007 10:25 PM ET
AP
USA Today

WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI agents documented more than two dozen incidents of possible mistreatment at the Guantanamo Bay military base, including one detainee whose head was wrapped in duct tape for chanting the Quran and another who pulled out his hair after hours in a sweltering room.

Documents released Tuesday by the FBI offered new details about the harsh interrogation practices used by military officials and contractors when questioning so-called enemy combatants.

The reports describe a female guard who detainees said handled their genitals and wiped menstrual blood on their face. Another interrogator reportedly bragged to an FBI agent about dressing as a Catholic priest and "baptizing" a prisoner.

Some military officials and contractors told FBI agents that the interrogation techniques had been approved by the Defense Department, including directly by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The documents were released in response to a public records request by the American Civil Liberties Union, which is suing Rumsfeld and others on behalf of former military detainees who say they were abused. Many of the incidents in the FBI documents have already been reported and are summarized in the ACLU's lawsuit.

Defense Department spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter said the issues raised in the report are not new. A dozen reviews of detention operations have found no policies that condone abuse, he said.

The treatment of detainees has long been a volatile subject, especially between the administration and the Democratic lawmakers slated to assume the majority when the 110th Congress convenes on Thursday.

One incoming chairman served notice Tuesday that the issue is a top priority. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., notified Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that his panel's first oversight hearing of the new Congress would focus on two documents Leahy is seeking about the interrogation methods of another agency, the CIA.

The Justice Department has refused to hand over the documents, saying their contents are "extremely sensitive" and could help terrorists plot more attacks.

President Bush signed legislation in October that authorized aggressive interrogation tactics but did not define them. ACLU lawyer Jameel Jaffer said the court documents show that stricter congressional oversight is needed.

"If you just authorize in a vague way, there's no end to the abusive methods the interrogators will come up with," Jaffer said.

The records were gathered as part of an internal FBI survey in 2004 and are not part of a criminal investigation.

The agency asked 493 employees whether they witnessed aggressive treatment that was not consistent with the FBI's policies. The bureau received 26 positive responses, including some from agents who were troubled by what they saw.

"I did observe treatment that was not only aggressive but personally very upsetting," one agent wrote, describing seeing a man left in a 100-degree room with no ventilation overnight. "The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently literally been pulling his own hair out throughout the night."

Another agent said he heard several "thunderclaps" then saw a detainee lying on the floor with a bloody nose. Interrogators told the agent the man was upset and had thrown himself to the floor.

In one report, an agent said he saw a detainee draped in an Israeli flag in a room with loud music and strobe lights. A note on the report said the Israeli flag "may be over the top but not abusive." The words "may be" were then crossed out and replaced with "is."

Carpenter, the Pentagon spokesman, said the Guantanamo detainees "include some of the world's most vicious terrorist operatives."

"The Department of Defense policy is clear," Carpenter said. "We treat detainees humanely. The United States operates safe, humane and professional detention operations for enemy combatants who are providing valuable information in the war on terror."

The FBI reports do not say whether any laws were broken. They said nothing employees observed rose to the level of abuse seen at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

FBI spokesman Richard J. Kolko said all the information in the reports was passed on to the Pentagon's inspector general.

A federal judge is considering whether to allow the ACLU's lawsuit against Rumsfeld to go forward. Government officials are normally shielded from personal lawsuits related to their jobs.

    FBI details possible detainee abuse, UT, 2.1.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-01-02-FBI-detainee-abuse_x.htm