The investigation, conducted by the department’s Office of the Inspector General, prompted congressional leaders to promise a review of the FBI’s expanded powers under the USA Patriot Act and forced FBI Director Robert S. Mueller to acknowledge that the agency did not have policies in place to handle its new authorities. “I am to be held accountable,” Mueller said in the March 9 Washington Post, adding that he should have set up an audit system, internal controls, and adequate training and oversight to resolve “confusion and uncertainty” among field agents over the use of NSLs.
“We believe the improper or illegal uses we found involve serious misuses of National Security Letter authorities,” Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said in releasing the report. The audit revealed that as many as 22% of NSL requests issued in 2003–2005 were not recorded in the official NSL tracking database maintained by the FBI’s Office of the General Counsel. The number of NSL requests in 2005 was approximately 47,000, up from 39,000 in 2003; more than half of the requests in 2004–2005 targeted U.S. citizens.
The report faulted FBI agents for obtaining telephone records on 739 occasions using a tactic called “exigent letters,” claiming there were emergencies requiring immediate compliance before an NSL or grand jury subpoena could be produced. The audit revealed that in many instances these letters were signed by unauthorized subordinate agents and were not connected to a pending investigation; often, no follow-up NSLs or subpoenas were issued.
A National Security Letter was used in at least one instance to request library records in 2005 when the FBI demanded the Library Connection consortium in Connecticut to turn over records of patrons’ computer use. The incident led to a court challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union on the gag order specified in the NSL, although the FBI abandoned its request for the records one year later.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) raised the possibility that Congress might roll back some Patriot Act provisions. In a statement released after the audit, Specter said, “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.”
Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) in a statement said the audit “confirms the American people’s worst fears about the Patriot Act. It appears that the administration has used these powers without even the most basic regard for privacy of innocent Americans.” He called for “reasonable reforms” that have been proposed but not acted upon in the past.
American Library Association President Leslie Burger said in a March 9 release that the “findings confirm many of ALA’s most repeatedly stated concerns about the lack of oversight into the FBI’s surveillance activities, resulting in repeated intrusions into the lives of innocent American citizens.” She called on Congress to “tighten language in the Patriot Act to minimize these sorts of privacy violations.”
Posted March 9, 2007.