Source: FBI Wrongly Obtained Telephone Records
WASHINGTON, FBI counterterrorism officials continued to use flawed procedures to obtain thousands of U.S. telephone records for two years as bureau lawyers and managers raised concerns about the practice, according to senior FBI and Justice Department officials and documents.
FBI lawyers raised the concerns beginning in late October 2004 but did not closely scrutinize the practice until last year, FBI officials acknowledged.
The lawyers also did not understand the scope of the problem until the Justice Department launched an investigation, FBI officials said.
Under pressure to provide a stronger legal footing, counterterrorism agents at that point wrote new demands for the information the bureau already possessed. At least one senior FBI headquarters official -- whom the bureau declined to name -- signed the "national security letters" without including the required proof that the letters were linked to FBI counterterrorism or espionage investigations, an FBI official said.
The flawed procedures involved the use of exigent circumstance letters, which are emergency demands for records. The letters contained false or undocumented claims. They also included national security letters that were issued without following FBI rules. Both types of requests were served on three phone companies.
Referring to the exigent circumstance letters, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote in a letter Friday to Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine: "It is ... difficult to imagine why there should not have been swift and severe consequences for anyone who knowingly signed ... a letter containing false statements. Anyone at the FBI who knew about that kind of wrongdoing had an obligation to put a stop to it and report it immediately."
A March 9 report by Fine bluntly stated that the FBI's use of the exigency letters "circumvented" the law that governs the FBI's access to personal information about U.S. residents.
The exigency letters, created by the FBI's New York office after 9-11, told telephone providers that the FBI needed information immediately and would follow up with subpoenas later. No law allows such letters to compel phone companies to turn over information, Fine found, and in many cases, agents never followed up with the subpoenas, he said. But Fine's report made no mention of the FBI's subsequent efforts to legitimize those actions with improperly prepared national security letters last year.
FBI officials acknowledged widespread problems but said they involved procedural and documentation failures, not intentional misgathering of Americans' phone records. FBI Director Robert Mueller ordered a nationwide audit, which began Friday, to determine whether the inappropriate use of exigency letters went beyond one headquarters unit.
"We wish, in retrospect, that we had learned about this sooner, corrections had been made and the process was more transparent," FBI Assistant Director John Miller said Saturday.
Fine's report said the bureau's counterterrorism office used the emergency letters at least 739 times between 2003 and 2005 to obtain records related to 3,000 phone numbers. FBI officials acknowledged that the process was so flawed that they may have to destroy some phone records to keep them from being used in the future if the bureau does not find proof that they were gathered in connection with an authorized investigation.
FBI lawyers raised the concerns beginning in late October 2004 but did not closely scrutinize the practice until last year, FBI officials acknowledged.
The lawyers also did not understand the scope of the problem until the Justice Department launched an investigation, FBI officials said.
Under pressure to provide a stronger legal footing, counterterrorism agents at that point wrote new demands for the information the bureau already possessed. At least one senior FBI headquarters official -- whom the bureau declined to name -- signed the "national security letters" without including the required proof that the letters were linked to FBI counterterrorism or espionage investigations, an FBI official said.
The flawed procedures involved the use of exigent circumstance letters, which are emergency demands for records. The letters contained false or undocumented claims. They also included national security letters that were issued without following FBI rules. Both types of requests were served on three phone companies.
Referring to the exigent circumstance letters, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote in a letter Friday to Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine: "It is ... difficult to imagine why there should not have been swift and severe consequences for anyone who knowingly signed ... a letter containing false statements. Anyone at the FBI who knew about that kind of wrongdoing had an obligation to put a stop to it and report it immediately."
A March 9 report by Fine bluntly stated that the FBI's use of the exigency letters "circumvented" the law that governs the FBI's access to personal information about U.S. residents.
The exigency letters, created by the FBI's New York office after 9-11, told telephone providers that the FBI needed information immediately and would follow up with subpoenas later. No law allows such letters to compel phone companies to turn over information, Fine found, and in many cases, agents never followed up with the subpoenas, he said. But Fine's report made no mention of the FBI's subsequent efforts to legitimize those actions with improperly prepared national security letters last year.
FBI officials acknowledged widespread problems but said they involved procedural and documentation failures, not intentional misgathering of Americans' phone records. FBI Director Robert Mueller ordered a nationwide audit, which began Friday, to determine whether the inappropriate use of exigency letters went beyond one headquarters unit.
"We wish, in retrospect, that we had learned about this sooner, corrections had been made and the process was more transparent," FBI Assistant Director John Miller said Saturday.
Fine's report said the bureau's counterterrorism office used the emergency letters at least 739 times between 2003 and 2005 to obtain records related to 3,000 phone numbers. FBI officials acknowledged that the process was so flawed that they may have to destroy some phone records to keep them from being used in the future if the bureau does not find proof that they were gathered in connection with an authorized investigation.
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