The Liberty Papers

I’m shocked! SHOCKED!

A Justice Department investigation has found pervasive errors in the FBI’s use of its power to secretly demand telephone, e-mail and financial records in national security cases, officials with access to the report said yesterday.

The inspector general’s audit found 22 possible breaches of internal FBI and Justice Department regulations — some of which were potential violations of law — in a sampling of 293 “national security letters.” The letters were used by the FBI to obtain the personal records of U.S. residents or visitors between 2003 and 2005. The FBI identified 26 potential violations in other cases.

Now, normally this would assume that these cases came before a judge, were looked at to ensure they met the standards, and somehow still passed the scrutiny they needed to be blocked. But as we all know, that’s not how they roll.

The letters enable an FBI field office to compel the release of private information without the authority of a grand jury or judge. The USA Patriot Act, enacted after the 2001 attacks, eliminated the requirement that the FBI show “specific and articulable” reasons to believe that the records it demands belong to a foreign intelligence agent or terrorist.

…

Now the bureau needs only to certify that the records are “sought for” or “relevant to” an investigation “to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.”

I would think that this goes against the 4th Amendment.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I do believe this would entail a complete instance of the government to demand records of peoples’ “papers, and effects” without a warrant, and by the above quote, the proof of probable cause (which is no longer certified by a judge) is greatly diminished.

Of course, I can’t completely blame the FBI here. Business has been more than willing to roll over for the feds, to the point where they are providing information that isn’t asked for and is not legally allowed to be provided. Of course, our wonderful FBI is destroying that information filing it away for future use.

In at least two cases, the officials said, Fine found that the FBI obtained full credit reports using a national security letter that could lawfully be employed to obtain only summary information. In an unknown number of other cases, third parties such as telephone companies, banks and Internet providers responded to national security letters with detailed personal information about customers that the letters do not permit to be released. The FBI “sequestered” that information, a law enforcement official said last night, but did not destroy it.

Now, don’t you feel safer? After all, we don’t need to worry about terrorists in a police state. We just need to worry about the police.