The FBI Knowingly Violated The Law
A further followup from last week’s story about the FBI’s use of “national security letters” indicates that the FBI’s improper use of these data collection techniques went on even while it’s own lawyers were expressing concern that the law was not being followed:
FBI counterterrorism officials continued to use flawed procedures to obtain thousands of U.S. telephone records during a two-year period when bureau lawyers and managers were expressing escalating 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. They 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 last year wrote new letters to phone companies demanding the information the bureau already possessed. At least one senior FBI headquarters official — whom the bureau declined to name — signed these “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 emergency demands for records, called “exigent circumstance” letters, which contained false or undocumented claims. They also included national security letters that were issued without FBI rules being followed. Both types of request were served on three phone companies.
Or, to put it another way, the FBI was violating the law, they knew they were violating the law, and they did it anyway. Now don’t you feel safer ?
