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FBI Repeatedly Violated Surveillance Laws and Directives

By TChris, Section Civil Liberties
Posted on Mon Oct 24, 2005 at 09:36:49 AM EST
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by TChris

Who polices the police? At the FBI, the answer is: nobody.

The FBI has conducted clandestine surveillance on some U.S. residents for as long as 18 months at a time without proper paperwork or oversight, according to previously classified documents to be released today.

The FBI has violated "laws and directives governing clandestine surveillance" at least 287 times in the past three years. As domestic spying increases, the lack of effective oversight magnifies the threat to civil liberties.

Lawless behavior at the FBI prompts the question: who is minding the store?

In other cases, agents obtained e-mails after a warrant expired, seized bank records without proper authority and conducted an improper "unconsented physical search," according to the documents.

The abuse of domestic surveillance undermines the administration's argument against sunsetting some of the most offensive provisions of the Patriot Act. It also reinforces the need to keep the FBI on a short leash by imposing regular independent reviews on its use (or abuse) of its domestic intelligence gathering authority. And it strengthens the case for legislation requiring the attorney general to report the FBI's violations to the Senate, as urged by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

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    FBI Repeatedly Violated Surveillance Laws and Directives | 6 comments (6 topical)
    Re: FBI Repeatedly Violated Surveillance Laws and (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:18 PM EST
    Surprise, surprise.

    Re: FBI Repeatedly Violated Surveillance Laws and (none / 0) (#2)
    by profmarcus on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:18 PM EST
    and now they want to go after internet access provided by colleges and universities, claiming "new technology" such as VoIP is hampering their ability to do wiretaps... http://takeitpersonally.blogspot.com/2005/10/big-brother-coming-to-college-or.html http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/23/technology/23college.html?th&emc=th

    Re: FBI Repeatedly Violated Surveillance Laws and (none / 0) (#3)
    by Johnny on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:19 PM EST
    I posted a link to this fiasco on the open thread from Sunday. This is getting ridiculous... The Patriot Act was designed to make sure that the gov't can shaft us, legally. Why do they still scxrew up?

    Re: FBI Repeatedly Violated Surveillance Laws and (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:19 PM EST
    Because they CAN, Johnny. Brakes removed, the car careened down the hill at higher and higher speed, the frightened five year old at the oversized wheel SCREAMING in vain. Meanwhile, his parents raised their hi-ball glasses in the tenth toast to their own ingenuity in raping the country.

    Re: FBI Repeatedly Violated Surveillance Laws and (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:19 PM EST
    Articles like this one help to foster the mistrust of government and it's precisely that trust that is vital. The violation of privacy is second to the abuse of the power to inappropriately invade personal privacy. Some of the violations were simple clerical errors but I'm sure there are more that aren't. From the article...
    "The FBI and the people who work in the FBI are very cognizant of the fact that people are watching us to make sure we're doing the right thing," the senior FBI official said. "We also want to do the right thing. We have set up procedures to do the right thing." But in a letter to be sent today to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sobel and other EPIC officials argue that the documents show how little Congress and the public know about the use of clandestine surveillance by the FBI and other agencies. The group advocates legislation requiring the attorney general to report violations to the Senate.
    I wouldn't be as concerned about a missed deadline in a lawfull surveillance as much as I'd be concerned about inappropriate surveillance.
    Denver city policy, like Oregon state law, prohibits political surveillance in the absence of reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. In 2003, the City of Denver settled a class action lawsuit brought by the ACLU against the City on behalf of "as many as 3200 individuals and 208 organizations" believed to have been targeted for police surveillance in violation of the city policy. Among the plaintiffs in the case were the American Friends Service Committee and a 73 year old Franciscan nun, both labeled "criminal extremist[s]" in their police files. Conditions for the settlement of the lawsuit in 2003 included the review and subsequent purging of existing police files, the development of more stringent guidelines for Denver police, including specific provisions against videotaping and photographing activists engaged in legal protests, and mandated audits of police files to ensure compliance. Portland Versus the FBI
    There are too many instances like this in which the power is abused. Now, the DoD is getting into the domestic surveillance game too. It comes back to trusting the government to operate within legal and ethical boundaries. As for the VoIP issues, the power to wiretap goes back to 1994, I think, in CALEA but the specifics of all software/platforms being accessable by authorities is going to cause trouble.

    Re: FBI Repeatedly Violated Surveillance Laws and (none / 0) (#6)
    by scarshapedstar on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:19 PM EST
    So, um... I thought the argument for keeping the more, well, totalitarian provisions of the Act was that they weren't ever used. It turns out, unsurprisingly, that this is what you call a "lie". Can any of the lying defenders of domestic spying (and we have a couple here, that's for certain) explain to me why they should ever be trusted?

    FBI Repeatedly Violated Surveillance Laws and Directives | 6 comments (6 topical)