Stephen Lendman
Lew Rockwell
A new Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) report titled, “Patterns of Misconduct: FBI Intelligence Violations from 2001–2008” based its findings on nearly 2,500 FOIA-obtained document pages, revealing “alarming (lawless) trends….”
They suggest far more frequent civil liberty violations than previously known, including:
(1) grossly understated numbers;
(2) long delays between violations and reporting them;
(3) types of violations involved, including:
(a) investigative oversight;
(b) “abuse, misuse, or careless use of….National Security Letter (NSL) authority;” FBI, CIA and other government agencies use them (administrative subpoenas), demanding recipients turn over requested information and remain silent; no probable cause or judicial oversight is necessary;
(c) sidestepping constitutional, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and other legal principles; and
(d) complicity of ISPs, phone companies, financial institutions and credit agencies, supplying unauthorized personal information without their customers’ knowledge or consent.
(4) flagrant ones, including false declarations to courts, supplying bogus evidence to get indictments, and accessing protected documents without warrants.
Officially less than 800 violations were reported. In 2007, a Department of Justice Office of Inspector General (OIG) audit of only 10% of national security investigations found around 3,000, most never reported. A 2008 OIG audit discovered massive underreporting. EFF’s analysis confirmed “as many as 40,000 violations” from 9/11 through 2008.
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