Congress Warns the FBI to Stop Spying Abuses or Lose Their Powers

By Mark Hoerrner

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the nation was visibly shaken. It pulled together quickly, though, ready to strike back at those responsible. As one of the leading agencies providing intelligence and enforcing laws within the U.S., the Federal Bureau of Investigation was given broad powers to surveil possible terrorists currently living within the national borders. As a result of a 130-page report presented to the House Judiciary Committee, the FBI is in jeopardy of having those powers revoked.

The FBI took quick action after 9/11. What followed, however, was a bumbling error in the way such information was obtained and used, according to the U.S. Dept. of Justice report. In just four of the FBI’s 56 field offices, dozens of violations of law or presidential directive in the years 2003-2005 were found, an Associated Press news article noted. The FBI has launched a full audit of its field offices to correct the problem.

"We’re going to have to work to get the trust of this committee back, and we know that’s what we have to do, and we’re going to do it," Valerie Caproni, general counsel for the FBI, said in an interview with AP reporters.

In a startling 700 cases, the report detailed that the FBI had obtained phone records claiming that grand jury subpoenas had been issued in order to collect the data when, in fact, the subpoenas did not exist.

"This was a serious breach of trust," said U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the Judiciary Committee chairman, in an interview. "The department had converted this tool into a handy shortcut to illegally gather vast amounts of private information while at the same time significantly underreporting its activities to Congress."

U.S. Rep Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., chimed in on the issue but pointed the finger at existing legislation and not so much at the FBI agents enforcing it. He said that the Patriot Act, the legislation that gave the FBI and other agencies such broad powers to collect information domestically through asset searches, phone records and other methods needs an overhaul.

"We do not trust government always to be run by angels, especially not this administration," Nadler told the AP. "It is not enough to mandate that the FBI fix internal management problems and recordkeeping, because the statute itself authorizes the unchecked collection of information on innocent Americans."

Other members of Congress were quick to indicate that the FBI had little time to correct these mistakes and put in place a plan for oversight.

"I hope that this would be a lesson to the FBI that they can’t get away with this and expect to maintain public support," Rep. James Sensenbrenner, D-Wis., former chair of the Judiciary, said.

"Let this be a warning."