Slashdot Mirror
FBI Finds It Overstepped Bounds in Collecting Data
truthsearch writes with a link to a Washington Post article about an eyebrow raising internal FBI audit recently released to the public. The document finds that, contrary to a document release back in March, the FBI frequently overstepped its bounds in collecting data on US citizens. The article states that the organization may have violated laws or agency rules 'more than 1,000 times'. "The new audit covers just 10 percent of the bureau's national security investigations since 2002. The vast majority of the new violations were instances in which telephone companies and Internet providers gave agents phone and e-mail records the agents did not request and were not authorized to collect. But two dozen of the newly-discovered violations involved agents' requests for information that U.S. law did not allow them to have."
What? The government abused it's power? But they said they wouldn't . . . I must admit I'm stunned.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
Just because the info you got is legal to get, it doesn't mean the way you got it was legal... it sounds in the summary like they think they should escape prosecution/etc because the net result was data they could've got legally anyhow. So if I ask someone for money, and they give it to me, vs. I hit them and take it, I shouldn't get prosecuted, because the net result I'd have received anyhow?
stuff |