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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 |
Compared to the illegal wiretapping that Bush & Co. were/are doing.. this seems relatively small potatoes..
MABASPLOOM!
When a populace forgets that being free doesn't equate to being safe, and when a populace forgets that being secure doesn't mean being being free; then those who seek to have power over the populace, will.
US$0.02++
...and they still couldn't nail Tony Soprano. The FBI is a shadow of its former self.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
perfect! just as I am at season 6 of my personal x-file rerun extravaganza
Hit 'Preview' next time, mkay?
...you've got "nothing to hide"(tm) so you shouldn't worry. Our comrades are after the "bad guys"(tm) only...
Yam, yam, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade
Held accountable? "Punished for those abuses"? Exactly what would that be? Suspension with pay so these agents can sit around, drink beer, and watch Jerry Springer while getting paid?
They violated the Constitution and our Civil Rights while "protecting" our Freedom....Oh God! (To steal from Fark) - the irony tag assplodes!
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
Every FBI agent who asked for/took information not legally allowed should be sacked immediately, they either don't know the law they are enforcing or are deliberately breaking it themselves. No excuses, they should be sacked. With ten thousand offences (1000, but only 10% sample was taken) The management should be removed and replace. Maybe this would give a proper signal of what the people expect of their law enforcement and show to the people that criminal activity isn't tolerated anywhere.
They either do this, or the populace should not feel under any compulsion to comply with any laws at all, or pay taxes, this is because the government has a responsibility as well as the individual, if the government has shirked its responsibiity no citizen can be expected in return to have any responsibility to the government.
I know this seems extreme but in the long run it would be the right move giving a good precedent and restoring a large amount of faith in the system.
They must have known and someone must have authorized it. Why aren't we reading about that person being fired or better yet pulled up in court?
Might not be as major, but certainly worth pursuing, as it's another symptom of this runaway federal power binge that's really picked up steam since George the Second came into power. The FBI oversteps and Bush & Co's power grab are part of the same thing.
Incidentally, there's another George floating around in the Bush family, and he's young enough he might yet go for politics. The last time we had three Georges in power things got a little funny. Things are pretty bad this time around after just two. I'm feeling a little déjà vu for some reason... maybe because we're dealing with roughly the same issue -- "taxation without representation", i.e. the bullies in power overstepping their bounds, ignoring the stated laws / conventions, and claiming we owe them more than we think we do, and us with no real recourse. Hmmm...
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
COINTELPRO! COINTELPRO!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
Oh look, more books that will depress me if I read them are referenced. Much like 'Killing Hope'. I wish I had stopped paying attention to politics.
Ooh, ooh, I know what'll happen!
Let's see, internal audit finds out that privacy laws were broken during an investigation. Then, it gets printed in the newspaper, but doesn't receive much discussion. Guilty parties get a slap on the wrist, and 'accidentally' make the same mistakes again in future investigations. If the matter is pressed, the official response amounts to, "Sorry everyone, but you see, we got to protect you from dem terrorists!"
In the words of Joel from MST3K: "...we're stuck in a Moebius strip of a movie!"
While there is no personal cost to law enforcement agents breaking the law, they will continue to break it. They're human, so that's not suprising.
Until there is serious punishment liked docked pay, a firing or prison time (depending on the severity) for blatent lawlessness on the part of the law enforcement agencies, they will continue to do as they please.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The last time we had three Georges in power things got a little funny
Well, that time the King seized all of the property of the dominant church of the country, and started beheading people until they agreed that the King was superior to the church.
A lesson learned well by our founding fathers, and one that those who think that Christianity has any business in politics would do well to remember.
Don't worry, he's getting his!
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
Excellent first step.
As a second step how about we enshrine in law a protection for citizens that are requested to comply with such overreaching data collection techniques. Think about it, if you were asked by a government agency to do something you thougtht was immoral, then one choice would only involve your concience, but the other choice might involve legal trouble and possible jail time. Citizens need protection too.
The truly ironic part of all of this is that the FBI was originally created to investigate and oversee GOVERNMENT actions to prevent these sorts of abuses in the first place; to prevent tyranny and corruption. Now it is carrying out the exact opposite of its charter.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Why is it that both the Department of Justice and FBI seem to be violating so many laws these days? Shouldn't our law enforcement agencies be setting good examples for the citizens? These agencies should be held more accountable than your average citizen, because its their job to know the difference between legal and illegal. Placing your government agencies above the laws they create and enforce is very dangerous and tends to lead to the creation of a police state.
A government without limits is far scarier than any terrorists could ever be.
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.
Isn't this along the lines of me handing you a 20 for a 10 dollar bill, leaving your place of business only to return with the police proclaiming that you overcharged me?
While the 2 dozen or so counts of obtaining information by request that they didn't have rights to is very valid I find these other charges kind of dubious.
If this is what the FBI has gotten away with, it sends a shudder up my spine to think what the NSA has gotten away with (and is STILL getting away with). I wouldn't be a bit surprised to learn that they're randomly fishing the entire U.S. population: listening in on citizens' calls, opening mail, and perusing credit reports. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that they have the phones of every Democrat in Congress tapped and are passing along that info to the President. Nothing would surprise me anymore in this country.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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
How the heck is this a "symptom of this runaway federal power binge"? Sounds more like extremely poor data security management at the service providers. Meanwhile, there were 22 cases out of a thousand in the audit where agents asked for more than they were authorized to get. That's hardly a runaway binge. Next time, please rtfa.
Far too many that complain about this sort of thing on ./ are the exact same people who believe in violent forced income redistribution, including registering SSN, address, age, salary, bank account #, etc. just to work at a job and be robbed by the government. Alas, their wolf "cries" of privacy violation have lost luster.
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
It turns out that of that 1,000 incidents, 700 of them were from people at the companies sending too much (unrequested) information, not from over-intrusive FBI snooping. A few of the incidents had the agents sending out new letters requesting permission to use the extra info, but pretty much all of them were just discarded or filed away without anyone going through them (because you know someone would want to have a record of what was received, not what the agents actually wanted or used).
So out of that "1,000" it turns out to be 300 or less.
Because, as the article notes, it was "suspected" violations, not proven or even substantially indicated ones.
And this is out of what, almost 50,000 pieces of info requested? And that includes things like credit reports and other semi-public records - it's not like they're digging really deep for most of this. You get more investigation when you apply for a job with many companies.
A much less than 1% error rate is pretty damned good...
Thanks magarity, but I did rtfa. Note that my reply was to someone talking about the hidden and unconstitutional NSA wiretapping arrangement, which is directly about the feds. Note also that there *were* instances of direct and improper FBI requests:
To step beyond the scope of my initial response, the telcos and ISPs simply *providing* such records to law enforcement officials *without being asked* is not so much a matter of extremely poor data security management, as you put, but more a matter of active corporate collusion with government to erode freedoms. Because hey, let's face it, truly free and private consumers are harder to sell to. It's all about the benjamins, in the end.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
They were "collecting data on US citizens". I guess that's the modern way to say they were spying.
The government agents asking for they aren't authorized for, or the telcos who just threw open the kimono and gave them more than what they asked for?
And allow me to rephrase that for you:
There. Now we've covered both halves of this corrupt equation.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
I _know_ that this is not likely to be a popular opinion. I _know_ that this is decidedly unpatriotic, but I want to say it anyway:
This just isn't worth it.
The cost of our 'war on terror' is far outstripping any harm that those 'terrorist' groups could have done to us. We have sacrificed the lives of young men and women to war than were lost on 9/11, by a long shot. We have likely spent, or at least will spend, far more money than we lost in that attack. We have lost our faith in our leadership's ability to keep us safe and happy at the same time. We're losing our civil liberties and are devolving into a police state.
WHY?
Is this all really, truly just because a handful of zealots MIGHT crash more planes into more buildings?
People joke about "if you do 'x', the terrorists win". In all seriousness, the truth is, if we are going to live in fear we may as well forfeit.
Bill Maher on Sacrifice
Maher: And finally, new rule: liberals must stop saying President Bush hasn't asked Americans to sacrifice for the War on Terror. On the contrary, he's asked us to sacrifice something enormous: Our civil rights. (full transcript below the fold via IBN)
Now, when I heard George Bush was reading my e-mails, I probably had the same reaction you did-George Bush can read?! (Laughter.) Yes he can, and this administration has read your phone records, credit card statements, mail, internet logs... I can't tell if their fighting the War on Terror or producing the next season of Cheater. (Laughter.) I mail myself a copy of the Constitution every morning, just on the hope they'll open it and see what it says! (Laughter and applause).
[google for this, the video in online]
-- Prof. Jonathan Vos Post
Ok, an internal audit found a few (a couple dozen so this piece says) places where they probably crossed the line. They found a problem and will now see what policy changes can be made to reduce the chances of it happening again. The system worked as designed. Massive government operation makes mistakes, film at 11. Hello! It's a massive inefficient government operation changed with the almost impossible task of doing both law enforcement AND anti terrorism/counter insurgency operations while Democtats insist they do it with both hands tied behind their backs and hopping on one foot. The amazing thing is they have managed to keep anything from going FOOM! for almost six years and only having a few excersions from the insane rules imposed on them.
Listen up you primitive screwheads, I really think we should be playing to win, if we keep screwing around with these assholes, sooner or later they are going to get another major win and we will lose another major landmark. There is a difference between law enforcement against citizens and spying on foreign powers and their operatives inside our shores. So yes there should be strong safeguards to prevent intelligence data (collected with few rules) from crossing back into law enforcement activities, but spy vs spy stuff can't play under the same patticake rules we go after the mob under or we lose. Because the mob isn't out to KILL us, only sell us things we want anyway but the nanny state doesn't think we should have.
Democrat delenda est
When you (except you, the FBI agent snooping on this message) or I "overstep bounds" like those the FBI "overstepped" in this operation, we're guilty of breaking the law. We're criminals. The people the FBI are responsible for arresting and pushing into the justice system that jails us.
Who at the FBI will even get fired for their crimes? Who will be charged? No one. They should be held to a higher standard than are civilians, because of the stakes at risk in their control, and the trust they're given based on their superior integrity. But instead, no one every gets fired, no one is ever charged.
We cannot be surprised when cops not only do crimes repeatedly when they're not punished, but are more tempted to do them, their integrity undermined. Because by failing to hold them to account, to pay for their crimes, we demonstrate that our laws are arbitrary, our government merely force, not justice.
--
make install -not war
Mod parent +1, Sad but true
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
That does it. I love this country too much for the government to go and destroy it. Time for armed rebellion.
Second, it was an internal audit. Where are they publishing the instrument used to randomly pull 10% of the investigations? If we don't get to see the instrument we need to assume a bias on behalf of the investigators, which sullies the results.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
Just putting it into perspective... There are abuses, and there are other abuses...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Who here got to work today without violating any laws? Think hard!
Who are these companies and why are they giving out too much information? Can some consumer advocacy group list them in some sort of list with a suitable ranking? Perhaps with the top 8 or 11 or so particularly bad ones?
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00. html
Companies sending out unrequested information is a problem, but I blame the FBI for that too.
In some ways it's similar to the providers that implement China's Great Firewall, having to decide on their own what to block without explicit government guidance.
"no shit?" tag.
http://www.mysecureisp.com/
dont leave localhost without it
It is easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.
Sounds like there are going to be a few more wholly unrelated firings that Alberto Gonzales will naturally have nothing to do with coming up!
Overstepping boundaries? You have to give them some credit for trying it the Jack Bauer way.
Sometimes you need to hold them to the GOLD standard -- for every breach of privacy infraction they need to fork over $1,000 - $10,000. (depending on the infraction)
For instance: I get a lot less spam faxes since you can sue a company for $500 - $1,000 in small claims court for EACH spam fax you get. (in California) When I get a spam fax, I call and give them 1 warning, then I'll sue. I haven't gotten 1 since I started doing that.
If the FBI had a watchdog committee audit them and cut everyone a check from the FBI budget for each infraction, either we would profit, or they would coverup more.
My Doctor prescribed daily nasal saline irrigation, hehe
Op>
Interesting, I see you were careful to leave out the most important part of that paragraph. This part:
The agents retained the information anyway in their files
*That* would be the illegal part. Yes, I agree, this is a bit of a tempest in a teapot, but it's clear the agents were in the wrong, here (even if they were ignorant of that fact).
Of the 50 000 total pieces of info, a selection of 1000 was chosen. Of those 1000, around 300 were found to contain unrequested/intrusive information. 300/1000 = 30%, not 1%. Applying this 30% to the other 49 000 pieces of info we get 14 700 incidents. In total, statistics suggest that there were around 15 000 incidents, which is not an incidental number to most people. FYI: your error rate was off by a factor of 30 (or 3000% if you prefer, which may keep you in good stead with the 3-letter acronyms, but is not enough to qualify for work with the RIAA ;).