I'm not the only one suspicious of the FBI case against Bruce Ivins

The alleged case against the (fortunately for the FBI) deceased Bruce Ivins hasn't rung true to me from its first announcement. Neither the history of the FBI anthrax investigation and its earlier failed effort to pin the blame in the media on Steven Hatfill, nor the general history of the Cheney-run Bush administration where if the choice was between a lie and the truth, the lie has almost invariably won out, provide any degree of confidence of what the FBI top management has been saying recently in this high-profile clearly failed investigation.

The partial release of court documents adds to the doubts of veracity on the part of the FBI. Any good lawyer can make a case against someone if all they have to do is provide the allegations and (if any) the evidence that the party is guilty and they get to conceal the exculpatory evidence, and that is clearly what the FBI has been attempting. Add to that the clear fact that the media reporters have simply been breathlessly reporting whatever they were handed by the FBI Public Relations people, and the fact that even the selected material does not hold together to make a case that answers means - motive - opportunity makes the entire exercise as smelly as a week-old dead fish.

I am not the only individual who is suspicious of the entire set of FBI actions. Here is a set of comments received by the New York Times about the case.

Motive

Just a quick thumbnail sketch of my evaluation of the publicly reported evidence and allegations shows that the weakest part of the FBI's case is Ivins' motive. There is none. So the FBI has been throwing every allegation of mental instability they can find to the ravening wolves of the Press Corps in hopes that no one will see that the allegations are from highly suspicious sources and are strongly refuted by both his ling history at the research facility and passing of security screenings and by those who know him personally. Essentially we are supposed to take it for granted that the incomplete evidence/assertions releases by the FBI hang together and prove the case. That requires ignoring the earlier flub the FBI made with Steven Hatfill.

The fact is that the FBI has simply not presented a case for a motive for Bruce Ivins to have sent the Anthrax mailings that holds together. I have little doubt that the prosecutors have been delighted that they will not have to prove their case in court because of Ivins' very timely death.

Means

Means is problem the strongest element the FBI has made a case for. There is no reason to doubt that the anthrax spores came from a U.S. Government laboratory. No other source has been reasonably asserted (after the early failed efforts of the White House to blame al Qaeda in order to support the invasion of Iraq - a nation not connected to and in fact antagonistic to al Qaeda. But that is a different story.)

That does suggest that Bruce Ivins had the means to obtain the anthrax spores. But so did Steven Hatfill, to whom the FBI has paid $5 million and given an apology for fingering to the Press. These were not the only possible researchers, either. Nothing really pins it down to Ivins except the allegation by the FBI that a newly developed DNA test pinpoints the anthrax in the attacks to the same strain that Ivins himself worked with and controlled. The FBI claims the DNA test is valid and reliable, but that is not the same thing as showing the test is valid and reliable. I'd bet that we never see a public evaluation of that DNA test. That's one of the bullets the prosecutors dodged by not having to present their case in court.

Opportunity

There is also no evidence that Ivins had unique access to the stamped envelopes used to send the anthrax that was in any way different from everyone else in Maryland, or that he was ever at any of the very distant mailboxes the FBI has identified as being where the Anthrax was mailed. In short, Ivins simply cannot be connected to the process of mailing the anthrax based on the evidence the FBI has released.

This is not an exhaustive analysis of the FBI's case as it has been presented in the media. I am simply not sufficiently obsessive to dig into each and every piece of data that has appeared in the media. This is just an analysis of what is missing that still needs to be proven if the FBI is going to show that Bruce Ivins was actually the anthrax killer. The most difficult element is going to be motive.

But it is also very important to recognize that the FBI is not itself an organization that can be trusted to present an honest case because of their history in this case and others tried in the Press. They previously locked onto a prime suspect (Hatfill) and aggressively investigated him and now are trying him in the Press when they couldn't get him into court, and they are doing it again with Bruce Ivins. It is very important that there has been no testing evidence in court in front of a jury and now that Ivins is dead, there never will be.

It looks like the evidence that the FBI is attempting to cover up its failures in the anthrax attacks is a lot stronger than the evidence that Bruce Ivins was the anthrax killer.

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Addendum Aug 10, 2008 3:17 pm CDT
Glenn Greenwald (8/10/08) points out that the timeline the FBI claims Bruce Ivins had to use to mail the anthrax envelopes from Princeton is actually an alibi for Ivins. Had Ivins used the time to mail the envelopes the FBI claims he did, they would have been postmarked Sept 17th instead of Sept 18th as they actually were. Greenwald also links to numerous other source debunking the FBI's allegations.

EmptyWheel (8/9/08) makes a similar argument to the one Glenn Greenwald did.

Bmaz (8/9/08) explains how the FBI ran an investigation which caused at least one other individual besides Bruce Ivings to commit suicide, and also how the FBI investigation broke up marriages and ruined careers for people never actually accused of anything.

Bmaz also makes the point I made earlier.

Since the government conveniently refused to perform a full autopsy, we will never know the myriad of clues and evidence on whether it really was a suicide. Having hounded and stalked Mr. Ivins to death, by whatever the means, the government seized the immediate, and I mean immediate, opportunity to dump the entire culpability for it's entire pathetic Amerithrax investigation on him. How convenient.

I guess that we can trust the FBI not to have somehow murdered Ivins, can't we?

Oh, and while we are at it, there is this great money-making bridge in the Arizona desert I can sell to you. Let's not forget Cheney's careful plans to create "plusible deniability." Plausible deniability is not something found only inside the White House. It permeates the entire government, and the FBI has practiced it for years under Hoover and since.

EmptyWheel (8/9/08) also points out that Ivins took and passed a lie detector test shortly after the anthrax attacks occurred. Strange how the FBI did not include that information in their PR campaign against a dead man so that they can close the investigation they have so royally screwed up.

Ivins painted as Anthrax terrorist - but we can't trust the FBI or Justice Department who are doing the accusing

The news is full of multiple stories about how very unstable Bruce Ivins was and how he may have been a "revenge motivated sociopath." Cased closed. After almost seven years of failure and having to pay off an earlier "Prime Suspect" "Person of Interest" for leaking his name to the press, the FBI claims they have their man.

Oh, and this time they arranged it better lucked out. He's dead, so he can't defend himself and shred their case.

Only as Glenn Greenwald now points out, all of the reports of Ivin's mental instability come from a single Social Worker (not a psychiatrist or psychologist) who is only one year out of school herself. The "social worker", Jean Carol Duley, has herself had mental health problems. From Glenn:

She has a rather lengthy involvement with the courts in Frederick, including two very recent convictions for driving under the influence -- one from 2007 and one from 2006 -- as well as a complaint filed against her for battery by her ex-husband. [Snip]

Just three months ago, Duley pled guilty and was sentenced to probation (and fined $1,000), as a result of having been stopped in December, while driving at 1:35 a.m., and charged with driving under the influence: [Snip]

On April 21, 2006, Duley was also charged with "driving a vehicle while impaired by alcohol," driving "while impaired by drugs or alcohol," and reckless driving, and on October 13, 2006, she pled guilty to the charge of reckless driving and was fined $580. Back in 1992, Duley was criminally charged with battery against what appeared to be her now-ex-husband (and she filed a complaint against him as well). Later that same year, she was criminally charged with possession of drug paraphenalia with intent to use, charges which appear to have been ultimately dismissed.

Glenn has screen shots of the charging documents for the two DUI's.

This is not to say that Bruce Ivins was not the Anthrax killer. All it says is that none of the news media reports are worth the pixels and ink they are presented on until the FBI releases the real evidence - and it is carefully evaluated, something a jury might have done had Ivin's not conveniently "committed suicide" and the Department of Justice had permitted the case to go to trial.

At the moment, the only sources of information are highly biased and completely unreliable (Duley and the FBI.) While we don't know What Duley's motive for framing Ivins might be, the FBI has taken seven years for the investigation, severely screwed up the case against Steven Hatfill, and shown no effective results. The new FBI management has had no better success than the previous management, and the FBI in general has, shall we say, NOT been seen to cover itself in glory at any time since it was found they screwed up following the 9/11 attackers in 2001.

The FBI is part of the Justice Department, which has an even worse reputation for both effectiveness and honesty this decade. Add to that, they are all part of the Bush/Cheney/Rove administration known for never telling the Truth when a lie was possible. The Anthrax investigation is unfinished business that needs to be closed before the end of the Bush administration or someone new will come in and see how badly it was screwed up. The FBI and their bossed have strong motivation to find a culprit and convict him - in the Media at least.

There is clearly a heavy propaganda effort to paint Bruce Ivins as the guilty culprit, and it will be made easier because of his very timely death. But so far it is all based on smoke and mirrors.

Let's wait for someone to remove the curtain so we can see what's behind it before we decide the FBI has this story right.

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Addendum 1:12 pm CDT
Language cleared up to make the argument more clear, and my erroneous references to "Irwin" have been replace with the proper "Ivins."

Hey, I DO react to comments. So feel free to comment. I write this stuff to clarify my own thoughts, and comments and criticism are greatly appreciated because they make me reevaluate both my thoughts and presentation. Rationality is a prime goal here.

We Americans no longer have the right to protest actions of our Republican/conservative government

If your government gets out of line, as an American we each have the privilege of protesting what they do, right? Free speech and all that rot. Right?

Not anymore. Not if the government is Republican.

You can plan a non-violent protest, but the FBI or the local police have spies paid to report on your plans. But there is a problem - they don't get paid unless someone is arrested. So if you plan and operate a controlled, non-violent protest, those spies will instigate violence against the police to cause arrests. The police will arrest you, not their moles. They'll convict you, not the instigators who committed the crimes. Because you are a terrorist. You are the protester.

Then the police or Republican will announce to the press that they were aware of a plot to commit terrorism.

See, you are no longer a protester with free speech rights. Now you have become a "Terrorist!"

Your crime? You think the government is going the wrong direction and you want to protest in a non-violent manner as did both Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King. Today they'd be "Terrorists," would be arrested for something a paid police instigator did and would be tried in the press based on "leaks" from the police, FBI and Republican politicians.

Go read "Moles Wanted" from the "City Pages" of Minneapolis St. Paul.

Why Minneapolis-St. Paul? Because that is where the Republican National Convention is planned this Summer, and the Republicans Really, Really don't like protests!

FBI withdraws illegal NSL letter and gag order

Last November the FBI served a National Security Letter (NSL) on the electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)filed suit to force them to withdraw the NSL. The EFF reports that the FBI has been forced to withdraw the NSL and the gag order, permitting the EFF to describe the illegal actions of the FBI.

The gag orders accompanying such NSL's on libraries have no effective function beyond preventing the libraries and the targets of the NSL's to fight back against FBI overreaching. They are a totally administrative power given to the FBI designed to prevent negative publicity and Court challenge. The recipients of such a letter can't even discuss it with their congressional representatives.

This is just another panicky reaction to 9/11 by irrational frightened Republicans who feel powerless when someone is permitted to disagree with them. It is also a violation of the Constitution, but with the way the conservatives have packed the federal judiciary with their fellow frightened rats, it may take a generation for the courts to begin to properly enforce the Constitution. Roberts, Thomas and Scalia need to go, and the judiciary needs to be cleaned out of members of the Federalist Society. They are a special interest who represent only themselves to the detriment of the American people and the U.S. Constitution.

The failure of this NSL letter and the gag order is another victory for America and the Constitution. We need more of them.

State Department report on Blackwater's Baghdad killings was written by a Blackwater contract employee.

The Department of State Bureau of Diplomatic Security issued a report on the now famous incident in which Blackwater security personnel killed a number of civilians in downtown Baghdad. It seems that the individual who investigated the incident and wrote the report was Darren Hanner, RSO TOC Watch Officer, Baghdad.

Mark Kleiman points out that Darren Hanner is a contract employee from Blackwater.

The FBI is sending a team to Baghdad to investigate the incident. I hear that the FBI team investigating the actions of Blackwater in Baghdad will be given security services by Blackwater security personnel.

This Blackwater stuff is getting out of hand.

Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) running again under a cloud

From Taegan Goddard's Political Wire we get the report that while John doolittle is running again for reelection to his house seat, his connection to the Abramoff scandal has the Republican Party worried about whether he is vulnerable. He

...may face as many as three primary challengers next year, the Sacramento Bee reports.

Doolittle defeated Democratic challenger Charlie Brown by three points in 2006, and with Brown to run again, Republican leaders are growing increasingly worried. NRCC Chair Tom Cole said whether Doolittle would seek re-election was an open question, despite Doolittle's insistence otherwise.

Abramoff is the gift that just keeps on giving to Democrats.

Ah, yes. FBI to build an American Stasi.

Not familiar with the word "Stasi?" That was the East German secret police; it kept files on 5 million East Germans -- a third of the population -- and infiltrated the West German military and government. If you were an East German you never knew which of your friends, neighbors, or even relatives was getting paid by the Stasi to report on you.

Of course, those people were supplementing their meager incomes, and didn't get paid if they didn't provide reports. Interesting reports. Sometimes they just had to make stuff up to get paid. If you think the misinformation that resides in your credit file is bad, it is nothing compared to what was in the Stasi files. Or, for that matter, what may already be in your FBI file.

Well, guess what? The FBI is asking Congress for funding for its own version of the Stasi networks and files. Justin Rood, over at The Blotter of ABC News, reports the story.

The FBI is taking cues from the CIA to recruit thousands of covert informants in the United States as part of a sprawling effort to boost its intelligence capabilities.

According to a recent unclassified report to Congress, the FBI expects its informants to provide secrets about possible terrorists and foreign spies, although some may also be expected to aid with criminal investigations, in the tradition of law enforcement confidential informants. The FBI did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

The FBI said the push was driven by a 2004 directive from President Bush ordering the bureau to improve its counterterrorism efforts by boosting its human intelligence capabilities.

The aggressive push for more secret informants appears to be part of a new effort to grow its intelligence and counterterrorism efforts. Other recent proposals include expanding its collection and analysis of data on U.S. persons, retaining years' worth of Americans' phone records and even increasing so-called "black bag" secret entry operations.

To handle the increase in so-called human sources, the FBI also plans to overhaul its database system, so it can manage records and verify the accuracy of information from "more than 15,000" informants, according to the document. [Bolding in original - Editor, WTF-o]

The best hope for Americans is that the FBI continues true to form. They have never successfully managed an Intelligence program, and their last three efforts to improve their computer systems have had to be abandoned as failures. America may well be lucky that those efforts only cost billions of dollars. Things could have been a lot worse if they had worked.

Whatever - this is one more effort to turn America into an authoritarian nation. Someone recently asked if I thought that the Republicans would put this much effort into creating an authoritarian nation controlled by the President with no checks and balances, then quietly turn the results over to someone like Hillary Clinton in January 2009.

That is a very scary question. The smirk on Alberto Gonzales' face as he lied (again) to the Senate leaves me suspecting the worst.

Rep. Renzi (AZ - R) expected to resign as soon as today

According to The Business Journal of Phoenix Arizona Rep. Rick Renzi is expected to resign from Congress in the near future, perhaps as early as today. This is fall out from the suspicious land deal which led to the FBI search on April 19, 2007 of the Insurance Agency that he established and turned over to his wife to run when he was elected to Congress.

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Addendum 5:19 PM CDT
Rep. Renzi states that he intends to serve out the remainder of his term.

We can hope. If he does serve out the remainder of his term he makes it harder for the Republican to keep the seat in 2008. Apparently his district has a small predominance of Democrats, but they are conservative Democrats.

Rep. Renzi was involved in the US attorney removals

AP brings new details on how Rep. Renzi was involved in the removal of U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton. (See details here.) From teth AP story:

Brian Murray, Renzi's top aide, issued a statement late Tuesday acknowledging that shortly after the local media reported that the congressmen was being investigated, he called Charlton spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle.

"I called Mr. Hornbuckle seeking information about press accounts which appeared just weeks before Election Day alleging a pending indictment," Murray said in a statement. "I left him a message asking for information about these allegations, but I was called back and told they would not comment."

Hornbuckle refused to comment Tuesday. [Snip]

The disclosure is one of several examples of phone calls made by members of Congress to federal prosecutors.

The Senate ethics committee has opened a preliminary inquiry into a call by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., to then-U.S. attorney David Iglesias, who like Charlton also was later fired. Iglesias says Domenici wanted to know whether indictments that would help Republicans would be returned before the November elections. Told no, Domenici hung up, Iglesias said.

The House ethics committee has also been asked to investigate a separate call from Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., to Iglesias.

For his part, Renzi said the leaked stories and conjecture about the land deal were wrong.

"None of them bear any resemblance to the truth," Renzi said.

Law enforcement officials confirmed in October that they were scrutinizing a land deal that benefited a Renzi friend and business associate who was also a campaign donor. Last Thursday, the FBI raided a Sonoita, Ariz., insurance business owned by Renzi's wife, Roberta.

Renzi has denied any wrongdoing. His lawyer did not return several calls for comment Tuesday.

According to state records and officials involved in the land deal, Renzi helped promote the sale of land that netted his former business partner, James Sandlin, $4.5 million.

The property eventually was to be part of a swap in which potential buyers could exchange it for land owned by the federal government. Such deals are common in the West, where the government owns vast tracts. Renzi had said he wanted to prevent encroaching development near the Fort Huachuca Army post and to protect the environmentally threatened San Pedro River.

But Renzi never introduced legislation in Congress to complete the swap for the new owners. [Snip]

The raid on Renzi's business happened the same day that Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., temporarily stepped down from the House Appropriations Committee. Doolittle is under scrutiny for his ties to former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

At best, Rep. Renzi is looking at an Ethics probe because of Brian Murray's phone call to the U.S. Attorney's office to talk about the investigation.

Renzi (R) won his 2004 reelection by 51.4% to Ellen Simon (D) 43.8% with David Schlosser (L) 4.8% picking up half of the difference. ( Arizona Congresswatch.)Any time an incumbent wins by less than 55% he is vulnerable. He was already in trouble in the election of 2006.

How the word got to Rove and Sampson to fire U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton is not yet clear, but it should be out soon. He and Doolittle are both in real trouble, and there being the two of them at the same time will probably make things worse for each of them.

Rep. Rick Renzi resigns from all other committee assigments.

Paul Kiel at TPM Muckraker reports that Arizona Rep. Rick Renzi has annoounced that he will resign from all other committee assignments. He previously resigned from his seat on the House Select Committee on Intelligence.

The Politico reports that Rep. Renzi has also asked that he not be included in the Retain Our Majority Program, which raises money for the GOP's most vulnerable incumbents. That move strongly suggests that Renzi does not plan to remain in Congress much longer.

[h/t to TPM.]

Click on the label "Renzi" to see my prior reports on Rep. Renzi.

FBI raids personal business of Arizona Rep. Rick Renzi.

From Roll Call:

By Susan Davis
Roll Call Staff
Thursday, April 19; 10:04 pm

In a second blow to House Republicans this week, the FBI raided a business tied to the family of Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) Thursday afternoon as part of an ongoing investigation into the three-term lawmaker.

Richard "Rick" Renzi is the Republican Representative who represents Arizona's first Congressional District. He was first elected in 2002, and appears precocious in that he has been under federal investigation for corruption since at least October 2006.

The business that was raided was the Patriot Insurance Agency. This is the insurance agency originally started by Rick Renzi (as Renzi & Company) and which has been listed as belonging to his wife since Renzi became a Congressman. Since Rep. Renzi and his wife have 13 children, I wonder how much time she has to actually operate the business.

Interesting facts about Rep. Renzi include the fact that his father is a retired Major General who is presently the executive vice president of Mantech International. This is a firm which provides information technology services to a number of intelligence and defense-related federal government agencies. Ft. Huachuca, Arizona is the home of the Army's Intelligence School. Roll Call also states that Rep. Renzi has stepped down from the House Intelligence Panel. According to Congressopedia Rep. Renzi was a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in the 109th Congress (2005 & 2006.)

The website Beyond DeLay describes Rep. Renzi's possibly corrupt actions using his power as a Congressman to enrich his family like this:

In 2003, Rep. Renzi sponsored legislation that dealt hundreds of millions of dollars to his father’s business while, according to environmentalists, devastating the San Pedro River. A key beneficiary of Rep. Renzi’s legislation was ManTech International Corp., a Fairfax, Virginia based defense contractor where Rep. Renzi’s father, Retired Major General Eugene Renzi, is an executive vice president. The company, which has an office in Sierra Vista, Arizona, was the largest contributor to Renzi’s 2002 congressional campaign and the second largest in his 2004 campaign.

If Rep. Renzi accepted campaign contributions from ManTech in exchange for pushing through legislation benefiting the company, he would be in violation of federal bribery laws. His actions on behalf of his father may have also violated conflict-of-interest rules and the requirement that
Members of the House conduct themselves “at all times in a manner that reflects creditably on the House.”

Wikipedia also states that he was involved in the US attorney purge. Paul Charlton, US Attorney for Arizona, was on of those fired by DoJ on December 7, 2006. NPR has this story on Paul Charlton.

Paul Charlton of Phoenix, Ariz. — Charlton said he resigned over policy disputes. Moschella says Charlton disagreed with Justice Department guidelines on the death penalty and the tape-recording of FBI interviews.

The reason for firing Paul Charlton that has gotten the most press appears to be his pressure on the DoJ to get permission to tape record confessions, since he was losing convictions because of the absence of such recordings. The Phoenix Business Journal does point out that

Congressional Democrats have expressed concern over the reasons behind the ousters. Charlton's office was looking into Flagstaff Congressman Rick Renzi's involvement with a real estate deal and former Tucson Congressmen Jim Kolbe's interaction with male pages.

The coincidence that Charlton's name was added in October 2006 to Sampson's list of US attorneys to be fired is suspicious. October is when reports that Charlton was investigating Renzi's apparently corrupt activities reached the newspapers.

This may well be another case in which the firing of the local US attorney was conducted in order to protect a Republican Congressman from a corruption investigation. It is not clear to me from the media reports that this is the case, however. That could well be because Arizona is not a place that a lot of national reporters visit much, and local reporters simply aren't digging real deeply into the national aspects of the local story. If that's the case then the raid on Rep. Renzi's Insurance Agency will quickly change the motivations of local reporters.

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The website Beyond Delay is a product of the investigations of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). It is their report on the twenty most corrupt Representatives and Senators, plus five who don't quit meet the requirements to be on the list. The list does not appear to have been updates since the election of 2006, since at least five on the list of twenty were not reelected - or in Sen. Frist's case, did not run for reelection.

Rep. Doolittle to step down from House Appropriations Committee.

Rep. John Doolittle has decided to step down from his position on the House Appropriations Committee. This action is clearly in response to the action by the FBI to search his home in Northern Virginia last Friday.

Although the decision to step down was made by Rep. Doolittle, "Roll Call" reports that the House Republican Leadership was prepared to remove him if he did not act himself.

Let me state the obvious. This investigation has been going on for quite a while, but it has been mostly under the radar. Now it has broken out into the public arena, and that suggests that the end-game is now in play. The FBI and the Public Corruption Unit of the DoJ wouldn't have let it get this far if they did not have a very good case for the Prosecution.

Bob Ney and Randy "Duke" Cunningham should be preparing a welcoming party for Rep. Doolittle at their federal prisons. It's time for them to plan the entertainment and order the party hats.

FBI negotiation teams go anywhere in the world to free kidnapped Americans

When an American citizen is kidnapped in Haiti, Colombia, Omaha Nebraska, or Iraq what can the U.S. government do to help resolve the situation and free the victim or victims with limited loss of life? Where to law enforcement agencies in the U.S. (particularly smaller agencies) or government officials outside the U.S. go for help in what is often a rare situation and may be one they have never before faced and have no training to deal with? There is a good answer to that question.

The FBI has a Crisis Negotiation Unit (CNU) consisting of 350 trained negotiators who are available to go anywhere in the world 24/7 to help free kidnapped Americans. This unit is a part of the Operations Support Branch of the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group. The mission of the Crisis Negotiation Unit is "to resolve hostage, barricade, attempted suicide, and kidnapping cases throughout the world."

The Crisis Negotiation Unit has deployed overseas about 300 times since it was created. When a kidnapping or hostage/barricade situation involving an American citizen occurs outside the U.S. the appropriate State Department Legal Attaché (Legat) office requests support from the Negotiation unit. When the negotiator arrives his or her function is to provide advice and recommendations to the State Department or Military individuals dealing with the situation. Members of the Negotiation Unit were involved when American journalist Jill Carroll was kidnapped recently in Iraq. She was released alive after 82 days of captivity.

In the U.S. unit negotiators work with and provide training to local tactical and S.W.A.T. teams. The FBI Negotiators work in parallel to local forces, providing advice, recommendations, expertise, and assisting to train family members in the process of negotiation with kidnappers. Over 80% of barricade and hostage incidents in the U.S. are resolved through negotiation or a combination of negotiation and tactical methods. It is rare that such incidents are resolved using only tactical methods.

Since negotiation is such an important part of resolving such incidents, the FBI maintains the Hostage Barricade Database System, which is available to law enforcement agencies throughout the U.S. The database contains information on roughly 5,000 incidents, primarily state and local, to show how they were resolved. Through this database law enforcement officials can learn how previous incidents were resolved as well as how long they lasted, what weapons were used, and how communications were used in the resolution. The CNU and the Hostage Barricade Database System are both tools used by the government to save save lives through the use of communications.

Previously I published an article entitled What do the military and police do for governments? The Crisis Negotiation Unit is an example of a purely police function, something that the military would not do because it would have little or no use in accomplishing the principle missions of the U.S. military.

The CNU develops expertise, trains individuals and provides a long-term career path for professionals with this expertise. I am publishing this article to demonstrate the real distinctions that exist between military and police functions and why military organizations cannot be expected to effectively provide police functions. The military simply isn't organized or trained to do police work. I am also publishing this article because this is a little-known function of the FBI, and I personally find it quite fascinating.

I hope you find it as interesting as I do.

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This article is based on a PR release from the FBI dated April 13, 2007.

Related stories include

• A review of the FOX network show "The Standoff"
• An Office of the Inspector General Report on the the September 2005 Shooting Incident Involving Filiberto Ojeda Ríos.
Crisis Negotiation Teams: Selection and Training.
• The FBI's Critical Incident Negotiation Team
• Role-play training for negotiators in diverse environments
  and there are many more articles available through Google.

FBI searches Rep. Doolittle's home in Virginia

Roll Call reports that the FBI has served a search warrant on the home of California Rep. John Doolittle.

April 18, 2007 4:45 PM
The FBI has raided the Northern Virginia home of Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.), according to Congressional sources. No details are publicly available yet about the circumstances of the raid, but Doolittle and his wife, Julie, have been under federal investigation for their ties to the scandal surrounding imprisoned former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Faster than I really expected.

As I noted Monday, Kevin Ring resigned Friday, April 13, 2007 without advance warning from his cushy lobbyist job. Ring had previously been a key staffer for Doolittle, and then after 2000 was the principle go-between between now convicted lobbyist Abramoff and Rep. Doolittle.

FBI searches of the home also preceded the arrest and conviction of Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Doolittle's connections to ex-Rep. Cunningham suggest that both were being bribed to provide well-paying government contracts to defense contractors. If true, we can probably expect to hear about those connections soon.

The Hill has a longer story on the FBI search of Doolittle's home. Here is an excerpt:

Doolittle also has been under fire for paying his wife’s company, Sierra Dominion Financial Solutions, a 15 percent commission on all contributions that the company raised for Doolittle’s campaign committee and leadership PAC. Her only other clients were Abramoff’s former firm, Greenberg Traurig; Abramoff’s former restaurant Signatures; and the Korea-U.S. Exchange Council, which Ed Buckham, a former chief of staff to ex-Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), created.

The Justice Department previously subpoenaed Julie Doolittle’s files.

Doolittle also received contributions from indicted defense contractor Brent Wilkes and his associates, and investigators are probing whether those contributions are linked to any official action Doolittle took to help Wilkes’ company obtain millions of dollars in government earmarks.

Wilkes recently was indicted in connection with his investigation stemming from former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham’s (R-Calif.) bribery conviction and jailing.

Who knows? Maybe the FBI has even linked Tom DeLay into this web. Though I suspect that Rep. Jerry Lewis is more likely.

The connections? Cunningham, Lewis and Doolittle all had positions on the House appropriations Committee and all had associations with Jack Abramoff and Brent Wilkes. Tom DeLay had two of his staffers go to work for Jack Abramoff and operated the K-Street Project to get Republicans to work for lobbyists while getting lobbyists to contribute the the reelection of Republicans.

This will be interesting. Oh, and fun for Democrats.

[h/t to TPM Muckraker.]

Here's what the FBI told The House about the National Security Letters.

From Valerie E. Caproni General Counsel Federal Bureau of Investigation - Testimony to the House Judiciary Committee March 20, 2007:

Good morning Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Smith, and members of the Committee. It is my pleasure to appear before you today to discuss the recent report by Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) regarding the FBI’s use of national security letters (NSLs).

The OIG's report is a fair report that acknowledges the importance of NSLs to the ability of the FBI to conduct the national security investigations that are essential to keeping the country safe. Importantly, the OIG found no deliberate or intentional misuse of the national security letter authorities, Attorney General Guidelines or FBI policy. Nevertheless, the OIG review identified several areas of inadequate auditing and oversight of these vital investigative tools, as well as processes that were inappropriate.

Although not intentionally, we fell short in our obligations to report to Congress on the frequency with which we use this tool and in the internal controls we put into place to make sure that it was used only in accord with the letter of the law. FBI Director Robert S. Mueller concluded from the OIG's findings that we must redouble our efforts to ensure that there is no repetition of the mistakes of the past in the use of these authorities and I share his commitment.

I would also like to acknowledge the role of Congress and the effectiveness of congressional oversight in surfacing the deficiencies raised in this audit, which was called for in the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act.

The report made 10 recommendations in response to the findings, designed to provide both the necessary controls over the issuance of NSLs and the creation and maintenance of accurate records. The FBI fully supports each recommendation and concurs with the inspector general that, when implemented, these reforms will ensure full compliance with both the letter and the spirit of the authorities entrusted to the Bureau.

National Security Letters

National security letters generally permit us to obtain the same sort of documents from third-party businesses that prosecutors and agents obtain in criminal investigations with grand jury subpoenas. Unlike grand jury subpoenas, however, NSL authority comes through several distinct statutes and they have specific rules that accompany them.

NSLs have been instrumental in breaking up cells like the “Portland Seven,” the “Lackawanna Six,” and the “Northern Virginia Jihad.” Through the use of NSLs, the FBI has traced sources of terrorist funding, established telephone linkages that resulted in further investigation and arrests, and arrested suspicious associates with deadly weapons and explosives. NSLs allow the FBI to link terrorists together financially, and pinpoint cells and operatives by following the money.

The NSL authority used most frequently by the FBI is that provided by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). Through an ECPA NSL, the FBI can obtain subscriber information for telephones and electronic communications and can obtain toll billing information and electronic communication transaction records.

Significantly, the FBI cannot obtain the content of communications through an ECPA NSL. Although the exact numbers of ECPA NSLs remains classified, it is the most common NSL authority used.

Pursuant to the Right to Financial Privacy Act (RFPA), the FBI also has the authority to issue NSLs for financial records from a financial institution. RFPA NSLs are used commonly in connection with investigations of potential terror financing.

Pursuant to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the FBI has the authority to issue three different, but related, types of NSLs to credit reporting agencies: an NSL pursuant to 15 U.S.C. 1681u(a) for the names of financial institutions with which the subject has or has had an account; an NSL pursuant to 15 U.S.C. 1681u(b) for consumer identifying information (name, address, former addresses, employment and former employment); an NSL pursuant to 15 U.S.C. 1681v for a full credit report. Of all the FBI's NSL authorities, only the last of the FCRA authorities is restricted to use only in international terrorism cases.

Finally, the FBI has the authority to issue NSLs pursuant to the National Security Act in the course of investigations of improper disclosure of classified information by government employees.

The first three types of NSLs (ECPA, RFPA, FCRA) must include a certification by an authorized FBI employee that the material is being sought for an authorized national security investigation. That certification is slightly different in the case of a FCRA NSL for a full credit report, where the certification required is that the information is relevant to an international terrorism investigation.

The authority to issue an NSL lies at a senior level within the FBI. An NSL can be issued only by an official who ranks not lower than Special Agent in Charge or deputy assistant director. All such officials are career government employees who are members of the Senior Executive Service.

Procedurally, an agent or analyst seeking an NSL must prepare a document (an electronic communication, or EC) in which the employee lays out the factual predicate for the request. The factual recitation must be sufficiently detailed so that the approving official can determine that the material sought is relevant to an investigation. Additionally, it needs to provide sufficient information concerning the underlying investigation so that reviewing officials can confirm that the investigation is adequately predicated and not based solely on the exercise of First Amendment rights. Finally, the EC includes a “lead” to the Office of the General Counsel (OGC) for purposes of congressional reporting.

OIG Report

As directed by Congress, we endeavored to declassify as much information as possible concerning our use of NSLs in order to allow the maximum amount of public awareness of the extent of our use of the NSL tool consistent with national security concerns. To that end, for the first time the public has a sense of the frequency with which the FBI makes requests for data with national security letters. In the period covered by the report, the number of NSL requests has ranged from approximately 40,000 to 60,000 per year and we have requested information on less than 20,000 persons per year.

For a variety of reasons that will be discussed below, those numbers are not exact. Nevertheless, they, for the first time, allow the public to get some sense of the order of magnitude of these requests; there are a substantial number of requests, but we are not collecting information on hundreds of thousands of Americans.

There are three findings by the OIG that are particularly disturbing, and it is those three findings that I wish to address this morning: 1) inaccurate reporting to Congress of various data points we are obligated to report relative to NSLs; 2) the use of so-called exigent letters that circumvented the procedures required by ECPA; and 3) known violations (both previously self-reported by FBI and not previously reported) of law and policy with regard to usage of NSLs.

Congressional Reporting

A finding of the report that particularly distresses me is the section that addresses the inaccuracies of the numbers we report to Congress. That responsibility lies with my division, and we did not do an acceptable job. The process for tabulating NSLs simply did not keep up with the volume. Although we came to that realization prior to the OIG report and are working on a technological solution, that realization came later than it should have.

At some point several years before my tenure at the FBI began, our process for tracking NSLs for congressional reporting purposes shifted from a totally manual process, where NSL data was written on index cards, to a standalone Access database. This database is referred to in the OIG report as the OGC database.

While the OGC database was a giant technological step forward from three-by-five index cards, it is not an acceptable system given the significant increase in use of NSLs since 9/11. First and foremost, the OGC database is not electronically connected to Automated Case Support system (ACS), from which we derive the data. Instead, there is a manual interface between ACS and the OGC database. An OGC employee is responsible for taking every NSL lead that is sent to OGC and manually entering the pertinent information into the OGC database. Nearly a dozen fields must be manually entered, including the file number of the case in which the NSL was issued (typically 15 digits and alphanumeric identifiers).

Approximately a year ago we recognized that our technology was inadequate and began developing an automated system to improve our ability to collect this data. The system, in addition to improving data collection, will automatically prevent many of the errors in NSLs that we will discuss today.

We are building an NSL system to function as a workflow tool that will automate much of the work that is associated with preparing NSLs and the associated paperwork. The NSL system is designed to require the user to enter certain data before the workflow can proceed and requires specific reviews and approvals before the request for the NSL can proceed. Through this process, the FBI can automatically ensure that certain legal and administrative requirements are met and that required reporting data is accurately collected.

For example, by requiring the user to identify the investigative file from which the NSL is to be issued, the system will be able to verify the status of that file to ensure that it is still open and current (e.g. request date is within six months of the opening or an extension has been filed for the investigation) and ensure that NSLs are not being requested out of control or administrative files.

The system will require the user to separately identify the target of the investigative file and the person whose records are being obtained through the requested NSL, if different. This will allow the FBI to accurately count the number of different persons about whom we gather data through NSLs. The system will also require that specific data elements be entered before the process can continue, such as requiring that the target's status as a United States person or non-United States person be entered. The system will not permit requests containing logically inconsistent answers to proceed.

The NSL system is being designed so that the FBI employee requesting an NSL will enter data only once. For example, an agent or analyst who wishes to get telephone toll billing records will only have to prompt the system that he is seeking an ECPA NSL for toll records and type the telephone number once. The system will then automatically populate the appropriate fields in the NSL and the authorizing EC. The system will then generate both the NSL and the authorizing EC for signature, thereby ensuring that the two documents match exactly and minimizing the opportunity for transcription errors that give rise to unauthorized collections that must be reported to the Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB).

Agents and analysts will still be required to provide the narrative necessary to explain why the NSL is being sought, the factual basis for making a determination that the information is relevant to an appropriately predicated national security investigation, and the factual basis for a determination whether the NSL should include a non-disclosure provision. In addition, this system will have a comprehensive reporting capability.

We began working with developers on the NSL system in February 2006 and we are optimistic that we will be able to pilot it this summer and roll it out to all field offices by the end of the year. At that point, I will be confident the data we provide to Congress in future reports is as accurate as humanly possible.

In the meantime, we are taking several steps to correct the numbers we have previously reported.

First, we are making data corrections in our database. Through a computer program, we have identified all entries that must be erroneous because there is an apparent error in the entry (e.g., there are more NSLs reported than requests; the date shows a year that is impossible (203)). We are manually reviewing those entries and making corrections.

We have also started a random sampling of 10 percent of the total entries in the OGC database which contains approximately 64,000 entries. Those entries will be manually checked against ACS. We will determine whether there is a significant difference between the entries in our database and the actual information in ACS. To the extent there is a difference, that will be the factor that will be used to correct our prior reporting. While not yielding an exact count, we believe that to be a statistically appropriate way of correcting prior reporting. We have discussed this methodology with the OIG and will offer it the opportunity to review our work. We are striving to have corrected reports to Congress as soon as possible.

As with the other shortcomings identified by the OIG, there was no finding of an intent to deceive Congress concerning our use of NSLs. In fact, as noted, we identified deficiencies in our system for generating data prior to the initiation of the OIG's review and flagged the issue for Congress almost one year ago. While we do not know the extent of the inaccuracies in past reporting, we are confident that the numbers will not change by an order of magnitude.

Exigent Letters

The next significant finding of the OIG involved the use within one unit at Headquarters of so-called "exigent letters." These letters, which numbered in excess of 700, were provided to telephone companies with requests for toll billing information regarding telephone numbers. All of the letters stated that there were exigent circumstances. Many of the letters stated that federal grand jury subpoenas had been requested for the records even though in fact no such request for grand jury subpoenas had been made, while others promised future national security letters.

From an audit and internal control perspective, the FBI did not document the nature of the emergency circumstances that led it to ask for toll records in advance of proper legal process, did not keep copies of all of the exigent letters it provided to the telephone companies, and did not keep records showing that it had subsequently provided either the legal process promised or any other legal process. Further, based on interviews the OIG conducted, some employees indicated that there was not always any emergency relating to the documents that were sought.

OGC has been working with the affected unit to attempt to reconcile the documentation and to ensure that any telephone record we have in an FBI database was obtained because it was relevant to an authorized investigation and that appropriate legal process has now been provided. As of late last week, there were still a small handful of telephone numbers that had not been satisfactorily tied to an authorized investigation. If we are unable to determine the investigation to which those telephone numbers relate, they will be removed from our database and destroyed.

The OIG rightfully objected to the FBI obtaining telephone records by providing a telephone carrier with a letter that states that a federal grand jury subpoena had been requested when that was untrue. It is unclear at this point why that happened. The director has ordered a special inspection in order to better understand the full scope of internal control lapses.

We also concur with the OIG that it is inappropriate to obtain records on the basis of a purported emergency if, in fact, there is no emergency. We continue to believe, however, that providers had the right to rely on our representation that there was an emergency and that the “exigent letters”—had they been issued only when there was an exigent circumstance and had they correctly identified the legal process that would follow—would have been an appropriate tool to use.

In response to the obvious internal control lapses this situation highlights, changes have already been made to ensure that this situation does not recur. Any agent who needs to obtain ECPA-protected records on an emergency basis must now do so pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 2702. Section 2702(c)(4) permits a carrier to provide information regarding its customers to the government if the provider, in good faith, believes that an emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury to any person requires disclosure without delay of information relating to the emergency.

A request for disclosure pursuant to that statute generally must be in writing and must clearly state that the disclosure without legal process is at the provider’s option. The letter request must also set out the basic facts of the emergency so that the provider can make some assessment whether it concurs that there is an emergency.

Intelligence Oversight Board Process

The OIG also examined misuse of NSLs that had been reported (and some that had not been reported) as part of the IOB process. As this committee knows, pursuant to Executive Order 12863, the president has an Intelligence Oversight Board that receives from the agencies in the intelligence community reports of intelligence activities that the agency believes may have been unlawful or contrary to executive order or presidential directive. This language is interpreted by the FBI and DOJ to mandate the reporting of any violation of a provision of the Attorney General's Guidelines for FBI National Security Investigations and Foreign Intelligence Collection if such provision is designed to ensure the protection of individual rights.

The FBI requires its employees to report any violations of law or policy about which they are aware. We encourage employees to err on the side of reporting so that we can be sure that all violations are appropriately reported. In terms of process, all potential violations (called PIOBs—or potential Intelligence Oversight Board violations) are reported to OGC.

Lawyers within OGC are responsible for “adjudicating” the violation—that is, determining whether the PIOB is an actual Intelligence Oversight Board violation. If it is, a report is made to the IOB, a copy is provided to DOJ and a copy is provided to the FBI's Inspection Division. If the violation involved intentional misconduct, the Inspection Division will determine whether the matter should be referred to the Office of Professional Responsibility for discipline.

The OIG found that from 2003 through 2005, the FBI had self-reported 26 potential violations involving NSL authorities. Of the 26, OGC adjudicated 19 to be violations and reported them. The OIG agreed with each of those determinations. Of the seven PIOBs that OGC determined were not violations, the OIG agreed with all but one. As to the one determination about which we disagreed, upon re-review, the FBI concurred with the OIG that it was a violation that should have been reported and it has since been reported to the IOB.

These 20 violations included: four third-party errors; three NSLs issued when the authority for the investigation had lapsed; obtaining ECPA-protected records three times without any legal process; and once obtaining a full credit report in a counterintelligence case.

The OIG also found, however, a number of PIOBs in the files it examined that had not been reported to OGC for adjudication. Although press accounts of the reports have implied that the OIG found massive abuses of the NSL authorities by the FBI, a careful read of the report reflects a different set of facts.

The OIG examined 293 NSLs—a reasonably small sample. The sample was a judgmental sample and the size was chosen because the audit was extremely labor intensive. We do not suggest that the sample was not a fair sample (although it was not random), but only that it is questionable from a statistical standpoint to attempt to extrapolate from a very small sample to an entire population.

Moreover, there was wide variation in the number of purported unreported violations from different field offices. The OIG found eight potential violations that were unreported in files in both the Philadelphia and Chicago field offices, but only two unreported potential violations from files in New York and four from San Francisco. We are doing additional follow-up work, but the wide variance between field offices may be a function of the very small sample, or it may indicate that the percentages of potential errors detected are not constant across all field offices.

Setting aside questions about whether the sample is representative, I urge you to look closely at the numbers before arriving at the conclusion that there is a systemic problem concerning the use of NSLs. Of the 293 NSLs the OIG examined, 22 (7 percent) were judged to have potential unreported IOB violations associated with them. Moreover, of that 7 percent, 10—or almost 50 percent—were third-party errors; that is, the NSL recipient provided the FBI information we did not seek. Only 12 of the NSLs examined—4 percent—had mistakes that the OIG rightfully attributes to the FBI.

Examining the 12 potential errors that were rightfully attributed to the FBI reveals a continuum of seriousness relative to the potential impact on individual rights. Four (or just over 1 percent of the sample) were serious violations.

Specifically, two of the violations involved obtaining full credit reports in counterintelligence investigations (which is not statutorily authorized), one involved issuing an NSL when authorization for the investigation to which it related had lapsed, and one involved issuing an NSL for information that was arguably content, and therefore not available pursuant to an NSL. (In the latter case, the ISP on which the NSL was served declined to produce the requested material so there was, in fact, no collection of information to which we were not entitled.)

The balance of the 12 potential violations identified by the OIG do not, in our view, rise to the same level of seriousness as those four. The remaining eight involve errors that are best characterized as arising from a lack of attention to detail, and did not result in the FBI seeking or obtaining any information to which it was not entitled. Those eight potential violations involved errors such as using the wrong certification language in an NSL (although the appropriate certification is not materially different) and having the NSL and the EC seeking the NSL not entirely consistent.

We do not excuse such lack of attention to detail, but we do not believe that such mistakes result in or cause a risk to civil liberties.

In short, approximately 1 percent of the NSLs examined by the OIG had significant errors that were attributable to FBI actions and that had not been, but should have been, reported as PIOBs.

While a 1 percent error rate is not huge, it is unacceptable, and we have taken steps to reduce that error rate.

First, we are very concerned that of all the PIOBs involving mistakes in NSLs attributable to the FBI (whether previously reported or not), three involved the same mistake: namely, issuing an NSL for a full credit report in a counterintelligence investigation. In order to ensure that this particular error is fully rectified, the FBI ordered all field offices to examine all counterintelligence files in which Fair Credit Report NSLs have been issued since January 1, 2002 in order to ascertain whether the file contains a full credit report. If it does, the credit report must be removed from the file, sequestered with the field office’s attorney, and a PIOB must be reported to OGC. The results from that search are due to Headquarters by April 16, 2007.

Several other steps we have taken will, we believe reduce the likelihood that the FBI will commit the other mistakes in the future.

First, as indicated previously, the FBI is developing an automated system to prepare NSLs and their authorizing ECs. That system will reduce to zero mistakes such as having the wrong certification language or inconsistency between the NSL and the EC. It will also ensure that the investigative file out of which the NSL is being issued is open. Finally, it will ensure that an NSL for a full credit report cannot be issued out of a counterintelligence file.

Other changes to FBI policy have been made that we believe will facilitate better handling of IOBs and also reduce errors that lead to IOBs. First, last fall we provided comprehensive advice to the field regarding its responsibility towards information obtained as a result of third-party errors. That guidance requires all such information to be sequestered and reported to OGC as a PIOB. If the “over collected” information is irrelevant to the investigation (e.g., the telephone company transposed a number and provided us records on the wrong telephone account), then it will be destroyed or returned. No such information should be entered into FBI databases. If the information is relevant to the investigation but simply not within the four corners of the NSL, then the information must be sequestered until a new NSL has been issued for the extra data. After the new NSL has been issued, the information can be entered into FBI databases.

Secondly, we have collected all the rules and policies on NSLs into one document which will be disseminated to the field. Those rules now mandate that, until the deployment of the automated NSL system, all NSLs and ECs be prepared from the exemplars that are provided on OGC’s website. That should eliminate many of the mistakes identified by the OIG.

All of these rules will, of course, only reduce or eliminate errors if they are followed. The OIG's report has highlighted for us that there must be some sort of auditing function—above and beyond the IOB process—to systematically ensure that these rules, as well as others that govern our activities in national security investigations, are followed. The FBI has historically been very good at establishing policy and setting rules, but we have not been as proactive as we should have been in establishing internal controls and auditing functions.

The full parameters of the compliance program have not been set, although these aspects have been: the Inspection Division with participation of DOJ’s National Security Division and Privacy and Civil Liberties Office is in the process of a special inspection of NSL usage in all 56 field offices and headquarters. That inspection should uncover any other significant problems with our use of this tool but should also tell us whether there are variances between offices in terms of the numbers and types of errors.

The results of the inspection will then inform the program that the attorney general announced of having teams of DOJ lawyers, FBI lawyers and the Inspection Division periodically audit field offices’ use of NSLs. That process will begin in April and should result in at least 15 offices being audited this year.

We are also considering other proactive compliance programs in order to develop a program that ensures, to the maximum extent possible, that the rules and policies designed to protect privacy and civil liberties are faithfully adhered to by all of our employees, that we promptly identify and correct any violations of law or policy, and that any information collected erroneously is removed from FBI databases and destroyed. In addition, a working group co-chaired by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CPCLO has been convened to examine how NSL-derived information is used and retained by the FBI. The FBI and DOJ’s National Security Division will have a representative on this working group. We welcome the Committee's input as we move forward on these initiatives.

The FBI is acutely aware that the only way that we can achieve our mission of keeping the country safe is if we are trusted by all segments of the American public. With events like the London terror attacks of two years ago and the Canadian plot to use fertilizer bombs to destroy buildings in Canada in 2006, we have all become worried about the risk of a catastrophic attack from home grown terrorists.

Our single best defense against such an attack is the eyes and ears of all Americans—but particularly of those segments of the population in which the risk of radicalization is at its highest. We need people in those communities to call us when they hear or see something that looks amiss. We know that we reduce the probability of that call immeasurably if we lose the confidence of those segments of the population.

That is one of the reasons that we are looking for ways to assure all Americans that we are respectful of individual rights, including privacy rights, and that we use the tools that have been provided to us consistent with the rules set out by Congress.

I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the Committee and look forward to answering your questions.

Thank you.

This is totally UnAmerican!

The Washington Post publishes an anonymous letter from a recipient of a "National Security Letter" (with associated Gag Order) from the FBI.

The Justice Department's inspector general revealed on March 9 that the FBI has been systematically abusing one of the most controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act: the expanded power to issue "national security letters." It no doubt surprised most Americans to learn that between 2003 and 2005 the FBI issued more than 140,000 specific demands under this provision -- demands issued without a showing of probable cause or prior judicial approval -- to obtain potentially sensitive information about U.S. citizens and residents. [Snip]

The inspector general's report makes clear that NSL gag orders have had even more pernicious effects. Without the gag orders issued on recipients of the letters, it is doubtful that the FBI would have been able to abuse the NSL power the way that it did. Some recipients would have spoken out about perceived abuses, and the FBI's actions would have been subject to some degree of public scrutiny. [Snip]

I found it particularly difficult to be silent about my concerns while Congress was debating the reauthorization of the Patriot Act in 2005 and early 2006. If I hadn't been under a gag order, I would have contacted members of Congress to discuss my experiences and to advocate changes in the law. The inspector general's report confirms that Congress lacked a complete picture of the problem during a critical time: Even though the NSL statute requires the director of the FBI to fully inform members of the House and Senate about all requests issued under the statute, the FBI significantly underrepresented the number of NSL requests in 2003, 2004 and 2005, according to the report.

The combination of the automatic gag order and the lack of any judicial review (or any other review outside the FBI) is especially pernicious. It allows people in the FBI to simply send the letters for any reason or no reason at all, then their actions are expected to never to be reviewed.

Then, as indicated above, to petition Congress for redress becomes a crime against the gag order - a gag order never issued by a Judge. Some GS-11 or GS-12 FBI agent who wants (not necessarily needs) some additional information simply picks up a pre-written form, adds a name and address and signs it, then hands it to a clerk to act on. No investigator ever needs less information because you never know for sure where the next surprise will come from.

In the government investigations I performed as a Social Security Claims Representative, I always wanted more information on my target. Each new potential source of information was milked for every possible data item. I had routine methods of gathering information, and I was not an official investigator. I was trying to show that a crime might have occurred, in which case my boss would send my investigation and results to the Department of Justice for any action they thought necessary. But the motivation of the investigator is the same. You always want more data. The investigation itself is all the justification you need to try to obtain at least one more item of data. An outside evaluator - like a Judge - is needed to determine how far the investigation should be allowed to go and whether pushing for the next source of data is justified.

The Patriot Act made searching telecommunications into a routine data source, just like checking the phone book. Then, because the authors of that provision knew it would have a backlash, they placed an automatic gag order on it so that the recipient of the request (demand) for data was not allowed to complain.

This is giving too much trust to the government! Where were the Conservatives who distrust government? Oh, yeah. They were the guys who wrote this damned Bill and defend it today, aren't they?

One reason for Bush Admin secrecy

Arizona U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton was fired at least in part because he wanted to establish a policy requiring the FBI to record confessions to use in Court. Charlot complained that because the FBI had a policy of not recording confessions that he had lost convictions or had been forced to plea bargain an otherwise strong case down. So why doesn't the FBI want to record confessions?

Glenn Greenwald points out that the only reason for not recording confessions has to be that the FBI does not want the jury to know what the normal procedures they use for interrogating suspect looks like.

He makes a good case. Go read his excellent post.

How did I MISS this? (Oh, yeah. Can't afford cable.)

Sometimes I get my news from north of the border.

No, No, not Oklahoma, north of the BIG border, the one with Canada. Catnip tells us that CNN was reporting Friday that "...we've just received a bulletin from the FBI that, and I quote, "suspected members of extremist groups have signed up as school bus drivers in the United States, counterterror officials said Friday, in a cautionary bulletin to police"."

It must not have worked. The American news outlets still reported on the Valerie Plame testimony to Congress, and overlooked the danger to our schoolchildren (which the FBI did say was very low.)

Oh, and I love what Catnip's daughter calls the yellow school busses. "Cheesewagons." Could they be the state transportation for Wisconsin?