Not Too Surprising Here, Either
While the president continues to whine about how the House is tying his hands by refusing him his warrantless wire-tapping extension, more news of FBI abuses of the corrupted FISA process continues to roll in. File this article from the NY Times under "Mistakes Were Made":
A technical glitch gave the F.B.I. access to the e-mail messages from an entire computer network — perhaps hundreds of accounts or more — instead of simply the lone e-mail address that was approved by a secret intelligence court as part of a national security investigation, according to an internal report of the 2006 episode.
F.B.I. officials blamed an “apparent miscommunication” with the unnamed Internet provider, which mistakenly turned over all the e-mail from a small e-mail domain for which it served as host. The records were ultimately destroyed, officials said. ...
The episode is an unusual example of what has become a regular if little-noticed occurrence, as American officials have expanded their technological tools: government officials, or the private companies they rely on for surveillance operations, sometimes foul up their instructions about what they can and cannot collect. ...
A report in 2006 by the Justice Department inspector general found more than 100 violations of federal wiretap law in the two prior years by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, many of them considered technical and inadvertent. [Emphasis added]
The article makes it clear that the feds are blaming the unnamed internet service provider for the screw up. I think who is at fault is beside the point. Well, maybe not totally: I'm sure that the telecoms are confident that the immunity part of the FISA deal will pass, so they are only too eager to give to the feds whatever they want, and then some.
But 100 "mistakes" in two years? That's roughly one per week, and the mistakes involve, if this case is any indication, hundreds of people and hundreds of communications at least. That's a lot of people being deprived of their Fourth Amendment rights, especially since that's only the cases that have been reported.
I hope House Speaker Pelosi reads that article. To make certain she has access to it, I've emailed it to her. I suggest you do likewise.
A technical glitch gave the F.B.I. access to the e-mail messages from an entire computer network — perhaps hundreds of accounts or more — instead of simply the lone e-mail address that was approved by a secret intelligence court as part of a national security investigation, according to an internal report of the 2006 episode.
F.B.I. officials blamed an “apparent miscommunication” with the unnamed Internet provider, which mistakenly turned over all the e-mail from a small e-mail domain for which it served as host. The records were ultimately destroyed, officials said. ...
The episode is an unusual example of what has become a regular if little-noticed occurrence, as American officials have expanded their technological tools: government officials, or the private companies they rely on for surveillance operations, sometimes foul up their instructions about what they can and cannot collect. ...
A report in 2006 by the Justice Department inspector general found more than 100 violations of federal wiretap law in the two prior years by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, many of them considered technical and inadvertent. [Emphasis added]
The article makes it clear that the feds are blaming the unnamed internet service provider for the screw up. I think who is at fault is beside the point. Well, maybe not totally: I'm sure that the telecoms are confident that the immunity part of the FISA deal will pass, so they are only too eager to give to the feds whatever they want, and then some.
But 100 "mistakes" in two years? That's roughly one per week, and the mistakes involve, if this case is any indication, hundreds of people and hundreds of communications at least. That's a lot of people being deprived of their Fourth Amendment rights, especially since that's only the cases that have been reported.
I hope House Speaker Pelosi reads that article. To make certain she has access to it, I've emailed it to her. I suggest you do likewise.
Labels: Fourth Amendment, Terra Terra Terra
posted by Diane at 3:37 AM
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