UPDATE: F.B.I. Report Reveals Improper Subpoena Use

By Gabrielle Meury
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

WASHINGTON, United States- A report released on March 13 by the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General on the F.B.I.’s use of National Security Letters reveals a systematic, widespread abuse of power. The Justice Department's Inspector General found that in March 2007, the F.B.I. routinely violated the standards for using National Security Letters.

This report came a year after Inspector General Glenn Fine’s first report on national security letters in connection with terrorism on spy investigations. The original report, which covered 2004 and 2005, found serious systematic failures by the Bureau in its use of the letters.

New procedures were implemented in response to last year’s report to govern how FBI agents use national security letters and prohibit the use of exigent letters- emergency letters to telecommunication firms to obtain telephone records. From 2003 to 2005, FBI agents sent more than 700 of these letters, violating requirements of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and Justice and FBI guidelines by falsely stating they were needed for specific national security investigations under grand jury investigation. The F.B.I. promised the telecommunication firms that the emergency records demands would be followed up with formal subpoenas or properly processed letters.  Generally these follow-up materials were never provided. In response to this problem, senior officials of the F.B.I. repeatedly approved the use of “blanket” records demands to justify the improper collection of thousands of phone records.  The F.B.I. appears to have used the blanket records demands at least 11 times in 2006 alone as a quick way to clean up mistakes made over several years after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman, Patrick Leahy, promised to hold a hearing on the report. He said that the report “outlines more abuses and what appears to be the improper use of national security letters for years in a systemic failure throughout the FBI.” Michael German, ACLU National Security Policy Counsel and former FBI Agent, stated that "The FBI has flagrantly put aside the rule of law and its internal guidelines time and again, Without an outside check, agents are able to demand at will and ask questions later.”

For more information, please see:

CNN- Report: FBI abuse of investigative tool continued in 2006- 13 March 2008

New York Times- FBI Made “Blanket” Demands for Phone Records- 13 March 2008

Boston Globe-  FBI improperly justified privacy abuses, inspector finds- 14 March 2008

ACLU- FBI Audit Exposes Widespread Abuse of Patriot Act Powers- 13 March 200