Ever since we learned about the Bush administration’s legally dubious efforts in conducting warrantless surveillance of Americans, people concerned with civil liberties, limited government, and checks and balances have wondered how to restrain the White House’s power grab.
Oddly enough, I suspect no one thought of this novel approach.
Telephone companies cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau’s repeated failures to pay phone bills on time, according to a Justice Department audit released Thursday.
The faulty bookkeeping is part of what the audit, by the Justice Department’s inspector general, described as the FBI’s lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations. Poor supervision of the program also allowed one agent to steal $25,000, the audit said.
More than half of 990 bills to pay for telecommunication surveillance in five unidentified FBI field offices were not paid on time, the report shows. In one office alone, unpaid costs for wiretaps from one phone company totaled $66,000.
Of course, why didn’t I think of that? What better way to stem the administration’s surveillance efforts than to get the FBI to stop paying its phone bills?
Now, I’m being flippant about this, which probably isn’t entirely appropriate. I imagine most of the eavesdropping was legitimate and necessary. What’s more, some of this was probably far afield from the NSA wiretap scandal.
But not all of it.
[A]t least once, a wiretap used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation — the highly secretive and sensitive cases that allow eavesdropping on suspected terrorists or spies — “was halted due to untimely payment.”
“We also found that late payments have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence,” according to the audit by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine.
A lengthier AP feed noted that the Justice Department’s inspector general offered 16 recommendations to improve the FBI’s tracking and management of the funding system, four of which were rejected because they “would be either unfeasible or too cost prohibitive.”
Given what we know about the Bush administration’s competence, or lack thereof, this really isn’t helpful. Indeed, just a few weeks ago, the president was lecturing lawmakers at some length about the importance of closing “dangerous gaps in our intelligence,” and the importance of surveillance efforts in “stopping new attacks on our country.”
All this talk would sound far more impressive if the administration had kept up on its phone bills.