In March, we learned that the Bush Justice Department, more specifically the FBI, was engaged in widespread, illegal misuse of “national security letters” (NSLs). Using NSLs, the FBI has the power to obtain secret information about Americans — including phone calls, internet visits, even credit ratings — whether they’re suspected of wrongdoing or not. Officials can probe personal information without the consent, or even knowledge, of a judge.
There are, however, some laws and internal Justice Department regulations to regulate how the NSLs are obtained by law enforcement officials. As it turns out, the FBI repeatedly violated these laws.
When I last wrote about this, a clever commenter wrote, “Quick! We need to get Abu Gonzo before a congressional hearing so we can get to the bottom of what he doesn’t remember about any of this!” As it turns out, JoeW was onto something.
As he sought to renew the USA Patriot Act two years ago, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales assured lawmakers that the FBI had not abused its potent new terrorism-fighting powers. “There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse,” Gonzales told senators on April 27, 2005.
Six days earlier, the FBI sent Gonzales a copy of a report that said its agents had obtained personal information that they were not entitled to have. It was one of at least half a dozen reports of legal or procedural violations that Gonzales received in the three months before he made his statement to the Senate intelligence committee, according to internal FBI documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.
The acts recounted in the FBI reports included unauthorized surveillance, an illegal property search and a case in which an Internet firm improperly turned over a compact disc with data that the FBI was not entitled to collect, the documents show. Gonzales was copied on each report that said administrative rules or laws protecting civil liberties and privacy had been violated.
The reports also alerted Gonzales in 2005 to problems with the FBI’s use of an anti-terrorism tool known as a national security letter (NSL), well before the Justice Department’s inspector general brought widespread abuse of the letters in 2004 and 2005 to light in a stinging report this past March.
It looks like that Gonzales fellow has a little trouble with the truth, even when testifying before Congress.
Now, to be fair, the question here is whether Gonzales knew what he was saying was false. It’s not entirely clear that he did.
Justice officials said they could not immediately determine whether Gonzales read any of the FBI reports in 2005 and 2006 because the officials who processed them were not available yesterday. […]
Each of the violations cited in the reports copied to Gonzales was serious enough to require notification of the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board, which helps police the government’s surveillance activities. The format of each memo was similar, and none minced words.
“This enclosure sets forth details of investigative activity which the FBI has determined was conducted contrary to the attorney general’s guidelines for FBI National Security Investigations and Foreign Intelligence Collection and/or laws, executive orders and presidential directives,” said the April 21, 2005, letter to the Intelligence Oversight Board.
So, either Gonzales read these reports and lied, or he blew off reports about serious widespread FBI abuses.
He’s either unqualified to serve as Attorney General because of stunning dishonesty, or he’s unqualified to serve as Attorney General because of breathtaking incompetence.
Your choice, Alberto.