Your Government At Work

Amazing. Absolutely amazing.

FBI Wiretaps Dropped Due to Unpaid Bills
WASHINGTON (AP) - Telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time.

A Justice Department audit released Thursday blamed the lost connections on the FBI's lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations. In one office alone, unpaid costs for wiretaps from one phone company totaled $66,000.

In at least one case, a wiretap used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation "was halted due to untimely payment," the audit found. FISA wiretaps are used in the government's most sensitive and secretive criminal and intelligence investigations, and allow eavesdropping on suspected terrorists or spies.

"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.

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.

Assistant FBI Director John Miller said wiretaps were dropped only a few times because of the backed-up billing, which he said didn't significantly set back the investigations under way. He said the FBI "will not tolerate financial mismanagement, or worse," and is working to fix the problems.

"While in a few instances, late-payment of telephone bills resulted in interruptions of the timely delivery of surveillance results, these interruptions were temporary and in our assessment, none of those cases were significantly affected," Miller said in a statement Thursday evening.

The report released Thursday was a highly edited version of Fine's 87-page audit that the FBI deemed too sensitive to be viewed publicly. It focused on what the bureau admitted was an "antiquated" system to track money sent to its 56 field offices nationwide for undercover work. Generally, the money pays for rental cars, leases and surveillance, the audit noted.

The American Civil Liberties Union called on the FBI to release the entire, unedited audit. The group, which has been critical of some of the government's wiretapping programs, also took a swipe at telecommunication companies that allowed the eavesdropping - as long as they are getting paid.

"It seems the telecoms, who are claiming they were just being 'good patriots' when they allowed the government to spy on us without warrants, are more than willing to pull the plug on national security investigations when the government falls behind on its bills," said former FBI agent Michael German, the ACLU's national security policy counsel. "To put it bluntly, it sounds as though the telecoms believe it when the FBI says the warrant is in the mail but not when they say the check is in the mail."

The audit also found that some field offices paid for expenses on undercover cases that should have been financed by FBI headquarters. Out of 130 undercover payments examined, auditors found 14 cases of at least $6,000 each where field offices dipped into their own budgets to pay for work that should have been picked up by headquarters.

The faulty bookkeeping was blamed, in large part, on an FBI employee who pleaded guilty in June 2006 to stealing $25,000 for her own use, the audit noted.

Cool. They have a fall guy.

"As demonstrated by the FBI employee who stole funds intended to support undercover activities, procedural controls by themselves have not ensured proper tracking and use of confidential case funds," it concluded.

Fine's report offered 16 recommendations to improve the FBI's tracking and management of the funding system, including its telecommunication costs. The FBI has agreed to follow 11 of the suggestions and one additional recommendation was found unnecessary. But it said that four "would be either unfeasible or too cost prohibitive." The recommendations were not specifically outlined in the edited version of the report.

- - - On the Web: DOJ Report

Via MyWay/The AP

Also at A Tangled Web

FBI Using Broad New Wiretap Method

Let the freakout begin. The levels of paranoia with the nutroots will increase exponentially.

The FBI appears to have adopted an invasive Internet surveillance technique that collects far more data on innocent Americans than previously has been disclosed.

Instead of recording only what a particular suspect is doing, agents conducting investigations appear to be assembling the activities of thousands of Internet users at a time into massive databases, according to current and former officials. That database can subsequently be queried for names, e-mail addresses or keywords.

Such a technique is broader and potentially more intrusive than the FBI's Carnivore surveillance system, later renamed DCS1000. It raises concerns similar to those stirred by widespread Internet monitoring that the National Security Agency is said to have done, according to documents that have surfaced in one federal lawsuit, and may stretch the bounds of what's legally permissible.

Surveillance Program Ends

I'm not making this out to be much, but the way Reuters dishonestly presents it is typical.

President Bush has decided not to renew a program of domestic spying on terrorism suspects, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said on Wednesday, ending an law-enforcement tactic criticized for infringing on civil liberties.

From day one, the media latched on to the domestic spying mantra, as if average American citizens were having their calls listened to. Not the case.

Bush has reauthorized the program every 45 days, and the current authorization is mid-cycle, a senior Justice Department official said. Gonzales said a recent secret-court approval allowed the government to act effectively without the program.

Seems to me it's technical matter. But rather than listening to the whiny left, certain changes are being made.

"Any electronic surveillance that was occurring as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program will now be conducted subject to the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court," Gonzales said.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said the new rules approved by the court addressed administration concerns.

"The president will not reauthorize the present program because the new rules will serve as guideposts," Snow said.

Then of course comes Chuckie Cheese and Senator Depends.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and the judiciary committee's chairman, said Bush's decision will provide efficient and meaningful court review.

"We must engage in all surveillance necessary to prevent acts of terrorism, but we can and should do so in ways that protect the basic rights of all Americans including the right to privacy," he said.

Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat and a judiciary committee member, said, "Why it took five years to go to even this secret court is beyond comprehension."

I'm not going to pile on Bush about this. However, we might have a problem here.