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Politics

FBI warned against misuse of authority to collect records

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published March 21, 2007

WASHINGTON - Republicans and Democrats alike sternly warned the FBI on Tuesday that it risks losing its broad power to collect telephone, e-mail and financial records to hunt terrorists because of rampant abuses of the authority.

The threats were the latest blow to the embattled Justice Department and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who is already on the defensive and fighting to keep his job over the firings of federal prosecutors.

The warnings came as the department's chief watchdog, inspector general Glenn Fine, told the House Judiciary Committee that the FBI engaged in widespread and serious misuse of its authority to issue national security letters, which resulted in illegally collecting data from Americans and foreigners. National security letters are comparable to subpoenas, but are issued directly by the bureau without court review.

If the FBI doesn't move swiftly to correct the mistakes and problems revealed last week in Fine's 130-page report, "you probably won't have NSL authority," said Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif., a supporter of the power.

"I hope that this would be a lesson to the FBI that they can't get away with this and expect to maintain public support for the tools that they need to combat terrorism," said Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., who called the abuses "a gross overreach."

Fine said he did not believe the problems were intentional. Most involved information that could have been legally obtained if proper procedures had been followed, he said.

"We believe the misuses and the problems we found generally were the product of mistakes, carelessness, confusion, sloppiness, lack of training, lack of adequate guidance and lack of adequate oversight," Fine said.

Still, the FBI's failure to control and monitor how it collected the information constituted "serious and unacceptable" lapses, Fine told the committee.

[Last modified March 21, 2007, 01:56:10]