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By Andrew Noyes
© National Journal Group, Inc.
Senate Judiciary Committee members today grilled FBI Director Robert Mueller on his agency's efforts to eliminate abuses in the issuances of national security letters, which allow agents to analyze telephone, computer and bank records in suspected terrorism cases without court warrants.
Mueller said the Justice Department will soon release an audit from 2006 that highlights more problems, many of which predate reforms. He noted that the FBI created a new office of integrity and compliance to "identify in advance areas of potential risk" and pledged "continued vigilance in this area."
Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine told the committee last March that the FBI might have broken the law thousands of times since 2003 and hundreds of those cases could have involved improper use of security letters. Said Mueller, "We are committed to ensuring that we not only get this right but maintain the vital trust of the American people.”
Judiciary ranking member Arlen Specter, R-Pa., pressed Mueller for his take on the more than 40 lawsuits brought against telecommunications firms for aiding government eavesdropping. Mueller called the cases a "disincentive to the type of cooperation we need to be effective" and said they will hamper intelligence agencies' relationships with the firms if they proceed.
"Disincentive, hamper, hinder -- I don't hear you saying it would stop," Specter countered.
Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., echoed concerns raised by other lawmakers about the FBI's planned National Security Analysis Center, which would use "pattern-based data mining" to uncover terrorist sleeper cells. He said the project bore a striking resemblance to the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness program, for which Congress cut off funds several years ago.
Contrary to some claims, the center would not create a database nor would it facilitate data-mining "in the sense that we'll be looking at broad categories of information that we'd otherwise not be entitled to have," Mueller said. "It's a better understanding of information that we're entitled and authorized to have." A congressionally mandated data mining report, which was due in January but has not materialized, could shed light on the subject, Feingold said.
Judiciary Chairman Leahy asked for assurances that Americans' privacy is being considered as part of the FBI's involvement in the creation of a $1 billion database of fingerprints, eye scans, palm prints, and other identifying features of millions of people. Mueller said the project would not expand existing categories of individuals about whom fingerprints are kept.
Leahy also called attention to a recent Justice Department report that revealed that an international FBI wiretap was cut off because the agency failed to pay its phone bill on time.
The FBI "did not have an adequate system of assuring that the bills were paid on time," Mueller said, adding that about 40 offices experienced no billing problems. Two instances in which bills went unpaid have been rectified and neither lapse adversely affected the related investigations, he said.
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