The FBI collected more than 2,000 records on US telephone calls by invoking terrorism emergencies that did not exist or by persuading phone companies to provide them, the Washington Post reported yesterday.
FBI officials issued approvals afterward to justify their actions in collecting the phone records between 2002 and 2006, the newspaper said.
“This practice ceased in 2006 and never involved obtaining the content of telephone conversations. Additionally, steps have been taken to ensure similar situations do not occur in the future,” FBI spokesman Michael Kortan said.
JUSTIFICATION
FBI officials issued approvals afterward to justify their actions in collecting the phone records between 2002 and 2006, the newspaper said.
The Post said it had obtained e-mails that showed how counterterrorism officials did not follow procedures aimed at protecting civil liberties.
FBI officials confirmed a Justice Department inspector general’s report due this month is expected to conclude the FBI frequently violated the law with its emergency requests, the newspaper said.
VIOLATIONS
FBI general counsel Valerie Caproni, in an interview with the Post, said the FBI technically violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.
“We should have stopped those requests from being made that way,” she told the Post.
Caproni said FBI Director Robert Mueller did not know about the problems until the inspector general’s investigation, which began in mid-2006.
“No FBI employee used informal methods to obtain telephone records for reasons other than a legitimate investigative interest,” Kortan said.
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