Tuesday, July 10, 2007

where is the audit data from 2002 to 2004 on patriot act section 215 business records?


~~~~~~~~~~~~
U P D A T E D:
07.10.07 10:00 a.m.
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thanks to reader margot, we
have some answers! her links led
to a trail that led to a march
21, 2007 hearing, at which the
phase one audit report was
presented
-- quoting now:
Findings of the OIG Review

Our review found widespread and serious misuse of the FBI’s national security letter authorities. In many instances, the FBI’s misuse of national security letters violated NSL statutes, Attorney General Guidelines, or the FBI’s own internal policies. We also found that the FBI did not provide adequate guidance, adequate controls, or adequate training on the use of these sensitive authorities. In many respects, the FBI’s oversight of the use of NSL authorities expanded by the Patriot Act was inconsistent and insufficient. . .


more to come, as i dig through the EFF docu-dump. . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~
END, UPDATED PORTION
~~~~~~~~~~~~


here appears the first dividend from the
electronic frontier foundation's FOIA
requests and lawsuits -- the liberation
of information -- see the post immediately
below this one (timestamped 12:07 a.m.), for background. . .

okay -- take a look -- click to enlarge:


[this image is from page 62 of the first FBI/DoJ PDF set.]

well, "phase one" of the above audit
report should have been completed,
and delivered, on march 9, 2007,
to both sen. leahy and rep. conyers.

and now, it should be rolled-forward
to inlcude data from 2005 through 2006
by december 31, 2007. . .

i certainly don't remember either
chairman conyers, or chairman leahy
making any statement about the audited
results of use, and misuse, of national
security letters under section 215 of
the as-modified patriot act, do you?

let me know if you've seen or heard
anything about it. this is worthy of
some oversight follow-up.

again, a sincere thanks to the the
fine lawyers at the electronic frontier
foundation
for helping keep us a
nation ruled by laws, not just by men,
these last few rather dark years. . .

more to come, as i get time to really
sort through the 1,100 page f.o.i.a. dump.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/woissues/civilliberties/theusapatriotact/usapatriotact.cfm
This isn't what you want, I'm afraid, but it's all I could find tonight. Very interesting.
--Margot

condor said...

hello, margot --

thank you so much for the link;
i am checking the root directory
of that site [ala.org] now, as the
specific link doesn't seem to
open anything. . . but i do
thank you kindly, for your efforts,
and interest, just the same.

i should have more on this later
this week -- i have a call into
sen. leahy's press staff, this
morning, about whether he ever
did receive the phase one audit
report. . .

p e a c e

condor said...

okay -- your link provided the
following trail -- very helpful!

it turns out that one of the ALA
officials prepared some written
testimony, for the senate select
committee on intelligence, to be
delivered on april 19, 2007 -- but
the hearing was postponed to may 1,
then continued a few times --
finally leading to a closed door meeting (i.e. secret meeting -- no data available to the public) -- on june 7, 2007:

06/07/07 2:30 PM Closed
Hearing: National Security Letters


so -- i have some leads to follow,
now! thanks again, marogt.

Anonymous said...

The report is on the IG's site under special reports:
http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/s0703a/final.pdf

Anonymous said...

Supposedly only 6 violations were found via the Patriot Act and national letters, which I don't believe for a second. But secondly, i am interested in who exactly was affected not just if they were effected. Was it a real terror suspect, or was it democrats or other political opponents? Exactly who it was that was incorrectly targeted is just as important as what may have happened.

I'm not sure how to help, are their any guidelines or suggestions on what to look for, etc?