Re: [TSCM-L] {2269} Sweeps Gone Wild

From: Rogelio Villarreal G <rvg..._at_prodigy.net.mx>
Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 10:13:48 -0600

>From today's Yahoo page





WASHINGTON - 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, for an FBI employee who
pleaded guilty in June 2006 to stealing $25,000 for her own use, the audit
noted.

"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.
Received on Sat Mar 02 2024 - 00:57:21 CST