Steve Benin reminds us of the scandal that got away.
In many ways, it was the scandal that got away. In March, we learned that Bush Justice Department, more specifically the FBI, was engaged in widespread, illegal misuse of “national security letters” (NSLs).
Using NSLs, the FBI has the power to obtain secret information about Americans — including phone calls, internet visits, even credit ratings — whether they’re suspected of wrongdoing or not. Officials can probe personal information without the consent, or even knowledge, of a judge.
There are, however, some laws and internal Justice Department regulations to regulate how the NSLs are obtained by law enforcement officials. As it turns out, the FBI violated these laws. What’s more, while DoJ officials claimed they didn’t realize the agency was ignoring the NSL safeguards, the truth was that their own lawyers had been warning them about abuse, but officials ignored the concerns.
This week, however, the Washington Post ran a front-page piece explaining that the illegal abuse at the FBI is bigger, more widespread, and more scandalous than anyone outside the DoJ realized — an internal audit found more than 1,000 abuses while reviewing 10% of NSL investigations since 2002. If the statistical sample is representative, we’re looking 10,000 instances of FBI agents obtaining information about Americans that they could not legally receive.
When this controversy first emerged in March, the problem drew bi-partisan criticism, but was quickly forgotten. Even after FBI Director Robert Mueller conceded that the bureau had been breaking the law, there was far more interest in the scandal surrounding purged U.S. Attorneys, and the FBI mess was quickly brushed off the front page (and the political world’s radar).
However, we might see this come up again. I sure hope so. As Walter said in The Big Lebowski, “Don’t run away from this, Dude! Goddamnit, this affects all of us… Our basic freedoms!”
