Now that the FBI has actually admitted that it has systematically abused the USA PATRIOT Act, where are all of those defenders of the USA PATRIOT Act and the Bush Administration who scoffed that it has never been abused? Hello Mr. Goldberg, et al. You ask for evidence that it has been abused? Well all you had to do was wait long enough to give the FBI some time to get familiar with how the process works to find ways to abuse it:
update WASHINGTON--Widespread abuse of the FBI's authority to secretly obtain Americans' telephone, Internet and financial records drew pointed questioning on Tuesday from a key U.S. House of Representatives panel.
As promised by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), the panel chided U.S. Department of Justice Glenn Fine and FBI General Counsel Valerie Caproni about an internal audit released earlier this month that detailed the FBI's missteps and illegal use of an investigative tool known as national security letters.
"The department has converted this tool into a handy shortcut to illegally gather vast amounts of private information," Conyers said, "while at the same time significantly under-reporting its activities to Congress."
This article from the Wasington Post goes into even deeper detail about how the FBI's agents often acted as though the emergency circumstances requirement was nothing more than an optional guideline for them to follow. Even if there are no egregious violations of the law in this case, such as using the powers the USA PATRIOT Act bestows on the FBI for personal gain, there is the fact that there was, and still is (how many of the offenders have been fired?), a prevailing atttitude within the agency that they are not in fact required to keep detailed records and be conservative in how they use these quasi-unconstitutional methods of gathering evidence.
The first rule in defining a proper security policy is to give only as much authority as is needed to get a job done. Anything beyond that, what you would call discressionary authority, is a potential security risk.
***UPDATE***: There is another angle to this that I didn't quite realize at first, until I read this article:
The Justice Department report rebuked the FBI for improperly obtaining customer records from telephone companies, internet service providers, banks and credit card issuers.
I have in the past pointed out that one of the greatest dangers that the data retention policies that the Bush Administration is pushing, is the possibility of law enforcement abuse of them. Now they have already shown that they cannot use the powers granted to them by the USA PATRIOT Act responsibility, and they want us to trust them with that much information at their disposal? I think not! If they are already willing to fudge here and there, and sometimes outright break the law with these powers, the abuse of data retention policies will invariably be more realistic of a concern than even I previously expected it to be.
As usual, you are missing the point. The FBI is not abusing a lawful authority. They are unlawfully abusing their authority. Their own internal audits discovered it and corrected it. THey violated the law, and their own internal policies. That is standard government work. The law itself did not create the potential for abuse. It was not followed.
And you are missing part of my point which is that the law aided in the creation of an environment of lesser accountability and more latitude for the agents. There would have been more of a bright line here if the law was not enacted in the first place.
There is also the issue of trusting them with this power at all. Good for them that they caught this abuse of power, but that means nothing other than the FBI has good auditors. When will we see mass demotions, firings and even prosecutions? The law did create the potential for abuse by permitting a dangerous behavior that could easily be exploited by people of lesser moral character.
By saying the law did not strongly aid in the creation of the problem, you are basically arguing that the only problem with discressionary power is the people, not the fact that the power itself creates an environment where people are apt to break the law or behave wrongly/unethically.
So long as you have a government of any kind, you risk the potential for abuse. The framers of our constitution recognized that and set up checks and balances. That system has effectively resulted in keeping our government from total collapse into oligarchy to this point.
You cannot blame a law for abuse when the law was disobeyed. If it were followed to the letter and the abuse occured, you would have a point. THe law does not encourage FBI agents to subvert it. The workload increase since 9-11 created the conditions for agents to find shortcuts. The law did nothing to enable them and their own internal checks and balances discovered their errors. This is a story about stuff working correctly.
There is also still no evidence that the data was abused, just collected. There are no allegations that anyone was wrongfuly prosecuted using this data. so what you are left with is nothing but bureaucracy cycling around itself with no harm done.
There really are things that the government does that deserve condemnation. Wasting your indignation on this just wastes your energy.
There is also still no evidence that the data was abused, just collected.
The longer these powers continue the closer the probability that it is abused approaches a 100%. Roci, you know very well this information is already being misused/abused and the process will continue. That a certain amount of it has been caught and stopped is commendable. But any sort of auditing process is ALWAYS behind the curve. They can only find out what has happened after it has occurred and so agents will continue to abuse Citizens.
So long as you have a government of any kind, you risk the potential for abuse. The framers of our constitution recognized that and set up checks and balances. The risk is always there, but the more power that is given, the looser the reigns, the more likely it will happen. Before Bush the Younger we had already allowed Gov't to take many powers beyond its lawful scope, and since 9/11 we have allowed them to take even more (un)PATRIOT ACTs part 1 & 2 aren't the only things. We now, literally, have secret laws. Laws that you can violate but aren't allowed to ever see. Even in court! So in this nation it is now possible to be prosecuted and be completely unable to defend oneself because you cannot even know the nature of the charge against you.
Far too much power and it is being used, auditors or no. (Funny thing is, the GAO tells us the Gov departments are in such bad shape that even their auditors (the dept's and the GAO's) dont know what is going on. So don't ask us to put too much (or even any) faith in gov audits)
...even their auditors (the dept's and the GAO's) dont know what is going on
As if they ever did.
official corruption is not hidden from us. It doesn't need armies of investigators and special prosecutors. Anyone ever hear of campaign contributions?