FC: AP's Ted Bridis on illegal FBI surveillance, videotaping

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Washington Post's coverage:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3704-2002Oct9.html

---

From: "Ted Bridis" <tbridis () ap org>
To: <declan () well com>
Subject: FISA
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2002 14:47:52 -0400
Organization: The Associated Press

        THE WHITE HOUSE REGULAR BRIEFING BRIEFER: ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE
HOUSE
  SPOKESMAN LOCATION: WHITE HOUSE BRIEFING ROOM, WASHINGTON, D.C. TIME:
12:53
  P.M. EDT DATE: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2002

      Q     The FISA court chastised the FBI for misrepresenting a lot
 of what they are doing with, wiretaps, et cetera.  There were 75
 occurrences.  Now there is a memo that has -- has been -- has in
 Congress.  And the question is, the president meets with the FBI
 pretty much every day.  Has he decided to take an active interest in
 this, or is he going to take an active interest in some of the
 overreaches of the FBI?

      MR. FLEISCHER:  The president has made it clear -- and he
 believes the FBI is doing this -- about the importance of doing two
 things and doing them well.  One is protecting the American people
 from the risks that we face from terrorists who would use our open
 system to come here and bring harm to people; and secondly, to do it
 within the Constitution because it's the Constitution, after all, that
 fundamentally gives us our greatest protections.  And that is the
 challenge that law enforcement faces at all times.  And the president
 is confident the FBI is doing it well.

http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/fisa/ec.pdf

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2121-2002Oct9.html

http://www.newseum.org/media/dfp/pdf/NV_LVRJ.pdf

FBI Memo Details Pre-9/11 Sloppiness

By Ted Bridis
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, October 9, 2002; 4:50 PM

WASHINGTON -- FBI agents illegally videotaped suspects, intercepted
e-mails without court permission and recorded the wrong phone
conversations during sensitive terrorism and espionage investigations,
according to an internal memorandum detailing serious lapses inside the
FBI more than a year before the Sept. 11 attacks.

The blunders - roughly 15 over the first three months of 2000 - were
never made public but garnered the attention of the "highest levels of
management" inside FBI, said the memo written by senior bureau lawyers
and obtained by The Associated Press.

Lawmakers reviewing FBI missteps preceding the terror attacks expressed
surprise Wednesday at the extent of errors detailed in the memo, which
focused on sensitive cases requiring warrants under the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The mistakes extend beyond those criticized in a rare public decision
this summer by the secretive U.S. court that oversees the surveillance
warrants. That court admonished the FBI for providing inaccurate
information in warrant applications.

The April 2000 memo - marked "immediate" and classified as "secret" -
describes different problems from those cited by the court. It describes
agents conducting unauthorized searches, writing warrants with wrong
addresses and allowing "overruns" of electronic surveillance operations
beyond their legal deadline.

"The level of incompetence here is egregious," said Rep. William D.
Delahunt, D-Mass., a member of the House Judiciary Committee who
obtained the memo from the FBI and provided it to AP.

[...]




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