FC: Senate Judiciary blasts FBI, Justice Department on FISA

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Associated Press article on report:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/02/25/antiterror.act.ap/
> The report contended that the FBI and the Justice Department were guilty 
> of excessive secrecy, inadequate training, weak information analysis and 
> the stifling of internal dissent in using the Foreign Intelligence 
> Surveillance Act, a key tool in the war on terrorism.

The report:
http://specter.senate.gov/files/specterspeaks/ACF6.pdf

-Declan

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEAG
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2003(202) 514-2008
WWW.USDOJ.GOVTDD (202) 514-1888


STATEMENT OF BARBARA COMSTOCK, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS:

"The Justice Department has fully addressed the FISA problems that occurred 
almost entirely prior to this Administration.  This report is old news and 
inexplicably focuses on the FISA District Court decision that was 
overturned by the FISA appellate court.  In fact, Judge Lamberth, the 
former Presiding Judge of the FISA Court, stated publicly that 'we 
consistently find the [FISA] applications "well-scrubbed" by the Attorney 
General and his staff before they are presented to us,' and that 'the 
process is working.  It is working in part because the Attorney General is 
conscientiously doing his job, as is his staff.'"

###

ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

The report issued by Senators Leahy, Specter, and Grassley is not an 
official Judiciary Committee report and has not been endorsed by the 
Chairman or the majority of the Committee.  These minority views recite 
matters that have already been discussed authoritatively elsewhere and omit 
information that is essential to any fair and balanced account of the 
issues, particularly with respect to the question of Congressional oversight.

The report unfairly criticizes the Department of Justice for an alleged 
lack of responsiveness to Judiciary Committee oversight requests.  Since 
September 11th, 2001 the Attorney General, the FBI Director, and other 
senior Justice officials have conducted more than 140 classified and 
unclassified briefings for Congress on FISA, terrorism, FBI reorganization, 
and related matters.  During the three months immediately following the 
September 11th  attacks, the Department and FBI briefed or met with 
Congressional Members or staff on average more than once a day.  From 
September 2002 through February 2003, there have been more than twenty 
briefings for the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees on matters related 
to, or addressed, in the report.  Department and FBI officials, often at 
the most senior levels, testified at 29 formal oversight hearings on these 
matters since September 11, 2001.

In addition to providing vast numbers of pre-existing documents to 
Congress, the Department submitted written answers to more than 300 
questions for the record, with hundreds of additional questions set forth 
in sub-parts.  The Department has also responded to other inquiries from 
the Judiciary Committees concerning general Department oversight, 
intelligence matters, FISA, and the war on terrorism, the answers to which 
comprise approximately 300 pages.

The report repeats dated criticisms of the FBI for errors contained in 75 
FISA applications filed with the FISC between January 1997 and July 2000, 
but the report never acknowledges the steps taken by the Department to 
address and improve accuracy which began prior to September 11th through 
the "Woods Procedures."  That omission is puzzling because accuracy was 
addressed at length in open hearings held by the Senate Judiciary Committee 
on September 10, 2002.


###




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