The Times Union
October 30, 2005
New data on FBI violations of federal law should give Congress pause about granting new powers
If Congress ever needed another reason not to expand the USA Patriot Act, it now has 113 of them. Those are the number of violations, either of federal law or internal policies, that the Federal Bureau of Investigation admits have been made during surveillance investigations. The records were disclosed after a civil liberties group filed a Freedom of Information request.
With that kind of FBI track record, this is no time for Congress to be handing the bureau even more powers to seize private records in the name of fighting terrorism.
FBI officials claim the violations are mainly technical and attributed them to agents who had not worked on national security investigations and were unfamiliar with the ground rules. Maybe. But the number of cases raises key questions for Congress as it debates whether to expand those investigative powers: How many more violations might that cause, and at what price to basic liberties?
Congress passed the Patriot Act in the tense days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when lawmakers believed the FBI and CIA needed greater latitude to gather information on terrorist cells. But as more time passed, it became clear that there was plenty of information on al-Qaida before Sept. 11, 2001, including repeated and specific warnings to government agencies and the airline industry that terrorists were known to be plotting to hijack airliners and crash them into national landmarks. Had those warnings been heeded, the horrors of 9/11 might have been averted. In short, it wasn't the lack of intelligence on al-Qaida that paved the way for the attacks -- it was the failure to act on that intelligence.
Yet the FBI is seeking even broader Patriot Act powers from Congress, including access to library, medical, gun, financial and other records without having to show the search is linked to a terrorism investigation, or without the standard safeguard of requiring the agency to get a judge's approval before beginning a search. Another provision would allow federal agents to conduct secret searches of homes and businesses for indefinite periods. The Senate has added reasonable restraints to both provisions, but the House favors expanded search powers. The differences are being debated in a conference committee.
Some members of Congress are concerned that these new powers would lead to fishing expeditions and abuses by government. Civil libertarians are equally concerned. And so are we. As regular readers of this page are aware, we have been printing a series of editorials on the Patriot Act for some time now, all focused on the need to safeguard basic liberties. If they are lost in the name of fighting terrorists, then the terrorists will have won.
