Eggen, Dan. "FBI Reports on Missing Laptops and Weapons." Washington Post, 13 Feb. 2007, A6. [http://www.washingtonpost.com]Materials arranged chronologically.
Eggen, Dan. "FBI Reports on Missing Laptops and Weapons." Washington Post, 13 Feb. 2007, A6. [http://www.washingtonpost.com]
According to a report released on 12 February 2007 by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine, the FBI had 160 laptop computers lost or stolen from February 2002 to September 2005. At least 10 of these contained sensitive or classified information. In the same timeframe, the Bureau also had 160 missing weapons, including shotguns and submachine guns. "The results are an improvement on findings in a similar audit in 2002, which reported that 354 weapons and 317 laptops were lost or stolen at the FBI over about two years."
Johnston, David, and Eric Lipton. "U.S. Report to Fault F.B.I. on Subpoenas." New York Times, 9 Mar. 2007. [http://www.nytimes.com]
On 9 March 2007, the Justice Department’s inspector general will issue "a scathing report criticizing how the F.B.I. uses" national security letters "to obtain thousands of telephone, business and financial records without prior judicial approval.... Under the USA Patriot Act, the bureau each year has issued more than 20,000" such letters. "The report is said to conclude that the program lacks effective management, monitoring and reporting procedures." National security letters "were once used only in espionage and terrorism cases, and then only against people suspected as agents of a foreign power. With the passage of the Patriot Act, their use was greatly expanded and was allowed against Americans who were subjects of any investigation. The law also allowed other agencies like the Homeland Security Department to issue the letters."
Solomon, John, and Barton Gellman. "Frequent Errors In FBI's Secret Records Requests: Audit Finds Possible Rule Violations." Washington Post, 9 Mar. 2007, A1. [http://www.washingtonpost.com]
According to officials with access to the report, an audit by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine "has found pervasive errors in the FBI's use of its power" to issue national security letters "to secretly demand telephone, e-mail and financial records in national security cases.... The use of national security letters has grown exponentially" since the 9/11 attacks. "The letters enable an FBI field office to compel the release of private information without the authority of a grand jury or judge. The USA Patriot Act ... eliminated the requirement that the FBI show 'specific and articulable' reasons to believe that the records it demands belong to a foreign intelligence agent or terrorist."
Singel, Ryan. "Point, Click ... Eavesdrop: How the FBI Wiretap Net Operates." Wired, 29 Aug. 2007. [http://www.Wired.com]
According to nearly a thousand pages of documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, the FBI's surveillance system, the Digital Collection System Network or DCSNet, is a "sophisticated, point-and-click surveillance system that performs instant wiretaps on almost any communications device." DCSNet "connects FBI wiretapping rooms to switches controlled by traditional land-line operators, internet-telephony providers and cellular companies. It is far more intricately woven into the nation's telecom infrastructure than observers suspected."
Liptak, Adam. "Judge Voids F.B.I. Tool Granted by Patriot Act." New York Times, 7 Sep. 2007. [http://www.nytimes.com]
On 6 September 2007, Judge Victor Marrero of the Federal District Court in Manhattan "struck down the parts of the recently revised USA Patriot Act that authorized the Federal Bureau of Investigation to use informal secret demands called national security letters to compel companies to provide customer records." He "ruled that the measure violated the First Amendment and the separation of powers guarantee."
Bohn, Kevin, and Kelli Arena. "With 300,000 Names on List, Terrorist Center Always on Alert." CNN, 25 Sep. 2007. [http://www.cnn.com]
At the Terrorist Screening Center, "a highly secure" facility "in a classified location in northern Virginia," dozens of operations specialists use a "secret terror watch list" to respond to queries about possible terrorists. Officials said that "the consolidated watch list has 300,000 names.... The center's director, Leonard Boyle, said about 5 percent of the names on the list are U.S. citizens.... The majority of calls to the center come from border agents, Boyle said.... [T]he 4-year-old center ... is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week by FBI personnel, along with others on loan from various government agencies."
Shenon, Philip. "C.I.A. Officer Admits Guilt Over Hezbollah Files." New York Times, 14 Nov. 2007. [http://www.nytimes.com]
On 13 November 2007, Nada Nadim Prouty, "[a] Lebanese-born C.I.A. officer" who previously worked for the FBI, "pleaded guilty ... to charges that she illegally sought classified information" from FBI computers about the radical Islamic group Hezbollah. Prouty "also confessed that she had fraudulently obtained American citizenship." She "faces up to 16 years in prison." The plea agreement "appeared to expose grave flaws in the methods used" by the CIA and FBI "to conduct background checks on its investigators."
Warrick, Joby, and Dan Eggen. "Ex-FBI Employee's Case Raises New Security Concerns: Sham Marriage Led to U.S. Citizenship." Washington Post, 14 Nov. 2007, A3. [http://www.washingtonpost.com]
Nada Nadim Prouty "pleaded guilty in federal court in Detroit [on 13 November 2007] to charges of conspiracy, naturalization fraud and unauthorized computer access. In addition to losing her CIA job, she has agreed to forfeit her U.S. citizenship and to face additional penalties, possibly including fines and a prison term." Prouty has worked for the CIA's operations division since 2003. Prior to that, she had been an FBI special agent since 1999, where she gained "a security clearance and a post with the bureau's Washington Field Office investigating overseas crimes."
Weiner, Tim. "Hoover Planned Mass Jailing in 1950." New York Times, 23 Dec. 2007. [http://www.nytimes.com]
According to a collection of cold-war documents declassified on 21 December 2007, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover "had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison some 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty. Hoover sent his plan to the White House on July 7, 1950, 12 days after the Korean War began." The names of the individuals to be arrested "were part of an index that Hoover had been compiling for years. 'The index now contains approximately twelve thousand individuals, of which approximately ninety-seven per cent are citizens of the United States,' he wrote."
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