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More FBI Privacy Violations Confirmed

The FBI improperly used national security letters in 2006 to obtain personal data on Americans during terror and spy investigations, Director Robert Mueller said Wednesday.

Source: myway, March 5, 2008

FBI to collect biometric information on Britons

British visitors to the US will have details of their physical characteristics added to a new billion dollar database under plans drawn up by the FBI.

Fingerprints, iris scans and even details of the way people walk, their scars and the size and shape of their ear lobes will be collected.

Source: Telegraph, December 26, 2007

FBI Working on World's Largest Biometric Database

The FBI is embarking on a $1 billion project to build the world's largest computer database of biometrics to give the government more ways to identify people at home and abroad, the Washington Post reported on Friday.

Source: PC Magazine, December 26, 2007

Cellphone Tracking Powers on Request

Federal officials are routinely asking courts to order cellphone companies to furnish real-time tracking data so they can pinpoint the whereabouts of drug traffickers, fugitives and other criminal suspects, according to judges and industry lawyers.

In some cases, judges have granted the requests without requiring the government to demonstrate that there is probable cause to believe that a crime is taking place or that the inquiry will yield evidence of a crime. Privacy advocates fear such a practice may expose average Americans to a new level of government scrutiny of their daily lives.

Source: The Washington Post (online), November 23, 2007

Judge Criticizes Warrantless Wiretaps

Royce Lamberth, a district court judge in Washington, said Saturday it was proper for executive branch agencies to conduct such surveillance. "But what we have found in the history of our country is that you can't trust the executive," he said at the American Library Association's convention.

Source: MyWay, June 23, 2007

FBI Finds It Frequently Overstepped in Collecting Data

An internal FBI audit has found that the bureau potentially violated the law or agency rules more than 1,000 times while collecting data about domestic phone calls, e-mails and financial transactions in recent years, far more than was documented in a Justice Department report in March that ignited bipartisan congressional criticism.

Source: The Washington Post (online), June 14, 2007

FBI Terror Watch List 'Out of Control'

Privacy and civil liberties advocates say the list is growing uncontrollably, threatening its usefulness in the war on terror.

ABC News (online), June 13, 2007

Military positioned to launch action – here

The United States military is being positioned to be put into action under presidential authority in any one of a dozen scenarios within the United States – including natural disasters, epidemics, terrorist attacks, insurrections, or domestic violence including conspiracies, according to a report from WND columnist Jerome R. Corsi.

Source: WorldNetDaily, June 5, 2007

Bush grants presidency extraordinary powers

President Bush has signed an executive order granting extraordinary powers to the office of the president in the event of a declared national emergency, apparently without congressional approval or oversight.

Source: WorldNetDaily, May 23, 2007

Terror Database Has Quadrupled In Four Years

TIDE [Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment] has also created concerns about secrecy, errors and privacy. The list marks the first time foreigners and U.S. citizens are combined in an intelligence database. The bar for inclusion is low, and once someone is on the list, it is virtually impossible to get off it. At any stage, the process can lead to "horror stories" of mixed-up names and unconfirmed information, Travers acknowledged.

Source: The Washington Post (online), March 25, 2007

Lawmakers Threaten FBI Over Spy Powers

Republicans and Democrats sternly warned the FBI on Tuesday that it could lose its broad power to collect telephone, e-mail and financial records to hunt terrorists after revelations of widespread abuses of the authority detailed in a recent internal investigation.

Source: Breitbart, March 20, 2007

Justice Dept.: FBI Misused Patriot Act

The FBI improperly and, in some cases, illegally used the USA Patriot Act to secretly obtain personal information about people in the United States, a Justice Department audit concluded Friday.

Source: MyWay, March 9, 2007

Bush Gives Himself Authority to Search the Mail

While most of Congress was preparing for the holiday season, President George Bush quietly asserted his authority by giving the government the right to search your mail without a warrant.

Source: consumeraffairs.com, January 4, 2007

Bill Clinton authorized Sandy Berger's access

President Bill Clinton signed a letter authorizing former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger's access to classified documents that later came up missing, according to a newly released investigation report by the National Archives and Records Administration.

Source: WorldNetDaily, January 4, 2007

FBI taps cell phone mic as eavesdropping tool

The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone's microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations.

Source: C/net, December 1, 2006

Man Mistakenly Abducted by C.I.A. Seeks Redress

The officials said Mr. Masri was released in May 2004 on the orders of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, after she learned he had been mistakenly identified as a terrorism suspect. He was freed in Albania, where he was left to make his way home to Germany, which he likened to being treated “like a piece of luggage.”

Source: The New York Times (online), November 28, 2006

Justice Department Eyes Spy Program

The Justice Department has begun an internal investigation into its handling of information gathered in the government's domestic spying program. However, Democrats criticized the review as too narrow to determine whether the program violated federal law.

Source: Breitbart, November 27, 2006

FBI setting up lab to track digital data

Crime scenes aren't just about fingerprints and blood samples anymore.

Increasingly, criminals are leaving behind digital traces of their activities -- on computers, cell phones, BlackBerries and other electronic devices.

Source: Courier Journal, October 20, 2006

Bush Signs Terror Interrogation Law

President Bush signed legislation Tuesday authorizing tough interrogation of terror suspects and smoothing the way for trials before military commissions, calling it a "vital tool" in the war against terrorism.

Source: My Way, October 17, 2006

Bush says he can edit security reports

President Bush, again defying Congress, says he has the power to edit the Homeland Security Department's reports about whether it obeys privacy rules while handling background checks, ID cards and watchlists.

Source: Yahoo News!, October 5, 2006

Education Department assisted FBI in terror search

A little-known federal program created days after Sept. 11, 2001, examined financial aid records of college students targeted by the FBI in terrorism investigations, but it's unclear whether it netted any terrorists, according to U.S. Education Department documents.

The program, called Project Strike Back, was a joint project of the department and the FBI and was created 10 days after the terrorist attacks, according to the documents from the department's Office of the Inspector General (OIG).

Source: USA Today (online), September 1, 2006

Lawyers to seek White House documents on alleged phone spying program

A pair of public interest lawyers said Tuesday they plan to subpoena the White House for any documents showing whether the Bush administration approved a secret program to examine the phone records of millions of Americans.

Source: Newsday (online), August, 29, 2006

Judge Rules Domestic Spying Wiretaps Illegal

A federal judge [in Detroit] ruled Thursday that the government's warrantless surveillance program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it.

Source: CBS5 (San Francisco, online), August 17, 2006

Court backs U.S. on prosecuting 2 who received leak
Limiting citizen use of government data sets new standard

In a ruling with potentially broad implications, a federal judge said Thursday that the Bush administration could use espionage laws to prosecute private citizens who gain access to national defense information.

Source: SFGate, August 11, 2006

Federal eavesdropping cases to be consolidated in S.F.

A federal panel is transferring 17 class-action lawsuits against telecommunications companies that allegedly cooperated with a warrantless government eavesdropping program to a San Francisco federal judge's courtroom.

Source: The Mercury News (online), August 10, 2006

Gonzales: Bush Blocked Eavesdropping Probe

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Tuesday that President Bush personally blocked Justice Department lawyers from pursuing an internal probe of the warrantless eavesdropping program that monitors Americans' international calls and e-mails when terrorism is suspected.

Source: My Way, July 18, 2006

White House asks for dismissal of NSA wiretap suit

The Bush administration on Monday asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program, arguing that defending the four-year-old wiretapping program in open court would risk national security.

Source: Reuters (online), July 10, 2006