Frequent Errors In FBI’s Secret Records Requests, By John Solomon and Barton Gellman, Washington Post Staff Writers

A Justice Department investigation has found pervasive errors in the FBI’s use of its power to secretly demand telephone, e-mail and financial records in national security cases, officials with access to the report said yesterday.

The inspector general’s audit found 22 possible breaches of internal FBI and Justice Department regulations — some of which were potential violations of law — in a sampling of 293 “national security letters.” The letters were used by the FBI to obtain the personal records of U.S. residents or visitors between 2003 and 2005. The FBI identified 26 potential violations in other cases. …

The use of national security letters has grown exponentially since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In 2005 alone, the audit found, the FBI issued more than 19,000 such letters, amounting to 47,000 separate requests for information.

Report Details Missteps in Data Collection, “By R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post Staff Writer

Over a three-year period ending in 2005, the FBI collected intimate information about the lives of a population roughly the size of Bethesda’s — 52,000 — and stored it in an intelligence database accessible to about 12,000 federal, state and local law enforcement authorities and to certain foreign governments.

The FBI did so without systematically retaining evidence that its data collection was legal, without ensuring that all the data it obtained matched its needs or requests, without correctly tallying and reporting its efforts to Congress, and without ferreting out all of its abuses and reporting them to an intelligence oversight board. …

“We believe,” the inspector general’s office said in a summary of whether and how often the tool might have jeopardized the privacy of U.S. residents, “that a significant number of NSL-related violations are not being identified or reported by the FBI.” …

Congress significantly lowered the threshold for the government to obtain such information after the 2001 terrorism attacks, producing what the FBI itself reported as at least a fivefold increase in annual requests. Its tally cited 39,000 requests in 2003, 56,000 in 2004 and 47,000 in 2005 — involving a total of 24,937 “U.S. persons” (including citizens and green-card holders) and 27,262 foreigners in the United States. In 2004, nine letters alone requested telephone-subscriber information on 11,100 phone numbers.

The inspector general’s report discloses, however, that these numbers understated the FBI’s use of national security letters to collect data. After checking 77 investigative case files at four FBI field offices, investigators found that those offices had “significantly” underreported the number of requests they had made and that, in this small subset alone, the real number was 22 percent higher. …

The tens of thousands of data-collection requests have produced few criminal charges directly related to terrorism or espionage, according to the inspector general’s report. About half of the FBI’s field offices did not refer any of those targeted by such requests to prosecutors, the report said, and the most common charges cited by others were fraud, immigration violations and money laundering.

Firings Had Genesis in White House, By Dan Eggen and John Solomon, Washington Post Staff Writers

The White House suggested two years ago that the Justice Department fire all 93 U.S. attorneys, a proposal that eventually resulted in the dismissals of eight prosecutors last year, according to e-mails and internal documents that the administration will provide to Congress today.

The dismissals took place after President Bush told Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales in October that he had received complaints that some prosecutors had not energetically pursued voter-fraud investigations, according to a White House spokeswoman. …

Administration officials have portrayed the firings as a routine personnel matter, designed primarily to rid the department of a handful of poor performers.

But the documents and interviews indicate that the idea for the firings originated at least two years ago, when then-White House counsel Harriet E. Miers suggested to Sampson in February 2005 that all prosecutors be dismissed and replaced. [mjh: wasn’t Miers a Bush nominee for the Supreme Court?] …

Sampson also strongly urged bypassing Congress in naming replacements, using a little-known power slipped into the renewal of the USA Patriot Act in March 2006 that allows the attorney general to name interim replacements without Senate confirmation. [mjh: the Patriot Act is Bush’s great legacy.]

Think tank: a group that exists solely to promote one-sided views, about which its members give no thought. A self-aggrandizing term used by people with no sense of irony, like gentlemen’s club. Thugs with certificates.

Free-market: a conservative view that government exists to bolster business and leave individuals to fend for themselves.

Free-market think tank: a propaganda machine meeting at Hooters and saving the receipts for tax deductions.

ABC30.com: Gore’s Real ‘Inconvenient Truth’? By JAKE TAPPER

Armed with two years of Al Gore’s utility bills, a Tennessee think tank blasts the former vice president for environmental hypocrisy.

The windbags in the echo chamber are blowing hard today. It’s almost funny to hear people claim there is no human cause to global warming (itself a shift from outright denial of any warming a few years ago) AND castigate Gore for his contribution to global warming. Oh, I know, “it’s the hypocrisy.” Let’s not go there, people. If you’ve never done anything someone else finds hypocritical, you must live without any human contact. We’re all hypocrites from time to time or, if you can’t stand that, we’re all subject to the accusation, fairly or not. Leave it to conservatives to feign shock at human nature — that’s how out-of-touch conservatism is.

Let’s do an environmental impact statement of the endless war in Iraq. Or the White House. Or Dick Cheney.

Why did the long knives of conservatives flash today? Gore’s performance at the Oscars scares them. It wasn’t wooden. Conservatives have to think of a whole new set of accusations. As Iraq proves, conservatives are great at destroying things. mjh

FOXNews.com – Al Gore Changing His Mind About the White House? – Celebrity Gossip By Roger Friedman

Gore’s triumphant display at the Academy Awards on Sunday night certainly bolstered his ego if not his standing. And standing he got — an ovation inside the Kodak Theatre that not many ever receive.

On Saturday night, Gore made a surprise appearance at the home of billionaire Clinton backer Ron Burkle. This was not a coincidence. The event was for Armani, and Gore is not a fashionista, but he knew this was the place to be. And even though Burkle is committed for now to Hillary Clinton, he has plenty of money to share with other candidates if his main goal is to see a Democrat in office.

U.S. Sees New Al-Qaeda Threat By Walter Pincus, Washington Post Staff Writer

The new director of national intelligence said yesterday that the United States is “very concerned” that Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership are attempting to rebuild their terrorist network and establish training camps in a region of northwest Pakistan “that has never been governed by any power.”

“We inflicted a major blow, they retreated to another area, and they are going through a process to reestablish and rebuild, adapting to the seams or the weak spots as they might perceive them,” retired Vice Adm. John M. McConnell told the Senate Armed Services Committee as he delivered his first global threat assessment to Capitol Hill. …

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) asked McConnell about the probability that al-Qaeda members in Pakistan or Iraq are organizing an attack on the United States — a scenario that President Bush recently hinted at should U.S. forces withdraw from Iraq. The intelligence chief replied that an attack would “most likely” emerge from Pakistan, though he described Iraq as “a cause celebre for the jihadists in creating forces,” and warned that al-Qaeda elements in Iraq, Syria and Europe are planning attacks.
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Bush and Al Qaeda – International Herald Tribune

The new picture seems to belie the triumphalist tone of President George W. Bush, who said a few days before last November’s congressional elections, “Al Qaeda is on the run.”

New Profiling Program Raises Privacy Concerns By Ellen Nakashima and Alec Klein, Washington Post Staff Writers

The Department of Homeland Security is testing a data-mining program that would attempt to spot terrorists by combing vast amounts of information about average Americans, such as flight and hotel reservations. Similar to a Pentagon program killed by Congress in 2003 over concerns about civil liberties, the new program could take effect as soon as next year.

But researchers testing the system are likely to already have violated privacy laws by reviewing real information, instead of fake data, according to a source familiar with a congressional investigation into the $42.5 million program.

Bearing the unwieldy name Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight and Semantic Enhancement (ADVISE), the program is on the cutting edge of analytical technology that applies mathematical algorithms to uncover hidden relationships in data. The idea is to troll a vast sea of information, including audio and visual, and extract suspicious people, places and other elements based on their links and behavioral patterns.
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New Light Shed on CIA’s ‘Black Site’ Prisons By Dafna Linzer and Julie Tate, Washington Post Staff Writers

On his last day in CIA custody, Marwan Jabour, an accused al-Qaeda paymaster, was stripped naked, seated in a chair and videotaped by agency officers. Afterward, he was shackled and blindfolded, headphones were put over his ears, and he was given an injection that made him groggy. Jabour, 30, was laid down in the back of a van, driven to an airstrip and put on a plane with at least one other prisoner.

His release from a secret facility in Afghanistan on June 30, 2006, was a surprise to Jabour — and came just after the Supreme Court rejected the Bush administration’s assertion that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to prisoners like him.

[mjh: read the whole story to learn how a great and powerful nation deals with suspected enemies.]

In the first couple of letters to the editor today, we learn that the real problem with Iraq is the liberals at home. Yeah, right.

Did you know that the B1 bomber is now in Iraq for the first time? How useful is a bomber in street-fighting? Is there anything left standing in Baghdad — or will there be when we declare victory and go home?

The solution to this war does not come from killing more people. Every death makes a martyr, every survivor a new militant.

The Shia and Sunni have to make peace. god help them. mjh

ABQjournal: Letters to the Editor

Liberal Deja Vu All Over

FOR THOSE of us who fought in Vietnam, the actions of the liberals in Congress will be “deja vu all over again.” The liberals are trying once again to pull the rug out from under our troops in time of war… [Liberals’] knowledge of history is limited to their liberal view. — D.B., Abq.

[mjh: is it possible that DB’s knowledge of the present is limited by his conservative view?]

Uniforms Not for Everybody

If you have never served your country and been in war, you just don’t know. And it is a waste of time for a combat veteran to try to explain it. You just won’t get it. — D.K., Abq.

[mjh: this is precisely what evangelical Christians say about their faith.]

Majority in Poll Favor Deadline For Iraq Pullout By Dan Balz and Jon Cohen, Washington Post Staff Writers

With Congress preparing for renewed debate over President Bush’s Iraq policies, a majority of Americans now support setting a deadline for withdrawing U.S. forces from the war-torn nation and support putting new conditions on the military that could limit the number of personnel available for duty there, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Opposition to Bush’s plan to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq remained strong. Two in three Americans registered their disapproval, with 56 percent saying they strongly object. The House recently passed a nonbinding resolution opposing the new deployments, but Republicans have blocked consideration of such a measure in the Senate. …

The Post-ABC poll found that 53 percent of Americans favored setting a deadline for troop withdrawals. Among those who favored a deadline, 24 percent said they would like to see U.S. forces out within six months and 21 percent called for the withdrawals to be completed within a year. …

Nearly seven in 10 women supported establishing some rules for training and rest time for troops to limit the number available for duty in Iraq, and 47 percent of men favored those limits. Similarly, a majority of men opposed setting any deadline for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq, while an even larger majority of women would like to see a deadline established.

The poll also registered a new low on the question of whether the Iraq war was worth fighting. Thirty-four percent responded that it was, while 64 percent said it was not — 51 percent strongly. On this question, 51 percent of military veterans and 53 percent of veteran households said they strongly believe that the war was not worth fighting.

Dubya’s War Without End has become more than just a recruiting ground for our enemies. It has become the perfect training ground. Every day, insurgents hone their tactics in urban guerrilla warfare. Tactics which would easily transfer to any city in America. It is beyond ironic that Duhbya brayed about fighting them “over there instead of over here.” Now they are more motivated and experienced than ever and better trained.

Duhbya has sown seeds that will bear fruit for generations. Some of that fruit will fall close to home. And his defenders will never recognize his responsibility in making the world much less safe than five years ago. mjh

Insurgents stage chemical attack, down helicopter, by BRIAN MURPHY, Associated Press

BAGHDAD – Insurgents exploded a truck carrying chlorine gas canisters Wednesday – the second such “dirty” chemical attack in two days – while a U.S. official said ground fire apparently forced the downing of a Black Hawk helicopter. All nine aboard the aircraft were rescued.

The attacks offer a sweeping narrative on evolving tactics by Sunni insurgents who have proved remarkably adaptable.

Military officials worry extremists may have recently gained more access to firepower such as shoulder-fired anti-aircraft rockets and heavy machine guns – and more expertise to use them. The Black Hawk would be at least the eighth U.S. helicopter to crash or be taken down by hostile fire in the past month.

The gas cloud in Baghdad, meanwhile, suggests possible new and coordinated strategies by bombers trying to unleash toxic – and potentially deadly – materials. “Terrorists are using dirty means,” said Brig. Gen. Qassim Moussawi, an Iraqi military spokesman.

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/world/16752230.htm