FBI Cites More Than 100 Possible Eavesdropping Violations By Dan Eggen, Washington Post Staff Writer

The FBI reported more than 100 possible violations to an intelligence oversight board over the past two years, including cases in which agents tapped the wrong telephone, intercepted the wrong e-mails or continued to listen to conversations after a warrant had expired, according to a report issued yesterday.

In one case, the FBI obtained the contents of 181 telephone calls rather than just the billing records to which it was entitled. In another, a communication was monitored for more than a year after eavesdropping should have ended — although investigators blamed a third-party provider for the mix-up. …

“Despite the Bush administration’s attempt to demonize critics of its anti-terrorism policies as advancing phantom or trivial concerns, the report demonstrates that the independent Office of Inspector General has found that many of these policies indeed warrant full investigations,” [Rep. John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee,] said.

But Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the department is “pleased that the inspector general once again confirmed that there have been no substantiated civil liberties violations from the Patriot Act.”