FC: Senate Judiciary blasts FBI, Justice Department on FISA

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Tue Feb 25 2003 - 15:34:11 PST

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    Associated Press article on report:
    http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/02/25/antiterror.act.ap/
    >The report contended that the FBI and the Justice Department were guilty 
    >of excessive secrecy, inadequate training, weak information analysis and 
    >the stifling of internal dissent in using the Foreign Intelligence 
    >Surveillance Act, a key tool in the war on terrorism.
    
    The report:
    http://specter.senate.gov/files/specterspeaks/ACF6.pdf
    
    -Declan
    
    ---
    
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEAG
    TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2003(202) 514-2008
    WWW.USDOJ.GOVTDD (202) 514-1888
    
    
    STATEMENT OF BARBARA COMSTOCK, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS:
    
    "The Justice Department has fully addressed the FISA problems that occurred 
    almost entirely prior to this Administration.  This report is old news and 
    inexplicably focuses on the FISA District Court decision that was 
    overturned by the FISA appellate court.  In fact, Judge Lamberth, the 
    former Presiding Judge of the FISA Court, stated publicly that 'we 
    consistently find the [FISA] applications "well-scrubbed" by the Attorney 
    General and his staff before they are presented to us,' and that 'the 
    process is working.  It is working in part because the Attorney General is 
    conscientiously doing his job, as is his staff.'"
    
    ###
    
    ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
    
    The report issued by Senators Leahy, Specter, and Grassley is not an 
    official Judiciary Committee report and has not been endorsed by the 
    Chairman or the majority of the Committee.  These minority views recite 
    matters that have already been discussed authoritatively elsewhere and omit 
    information that is essential to any fair and balanced account of the 
    issues, particularly with respect to the question of Congressional oversight.
    
    The report unfairly criticizes the Department of Justice for an alleged 
    lack of responsiveness to Judiciary Committee oversight requests.  Since 
    September 11th, 2001 the Attorney General, the FBI Director, and other 
    senior Justice officials have conducted more than 140 classified and 
    unclassified briefings for Congress on FISA, terrorism, FBI reorganization, 
    and related matters.  During the three months immediately following the 
    September 11th  attacks, the Department and FBI briefed or met with 
    Congressional Members or staff on average more than once a day.  From 
    September 2002 through February 2003, there have been more than twenty 
    briefings for the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees on matters related 
    to, or addressed, in the report.  Department and FBI officials, often at 
    the most senior levels, testified at 29 formal oversight hearings on these 
    matters since September 11, 2001.
    
    In addition to providing vast numbers of pre-existing documents to 
    Congress, the Department submitted written answers to more than 300 
    questions for the record, with hundreds of additional questions set forth 
    in sub-parts.  The Department has also responded to other inquiries from 
    the Judiciary Committees concerning general Department oversight, 
    intelligence matters, FISA, and the war on terrorism, the answers to which 
    comprise approximately 300 pages.
    
    The report repeats dated criticisms of the FBI for errors contained in 75 
    FISA applications filed with the FISC between January 1997 and July 2000, 
    but the report never acknowledges the steps taken by the Department to 
    address and improve accuracy which began prior to September 11th through 
    the "Woods Procedures."  That omission is puzzling because accuracy was 
    addressed at length in open hearings held by the Senate Judiciary Committee 
    on September 10, 2002.
    
    
    ###
    
    
    
    
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