Gonzales Was Told of FBI Violations
John Solomon, Washington Post
On April 27, 2005, Attorney General Gonzales assured Congress that "there has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse" as a result o the PATRIOT Act. An EFF lawsuit against the Department Of Justice revealed that just six days before he made this statment to Congress, Gonzales had been copied on a communication to a presidential oversight board reporting improper use of a National Security Letter by the FBI. This incident helped to prompt an internal Justice Department investigation into whether Gonzales has made false or misleading testimony before Congress.
As he sought to renew the USA Patriot Act two years ago, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales assured lawmakers that the FBI had not abused its potent new terrorism-fighting powers. "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse," Gonzales told senators on April 27, 2005.
Six days earlier, the FBI sent Gonzales a copy of a report that said its agents had obtained personal information that they were not entitled to have. It was one of at least half a dozen reports of legal or procedural violations that Gonzales received in the three months before he made his statement to the Senate intelligence committee, according to internal FBI documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.
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Marcia Hofmann, a lawyer for the nonpartisan Electronic Frontier Foundation, said, "I think these documents raise some very serious questions about how much the attorney general knew about the FBI's misuse of surveillance powers and when he knew it." A lawsuit by Hofmann's group seeking internal FBI documents about NSLs prompted the release of the reports.
Related Issues: FOIA Litigation for Accountable Government (FLAG) Project
Related Cases: FOIA Litigation: Abuse of National Security Letters (NSLs)
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