Intelligence

FBI Papers Indicate Intelligence Violations

FBI Papers Indicate Intelligence Violations

Secret Surveillance Lacked Oversight

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 24, 2005; Page A01

The FBI has conducted clandestine surveillance on some U.S. residents for as long as 18 months at a time without proper paperwork or oversight, according to previously classified documents to be released today.

Records turned over as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit also indicate that the FBI has investigated hundreds of potential violations related to its use of secret surveillance operations, which have been stepped up dramatically since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but are largely hidden from public view.

In one case, FBI agents kept an unidentified target under surveillance for at least five years -- including more than 15 months without notifying Justice Department lawyers after the subject had moved from New York to Detroit. An FBI investigation concluded that the delay was a violation of Justice guidelines and prevented the department "from exercising its responsibility for oversight and approval of an ongoing foreign counterintelligence investigation of a U.S. person."

In other cases, agents obtained e-mails after a warrant expired, seized bank records without proper authority and conducted an improper "unconsented physical search," according to the documents.

Although heavily censored, the documents provide a rare glimpse into the world of domestic spying, which is governed by a secret court and overseen by a presidential board that does not publicize its deliberations. The records are also emerging as the House and Senate battle over whether to put new restrictions on the controversial USA Patriot Act, which made it easier for the government to conduct secret searches and surveillance but has come under attack from civil liberties groups.

The records were provided to The Washington Post by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, an advocacy group that has sued the Justice Department for records relating to the Patriot Act.

David Sobel, EPIC's general counsel, said the new documents raise questions about the extent of possible misconduct in counterintelligence investigations and underscore the need for greater congressional oversight of clandestine surveillance within the United States.

"We're seeing what might be the tip of the iceberg at the FBI and across the intelligence community," Sobel said. "It indicates that the existing mechanisms do not appear adequate to prevent abuses or to ensure the public that abuses that are identified are treated seriously and remedied."

FBI officials disagreed, saying that none of the cases have involved major violations and most amount to administrative errors. The officials also said that any information obtained from improper searches or eavesdropping is quarantined and eventually destroyed.

"Every investigator wants to make sure that their investigation is handled appropriately, because they're not going to be allowed to keep information that they didn't have the proper authority to obtain," said one senior FBI official, who declined to be identified by name because of the ongoing litigation. "But that is a relatively uncommon occurrence. The vast majority of the potential [violations] reported have to do with administrative timelines and time frames for renewing orders."

The documents provided to EPIC focus on 13 cases from 2002 to 2004 that were referred to the Intelligence Oversight Board, an arm of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board that is charged with examining violations of the laws and directives governing clandestine surveillance. Case numbers on the documents indicate that a minimum of 287 potential violations were identified by the FBI during those three years, but the actual number is certainly higher because the records are incomplete.

FBI officials declined to say how many alleged violations they have identified or how many were found to be serious enough to refer to the oversight board.

Catherine Lotrionte, the presidential board's counsel, said most of its work is classified and covered by executive privilege. The board's investigations range from "technical violations to more substantive violations of statutes or executive orders," Lotrionte said.

Most such cases involve powers granted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which governs the use of secret warrants, wiretaps and other methods as part of investigations of agents of foreign powers or terrorist groups. The threshold for such surveillance is lower than for traditional criminal warrants. More than 1,700 new cases were opened by the court last year, according to an administration report to Congress.

In several of the cases outlined in the documents released to EPIC, FBI agents failed to file annual updates on ongoing surveillance, which are required by Justice Department guidelines and presidential directives, and which allow Justice lawyers to monitor the progress of a case. Others included a violation of bank privacy statutes and an improper physical search, though the details of the transgressions are edited out. At least two others involve e-mails that were improperly collected after the authority to do so had expired.

Some of the case details provide a rare peek into the world of FBI counterintelligence. In 2002, for example, the Pittsburgh field office opened a preliminary inquiry on a person to "determine his/her suitability as an asset for foreign counterintelligence matters" -- in other words, to become an informant. The violation occurred when the agent failed to extend the inquiry while maintaining contact with the potential asset, the documents show.

The FBI general counsel's office oversees investigations of alleged misconduct in counterintelligence probes, deciding whether the violation is serious enough to be reported to the oversight board and to personnel departments within Justice and the FBI. The senior FBI official said those cases not referred to the oversight board generally involve missed deadlines of 30 days or fewer with no potential infringement of the civil rights of U.S. persons, who are defined as either citizens or legal U.S. resident aliens.

"The FBI and the people who work in the FBI are very cognizant of the fact that people are watching us to make sure we're doing the right thing," the senior FBI official said. "We also want to do the right thing. We have set up procedures to do the right thing."

But in a letter to be sent today to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sobel and other EPIC officials argue that the documents show how little Congress and the public know about the use of clandestine surveillance by the FBI and other agencies. The group advocates legislation requiring the attorney general to report violations to the Senate.

The documents, EPIC writes, "suggest that there may be at least thirteen instances of unlawful intelligence investigations that were never disclosed to Congress."

October 24, 2005 at 11:41 PM in FBI | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

F.B.I. Widens Investigation in New Jersey Espionage Case

F.B.I. Widens Investigation in New Jersey Espionage Case - New York Times

By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: October 6, 2005

WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 - The Federal Bureau of Investigation said Wednesday it had expanded a New Jersey espionage investigation in an effort to determine whether one of its own agents, charged last month with spying for the Philippines, might have also had improper access to classified information while working in Vice President Dick Cheney's office several years ago.

The F.B.I. agent, Leandro Aragoncillo, 46, of Woodbury, N.J., an American citizen who was born in the Philippines, was charged Sept. 12 with passing classified information to government officials in Manila.

The charges filed against Mr. Aragoncillo relate only to classified information that officials say he took from F.B.I. computers after joining the agency in July 2004.

But the investigation is widening, officials said, in light of the fact that he had worked for several years prior to joining the agency as a marine in the vice president's office under both Al Gore and Mr. Cheney. Military aides usually hold security clearances.

ABC News reported Wednesday night that Mr. Aragoncillo was accused of stealing classified material from White House computers at the vice president's office, including information damaging to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

On Wednesday, government officials said they had no corroboration that any material had been taken from the vice president's office, but they acknowledged that investigators had been focusing on Mr. Aragoncillo's work at the White House.

The White House refused Wednesday to comment on the case. "It is an ongoing investigation and, as such, all questions should be directed to the F.B.I.," said Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman. Richard Kolko, an F.B.I. special agent, said, "We're going to do a full investigation of the entire time he had access to any classified or sensitive information, and in the course of the investigation, we will do all due diligence to determine if any other improper activity occurred."

Also charged in the case last month in New Jersey was a friend of Mr. Aragoncillo, Michael Ray Aquino, 39, of Queens, who was deputy director of the Philippines National Police under the government of the former president, Joseph Estrada.

The complaint accused Mr. Aragoncillo of passing copies of classified documents about the Philippines to Mr. Aquino between February and August of this year, after he joined the bureau.

Mr. Aquino was arrested in March on immigration charges for overstaying his visa. Investigators began looking at Mr. Aragoncillo after he sought to intervene on his friend's behalf and agents became suspicious, according to the complaint.

A search of F.B.I. computer records showed that Mr. Aragoncillo had conducted extensive keyword searches on agency computers for information related to the Philippines and had printed or downloaded 101 classified documents on the subject. More than three dozen documents were classified secret.

The classified documents that Mr. Aragoncillo is accused of passing center on political rivalries in Manila, according to court documents.

In recent weeks, the Philippine Daily Inquirer has published reports - apparently based on some of the leaked material - that discussed American assessments of the faltering support for President Arroyo's administration.

One such report said that the American embassy in Manila believed that factions in the Philippine military might be planning to move against her and that she might seek to use hard-core supporters outside the military to thwart a coup attempt.

October 6, 2005 at 12:34 AM in FBI | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Audit Finds Large FBI Translation Backlog

Yahoo! News - Audit Finds Large FBI Translation Backlog

Tue Sep 28, 2:29 AM ET
By CURT ANDERSON, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Despite major increases in money and personnel, the FBI (news - web sites) is still failing to translate many al-Qaida surveillance recordings in a timely manner and faces a giant backlog of untranslated material from terrorism and espionage investigations, a new Justice Department (news - web sites) audit shows.

The report released Monday by Glenn A. Fine, the department's inspector general, found more than one-third of al-Qaida intercepts authorized by a secret federal court were not reviewed within 12 hours of collection, as required by FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, more than 123,000 hours of audio in languages associated with terrorists still had not been reviewed as of April 2004, the audit found. In addition, more than 370,000 hours of audio associated with counterintelligence had not been reviewed.

This backlog existed even though money for the FBI's language services had increased from $21.5 million in fiscal 2001 to about $70 million in fiscal 2004. The number of linguists had risen from 883 to 1,214 over that period, the audit found, while electronic surveillance collection in key languages such as Arabic and Pashto has risen 45 percent.

FBI critics on Capitol Hill said the audit indicates that the bureau's translation capabilities are far from adequate.

"It doesn't do anyone any good for the FBI to have the terrorists' attack plans in its hands but still not be able to see or hear what the plans are," said Sen. Charles Grassley (news, bio, voting record), R-Iowa, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee (news - web sites).

The audit was completed in July in classified form. The version released Monday was edited to remove sections classified as "secret" by the FBI.

The FBI also is not meeting Mueller's requirement that all al-Qaida communications collected under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act be reviewed within 12 hours of interception. During April 2004, the audit found, 36 percent of such communications authorized by the secret FISA court were not even received at FBI headquarters within 12 hours.

The audit found that the FBI still lacks language personnel necessary to do all the needed translation work, and limitations in its technology, especially computer storage capacity, also cause problems that lead to backlogs.

"Three years after the worst terrorist attack on American soil, the overall effectiveness of a major investigative tool in our antiterrorism arsenal is still in doubt," said Sen. Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record) of Vermont, senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. "The Justice Department's translation mess has become a chronic problem that has obvious implications for our national security."

The audit made 18 recommendations for the FBI, many of which already have been implemented, Fine said. FBI officials told auditors they are hiring linguists as quickly as they can be found in such languages as Arabic, Farsi, Pashto, Urdu, Chinese, Turkish and Kurdish.

"The FBI appears to be taking steps to address these issues, which are critical components of the FBI's counterterrorism and counterintelligence efforts," Fine said.

Mueller said the FBI's translation workload has doubled since the Sept. 11 attacks, and the bureau is committed to hiring more linguists and fixing the technological problems. One difficulty is that the FBI has trouble finding qualified linguists who can pass required security clearances for sensitive terrorism and intelligence investigations, he said.

But Mueller also said FBI linguists are now connected worldwide so that someone in one office can work on information collected by another office far away.

"We agree with (the inspector general) that more remains to be done in our language services program, and we are giving this effort the highest priority," Mueller said.

___

On the Net:

Justice Department inspector general: http://www.usdoj.gov/oig

FBI: http://www.fbi.gov

September 28, 2004 at 07:21 AM in FBI | Permalink | TrackBack (91) | Top of page | Blog Home

FBI to arrest Israeli Pentagon spy

From Roland Watson in Washington

THE FBI has uncovered an Israeli spy at the highest levels of the Pentagon who may have influenced White House policy on Iraq and Iran.

Federal investigators have a major investigation underway and are poised to arrest the suspected "mole", who was working from inside the office of Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, CBS News reported last night.

The FBI believes that it has "solid" evidence that the mole supplied Israel with highly classified documents, including secret White House deliberations on Iraq and Iran.

The claim drew a swift denial from the Israeli Embassy in Washington last night.

CBS quoted sources saying that the suspected spy, described as a trusted analyst in the Pentagon, handed over a confidential presidential directive on US policy towards Iran while it was "in the draft phase with US policy-makers still debating policy".

This put the Israelis "inside the decision-making loop", giving them the opportunity to "try to influence the outcome".

The FBI is also examining whether the mole tried to steer US policy on Iraq.

The analyst was said to have close ties with Paul Wolfowitz, Mr Rumsfeld's deputy, and Douglas Feith, a Defence Under Secretary, and was assigned to a unit within the building tasked with helping to develop the Pentagon's Iraq policy.

The Pentagon was in the vanguard of arguing the case for toppling Saddam Hussein and both Mr Wolfowitz and Mr Feith are leading neo-conservatives and were vigorous supporters of the Iraq war.

Mr Feith has been accused by some critics of stretching US intelligence too far and removing its caveats.

The FBI inquiry is believed to involve two people who work at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a powerful pro-Israeli lobby in the US capital.

The investigation is headed by Dave Szady and has involved wiretaps, undercover surveillance and photography that CBS News said documented the passing of classified information from the mole to the two AIPAC employees and onto the Israelis.

Lesley Stahl, a CBS News correspondent, said that the FBI had a fully-fledged espionage investigation under way and is about to "roll up someone who agents believe has been spying, not for an enemy but for Israel, from within the office of the Secretary of Defense".

CBS News said that it had placed repeated phone calls to the suspected spy, but none had been returned.

AIPAC told CBS News that it was co-operating with the Government and is taking legal advice. It denied being involved in any wrong-doing.

The US Administration has told AIPAC that it wants information about the two employees and their contacts with the suspected spy.

Asked about the CBS News report, a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy said: "We categorically deny these allegations.

"They are completely false and outrageous."

Copyright 2004 Times Newspapers Ltd.

August 28, 2004 at 07:33 PM in FBI | Permalink | TrackBack (65) | Top of page | Blog Home