FBI admits to mistakes in Internet, phone intercepts
An AP newswire article, via CNN, reports that:
The FBI says it sometimes gets the wrong number when it intercepts conversations in terrorism investigations, an admission critics say underscores a need to revise wiretap provisions in the Patriot Act.
The FBI would not say how often these mistakes happen. And, though any incriminating evidence mistakenly collected is not legally admissible in a criminal case, there is no way of knowing whether it is used to begin an investigation.
Parts of the Patriot Act, including a section on "roving wiretaps," expire in December. Such wiretaps allow the FBI to get permission from a secret federal court to listen in on any phone line or monitor any Internet account that a terrorism suspect may be using, regardless of whether others who are not suspects also regularly use it.
The bureau's acknowledgment that it makes mistakes in some wiretaps -- although not specifically roving wiretaps -- came in a recent Justice Department inspector general's report on the FBI's backlog of intercepted but unreviewed foreign-language conversations.
posted by Fergie @ 10/02/2005 01:24:00 PM
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