Bush Pledges Swift Action on FBI Reform

Democrats and Republicans alike said Gonzales, Mueller and the Bush administration did not properly monitor the FBI and guard the privacy rights of U.S. citizens and legal residents. The report came at the end of a difficult political week for the Bush administration, after the conviction of Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff in the CIA leak case and damaging allegations by fired federal prosecutors.

Top lawmakers raised the possibility that Congress would seek to curb the Justice Department's powers, most likely by placing restrictions on the USA Patriot Act antiterrorism law.

"This goes above and beyond almost everything they've done already," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), who was among a host of Democrats promising investigative hearings. "It shows just how this administration has no respect for checks and balances."

Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), the Judiciary Committee's ranking Republican, told reporters that Congress may "impose statutory requirements and perhaps take away some of the authority which we've already given to the FBI, since they appear not to be able to know how to use it."

Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), who has been pressing for a review of national security letters since 2005, said the report "confirms the American people's worst fears about the Patriot Act."

A national security letter is a type of administrative subpoena that allows the FBI to demand records from banks, credit-reporting agencies and other companies without the supervision of a judge. The Patriot Act significantly expanded the FBI's ability to use them, and a reauthorization of the law last year required the audit that was issued yesterday.

The findings by inspector general Fine were so at odds with previous assertions by the Bush administration that Capitol Hill was peppered yesterday with retraction letters from the Justice Department attempting to correct statements in earlier testimony and briefings. Gonzales and other officials had repeatedly portrayed national security letters as a well-regulated tool necessary for the prevention of terrorist attacks.

One such retraction letter, sent to Specter by Acting Assistant Attorney General Richard A. Hertling, sought to correct a 2005 letter that attacked a Washington Post story about national security letters. "We have determined that certain statements in our November 23 letter need clarification," Hertling wrote.

Fine's 199-page unclassified report found that the FBI's records showed it issued more than 143,000 requests for information on more than 52,000 people through national security letters from 2003 to 2005. But not only did the agency understate that number in required reports to Congress, the number of requests it issued was much higher.

Nearly half the people targeted were U.S. citizens or legal residents, and the proportion of such "U.S. persons" increased over the three-year period, the report said.

In examining a small sample of security letters issued by four FBI offices, Fine discovered that the letters were improperly issued about 16 percent of the time. In the sample of 293 letters, the FBI had identified 26 potential violations but missed 22 others, the report said.

The report also details how, after obtaining sweeping new anti-terrorism powers under the Patriot Act in late 2001, the FBI did not establish basic training and record-keeping procedures to ensure that civil liberties were protected. That kept the agency from giving Congress accurate numbers on how often it used national security letters, the investigation found.