I’d rather hand my car keys to a drunken 10 year-old than trust Alberto Gonzales with cleaning up the illegally-intrusive behaviour of the Federal Bureau of Investigations:

Audit: FBI snooping did not follow rules – CNN.com

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wrote Fine, praising the report and saying he has asked the Justice Department’s National Security Division and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Office to work with the FBI in making changes.

“They will report to me regularly on their progress,” Gonzales said. “In addition, I ask that you report to me in four months on the implementation of your recommendations.”

Golly, can’t imagine how things ever got in such a state!  The investigation centers around the use of national security letters, which allow the FBI to obtain phone, financial and Internet records according to the Patriot Act.  Among the bullet points contained in this article:

• The inspector general’s review identified “26 possible intelligence violations” between 2003 and 2005, 19 of which the FBI reported to the president’s Intelligence Oversight Board, the audit said.
• The audit found the letters were issued without proper authority, cited incorrect statutes or obtained information they weren’t supposed to.
• As many as 22 percent of national security letters were not recorded
• The FBI has made as many as 56,000 requests a year for information using the letters
• The audit found that in 2004 and 2005, more than half of the targets of the national security letters were U.S. citizens

The list goes on, actually.  The audit says that in none of the cases does there appear to be any criminal intent.  Well, doesn’t that make you feel dandy?

“Sure, we’ve been listening in on your calls.  But only because we were really, really sure you were evil.  Honest.”

The fact is that these things are in the nature of the business of investigation.  I’m sure most FBI agents are not looking to be KGB, but when you spend your life trying to peer into the lives of criminals, it can’t take much to go over the line.  That’s the more true for an institution, I would think.

That’s why changes in the way police action takes place needs to happen slowly and incrementally; so that errors can be corrected, and where the law crosses the rights of men, it can be trimmed back by the proper role of the legislature. 

Even setting aside all the egregiously unconstitutional components of the Patriot Act, there was never really a chance that making this much change to the system was going to turn out any different.

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