True to its History, the F.B.I. is Still
Violating Civil Liberties
March 22, 2006
By Gene C. Gerard
to a report released last week by the Justice Department, the Federal
Bureau of Investigation violated procedures for wiretapping and
other methods of obtaining intelligence more than 100 times in the
last two years. The departmentís inspector general regarded some
of the violations as "significant," including wiretaps
that were broader than what a court had approved, and wiretaps that
were allowed to go on for weeks, even months, longer than had been
Given the bureau's history, this shouldn't be surprising. The F.B.I.
was created for partisan political purposes, and has blatantly violated
civil liberties since its inception.
In 1919 the Attorney General of the United States, A. Mitchell
Palmer, exacerbated public fears of Communism in order to generate
publicity for his candidacy in the upcoming presidential election.
Coming only two years after the Russian Revolution of 1917, there
was widespread hysteria in America concerning Communists and other
supposed radicals. Attorney General Palmer capitalized on this by
creating an anti-radicalism division in the Justice Department.
He selected a young government attorney named J. Edgar Hoover to
lead the new division.
Hoover's division became the F.B.I. In 1919 the bureau staged
the first of what became known as the "Palmer Raids."
Agents invaded the offices of suspected radical political organizations
and labor unions. These raids rounded up thousands of legal aliens
who had committed no crime, but were suspect only because of their
political beliefs (many were Communists or socialists) or their
immigrant backgrounds (many had Russian or German ancestry). Since
they lacked U.S. citizenship, many were deported without indictment
or even a trial.
The only evidence of domestic terrorism that the raids netted
were blueprints that the bureau maintained were for a bomb, intended
to be used to overthrow the government. It was eventually discovered
that the blueprints were actually for a new and improved record
Despite a lack of evidence that the suspected radicals were actually
a threat, in January 1920 the F.B.I. staged its infamous "New
Yearís Raids." This time, in addition to entering offices,
the agents invaded thousands of people's homes, largely without
search warrants. Approximately 6,000 individuals in 23 states were
arrested and jailed. Most were never charged with any crime, and
were denied legal counsel.
It's ironic, of course, that the nation's chief law enforcement
agency was denying American citizens their Constitutional rights.
Arrests were made on the basis of subscribing to Communist newspapers,
reading Russian novels, eating in restaurants that served foreign
cuisine, and simply because someone "looked like a radical,"
according to published sources.
Almost 85 years later, little appears to have changed in the F.B.I.
According to the Justice Department's report, the inspector general
identified 108 instances of violations in 2004 and 2005 regarding
wiretaps and other methods of obtaining intelligence. The report
also found violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
(FISA), which governs how and when the federal government can eavesdrop
on domestic communications. In 2004, 48 percent of the F.B.I. violations
trampled on FISA, and this figure surged to 69 percent last year.
The inspector general's report also revealed that the duration
of the violations grew over the last two years. This was the case
regarding the "overcollection" of intelligence data, in
which the F.B.I. collected more evidence than a court had authorized.
In one such instance, the bureau obtained the complete content of
181 telephone calls related to an intelligence investigation, but
a court had only authorized the bureau to obtain billing records.
This was also the case with "overruns," in which the
F.B.I. allowed a wiretap or other method of obtaining intelligence
to run longer than a court had approved. In one instance, a wiretap
lasted 373 days longer than it had been approved for. The average
duration in which overcollections and overruns were permitted before
the bureau stopped them was 22 days in 2004, and 32 days in 2005.
The spokesman for the F.B.I, John Miller, attempted to justify
these violations of civil liberties by arguing that some violations
are inevitable "given the scope and complexity of national
security investigations." However, itís more likely that the
bureau is simply perpetuating longstanding practices.
The Justice Department would do well to view its report as a serious
comment on the blatant lawlessness within the F.B.I., and to demand
serious reforms within the bureau. Itís long overdue.