Katrina vanden Heuvel: The Deadbeat FBI

[marmar]

from The Nation:



BLOG | Posted 01/10/2008 @ 10:23pm
The Deadbeat FBI
Katrina vanden Heuvel



At a time when we're entering a recession (it's official says Goldman Sachs), and many Americans are having a hard time paying their bills, is it that surprising that the FBI is a deadbeat when it comes to paying its phone bills on time?

According to the Washington Post's Dan Eggen, audit results released today found that "telephone companies have repeatedly cut off FBI wiretaps of alleged terrorists and criminal suspects because of failures to pay telecommunication bills, including one invoice for $66,000 at one unidentified field office....The report by the Justice Department's Inspector General Glenn Fine also identified one case in which an order obtained under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was halted because of 'untimely payment.'"

According to Fine, "late payments have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence."

The IG's report also detailed the FBI's chronic failure to account for hundreds of guns and laptop computers--likely to have had sensitive intelligence or personal data.

This surreal story was brought to my attention Thursday afternoon, soon after it was posted on the Washington Post's website, by a gleeful Carl Bernstein--a reporter who knows a little something about FBI wiretapping and incompetence in another Republican Administration. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?bid=15&pid=269200

[Angela Shelley]

1. Should we pay the phone bill

or should we pretend that it´s none of our business?

[Historic NY]

2. send it to a collection agency

[supernova]

5. Love the way you think!

:D

[DCKit]

4. Meowhahahahahaha! n/t

[Justice Is Comin]

3. Boy, I love that woman.

She has more intelligence in her sleep than most of our "spokespeople" have even searching Google.