Interesting how FBI Director Robert Mueller chose to blame his management and agency rather than the USA Patriot Act in Senate testimony Tuesday about the FBI’s shocking misuse of the authority to gather phone, e-mail and financial records on Americans without a warrant. “The statute did not cause the errors. The FBI’s implementation did,” Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee. Still, in light of the abuses, the new Congress needs to ensure that the Patriot Act’s far-reaching tools are necessary.
Some of Tuesday’s talk did seem premature: The suggestion from Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., that the FBI’s spying powers might be better trusted in the hands of a new agency. Surely new bureaucracy isn’t the answer.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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