Is the FBI Collecting
Information on You?
By Kenneth J. Theisen, 4/15/07
In the fall of 2006, the Electronic Frontier Foundation sued
Attorney General Gonzales” Department of Justice (DOJ). Under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA),
the group sought DOJ records detailing how the FBI protects privacy rights in
its collection of personal records contained in its Investigative Data
Warehouse (IDW). This electronic
warehouse contains at least 659 million documents on millions of us.
In its lawsuit the organization sought information on how
the FBI corrected errors in records, what is does with outdated files, what the
privacy impact of the system is on Americans and others with records in the
warehouse, and the results of any FBI or other audits of the system. This would seem to be a simple FOIA request
requiring the Bureau to gather a few policies and records. But under the Bush regime requesting any
information about how the administration conducts its massive spying operations
is far from simple.
DOJ attorneys recently told the federal court in the lawsuit
that it indeed has the requested records, but that it will take at least until
2013 to comply with the request. It has
asked the court to halt the legal proceedings until February 2013 to give the
FBI time to comply. Of course this is a
full 4 years after the Bush regime is expected to leave the office of
president. By the time these policies
are revealed it will be too late to halt any illegalities committed by the
regime in its gathering, collection, and analysis of data.
What is this electronic warehouse and what does it contain? The IDW was launched in January 2004 by the
FBI. It contains so-called terrorist
watch lists, records of financial transactions, “intelligence cables,” and
other personal information on millions of individuals. According to the FBI, it is one of “the most
powerful data analysis tools” available to law enforcement. In effect, it is a data collection and data
mining operation which sifts through millions of records to invade the privacy
of millions of people. It collects data
on us from more than 50 government agencies as well as other undisclosed
sources.
Each month, FBI agents and analysts make an average of one
million queries to the system according to the FBI. Willie T. Hulon, executive assistant director
of the FBI’s National Security Branch, admits that information is not removed
from the system unless there is “cause for removal.” In other words once information goes into the
system, it probably remains there forever. The FBI claims that the database and its use
are in “full compliance” with the law. Of course the Bush regime has claimed that to
be the case every time one of its spying operations is publicly revealed. I guess we will need to trust them as they
will not release records that will prove this until 2013.
According to David Sobel, senior counsel of the Electronic
Frontier Foundation which has brought the lawsuit, “It appears to be the
largest collection of personal data ever amassed by the federal government. When they develop the capability to
cross-reference and data-mine all these previously separate sources of
information, there are significant new privacy issues that need to be publicly
debated.” Of course if the Bush
regime gets its way in federal court we will not be able to debate the issues
until 2013. By then we will have no
privacy left and it will be too late to debate anything.