Dennis Lormel's Authoritarian Streak
In a post at the Counter-terrorism blog, “National Security Letters…An Important Investigative Tool for the FBI” Dennis Lormel writes:
The Inspector General (IG), U.S. Department of Justice, has issued a report delineating audit findings identifying significant deficiencies in NSL recordkeeping and reporting processes. This determination is quite troubling and inexcusable.
Troubling and inexcusable? Well, you’d expect me to disagree. More important is that FBI DIRECTOR Robert Mueller doesn’t go that far. NPR said he accepted the findings were basically accurate, and the Washington Post reports in “Lawmakers Vow Hearings on FBI Errors:”
While acknowledging that the inspector general’s report identified “serious problems,” Mueller offered assurances that “the number of abuses is exceptionally small” compared to the overall number of national security letters, and he asserted that “no one has been damaged” by the shortcomings.
So, Mueller says that the report identifies real problems. Lormel calls the report it ‘inexcusable.’ How is the truth ever inexcusable?
And my liberties are damned well at risk when the FBI runs rampant, even if they don’t happen to step on people’s toes as they do it. Lormel’s assertions that it’s ok to break the law as long as no one is hurt don’t hold water when the FBI is investigating criminals. They shouldn’t hold water when it’s the FBI breaking the law.
Update: The associated press report is headlined “Gonzales, Mueller Admit FBI Broke Law,” and the the report is at “A Review of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Use of National Security Letters.”
Update 2: changed ‘it’ to ‘the report’ for clarity.
I disagree — by my reading, I don’t think Lormel is referring to the report itself, but rather the contents. The next paragraph offers clarification:
While I completely disagree with his conclusion that “the problem is administrative, not operational [so] civil liberties are not at risk,” I don’t think he’s objecting to the existence or content of the report itself.
It seems to me Lormel tries too hard to use fancy words and in the process makes his writing harder to understand (basically because he doesn’t quite use the those words the right way).