Going To A Go-Go For Gonzales?

In his effort to convince lawmakers to renew the Patriot Act two years ago, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales assured lawmakers that the FBI had NOT abused its potent new terrorism-fighting powers. "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse," Gonzales told senators on April 27, 2005.

It now appears that was a lie, and Gonzales knew it.

According to a Wapo report, the FBI had sent Gonzales (six days prior) a copy of a report that said its agents had obtained personal information that they were not entitled to have. It was one of at least half a dozen reports of legal or procedural violations that Gonzales received in the three months before he made the statement above to the Senate intelligence committee.

The illegal acts recounted in the FBI internal reports included unauthorized surveillance, an illegal property search and a case in which an Internet firm improperly turned over a CD with data that the FBI was not entitled to collect. Gonzales was copied on each report that said laws protecting civil liberties and privacy had indeed been violated. These reports also alerted Gonzales in 2005 to problems with the FBI's use of an anti-terrorism tool known as a national security letter (NSL), well before DOJ's Inspector general brought widespread abuse of the letters to light in a stinging report this past March.

At least two other reports of NSL-related violations were sent to Gonzales-- In letters copied to him on Dec. 11, 2006, and Feb. 26, 2007, the FBI reported that agents had requested and obtained phone data on the wrong people.

In spite of all the information provided by these reports from 2005 up until February of 2007, Gonzales still reacted publicly with surprise when the Justice Department inspector general reported in March of this year that there were pervasive problems with the FBI's handling of NSL's and another investigative tools.

"I was upset when I learned this, as was Director Mueller. To say that I am concerned about what has been revealed in this report would be an enormous understatement," Gonzales said in a speech March 9, referring to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller. The attorney general added that he believed back in 2005, before the Patriot Act was renewed, that there were no problems with NSLs. "I've come to learn that I was wrong," he said, making no mention of the FBI reports sent to him.

Marcia Hofmann, a lawyer for the nonpartisan Electronic Frontier Foundation, said, "I think these documents raise some very serious questions about how much the attorney general knew about the FBI's misuse of surveillance powers and when he knew it."

Caroline Fredrickson, a lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the new documents raise questions about whether Gonzales misled Congress at a moment when lawmakers were poised to renew the Patriot Act and keenly sought assurances that there were no abuses. "It was extremely important," she said of Gonzales's 2005 testimony. "The attorney general said there are no problems with the Patriot Act, and there was no counterevidence at the time."