A NEW BROOM SWEEPS CLEAN
Are we finally beginning to see changes in this government following November 2006? Will Democrats stay firm on restricting Bush's war on the extra funding bill?
"...a Republican senator Thursday mused that Gonzales might soon suffer the same fate..." What a novel idea!
White House backtracks in row over U.S. attorneys
[source]
• Bill would end attorney general's power to appoint prosecutors minus Senate OK
• Fired U.S. attorneys allege pressure from Justice Department, lawmakers
• Alberto Gonzales agrees to let aides testify about dismissals without subpoenas
• Reversal abrupt for administration known for standing firm despite opposition

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Slapped even by GOP allies, the Bush administration is beating an abrupt retreat on eight federal prosecutors it fired and then publicly pilloried.

Just hours after Attorney General Alberto Gonzales dismissed the hubbub as an "overblown personnel matter," a Republican senator Thursday mused that Gonzales might soon suffer the same fate as the canned U.S. attorneys.

A short time later, Gonzales and his security detail shuttled to the Capitol for a private meeting on Democratic turf, bearing two offerings:

# President Bush would not stand in the way of a Democratic-sponsored bill that would cancel the attorney general's power to appoint federal prosecutors without Senate confirmation. Gonzales' Justice Department previously had dismissed the legislation as unreasonable.

# There would be no need for subpoenas to compel testimony by five of Gonzales' aides involved in the firings, as the Democrats had threatened. Cloistered in the stately hideaway of Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy, D-Vermont, the attorney general assured those present that he would permit the aides to tell their stories.

It was a striking reversal for an administration noted for standing its ground even in the face of overwhelming opposition.

Gone were the department's biting assertions that the prosecutors were a bunch of "disgruntled employees grandstanding before Congress."

And the department no longer tried to shrug off the uproar as "an overblown personnel matter," as Gonzales had written in an opinion piece published Thursday in USA Today.

Agency officials also ceased describing majority Democrats as lawmakers who would "would rather play politics" than deal with facts.

The shift from offense to silence was so abrupt that one of Bush's chief advisers who was speaking out of town apparently missed the memo.

"My view is this is unfortunately a very big attempt by some in the Congress to make a political stink about it," presidential adviser Karl Rove said Thursday during a speech at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service.

Back in Washington, a consensus was emerging among senators of both parties, and Gonzales himself, that the firings had been botched chiefly because the prosecutors had not been told the reasons for their dismissals.

The matter snowballed -- some of those fired complained publicly, and a senior Justice Department official warned one that further complaints in the press would force the agency to defend itself, according to an e-mail made public this week.

On Tuesday, during an eight-hour marathon of congressional hearings, the Justice Department followed through. William Moschella, principle associate deputy attorney general, publicly enumerated the reasons each prosecutor was fired, one by one.

Flash forward two days, to Specter, ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, reading Gonzales' USA Today column into the record. He paused.

"One day there will be a new attorney general, maybe sooner rather than later," he mused. "But these [prosecutors] who were plastered across the newspapers all across the country, they will never recover their reputations."

Two staunch White House allies, Sens. Jon Kyl of Arizona and Jeff Sessions of Alabama, lamented the damage to the prosecutors' resumes -- adding, however, that the uproar had been the result of poor execution rather than a political purge.

The prosecutors weren't the only ones whose reputations suffered. One, New Mexico's David Iglesias, said the dismissals followed calls from members of Congress -- Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson, New Mexico Republicans -- concerning sensitive political corruption investigations.

Still unclear is whether Gonzales will allow his aides to speak with the Senate panel in private or at a public hearing. The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday also demanded to speak with the officials.

They are: Michael Elston, Kyle Sampson, Monica Goodling, Bill Mercer and Mike Battle.

Sampson is Gonzales' chief of staff, Elston is staff chief to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty and Mercer is associate attorney general. Goodling is Gonzales' senior counsel and White House liaison, and Battle is the departing director of the office that oversees the 93 U.S. attorneys.
FBI SNOOPING DID NOT FOLLOW RULES
[source] [video]
• Rules on when and how FBI could access private information violated
• Demands for private information may have been underreported by 20 percent
• Attorney general orders FBI to clean up process
• Patriot Act, passed after 9/11, allows warrantless searches of records

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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The FBI is guilty of "serious misuse" of the power to secretly obtain private information under the Patriot Act, a government audit said Friday.

The Justice Department's inspector general looked at the FBI's use of national security letters (NSLs), in which agents demand personal and business information about individuals -- such as financial, phone, and Internet records -- without court orders.

The audit found the letters were issued without proper authority, cited incorrect statutes or obtained information they weren't supposed to.

As many as 22 percent of national security letters were not recorded, the audit said.

"We concluded that many of the problems we identified constituted serious misuse of the FBI's national security letter authorities," Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said in the report.

The audit said there were no indications that the FBI's use of the letters "constituted criminal misconduct."

The FBI has made as many as 56,000 requests a year for information using the letters since the Patriot Act was passed in October, 2001, the audit found.

A single letter can contain multiple information requests, and multiple letters may target one individual.

The audit found that in 2004 and 2005, more than half of the targets of the national security letters were U.S. citizens.
Letter used to track phone calls, FBI says

FBI Director Robert Mueller said Friday that 90 percent of the letters are used to access phone records in helping to track U.S. contacts with suspected terrorists overseas.

Mueller took responsibility for the FBI's problems and said steps had been taken to eliminate them.

"I am to be held accountable," he said, for failing to provide the proper guidelines, training and tools for agents working with the national security letters.

The inspector general's review identified "26 possible intelligence violations" between 2003 and 2005, 19 of which the FBI reported to the president's Intelligence Oversight Board, the audit said.

Of the 26, "22 were the result of FBI errors, while four were caused by mistakes made by recipients of the NSLs," it said.

The audit also found problems with "exigent letters," which are supposed to be used only in emergencies when time may not permit the NSL procedure to be followed.

The audit found exigent letters were not used in emergencies and gave the agency access to telephone records it should not have had.

Mueller said Friday the FBI stopped using exigent letters in May 2006 after the practice was revealed. He said they were used to obtain information the FBI was entitled to but should have gained in other ways.
Use of letters grew after 9/11 attacks

Most of the 200-page report focuses on the national security letters, the use of which it says has undergone a "dramatic increase" since the Patriot Act was put into law after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

The letters existed before the attacks, but the Patriot Act allowed them to be used on a broader scale to seek more information.

The American Civil Liberties Union called on Congress to "act immediately to repeal these dangerous Patriot Act provisions."

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wrote Fine, praising the report and saying he has asked the Justice Department's National Security Division and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Office to work with the FBI in making changes.

"They will report to me regularly on their progress," Gonzales said. "In addition, I ask that you report to me in four months on the implementation of your recommendations."

Mueller said the national security letters are indispensable in the the war on terror, saying that the recent arrest on espionage charges of a former U.S. Navy sailor in Arizona as one instance where they were needed.

The FBI director said no one has suffered harm from the errors made in use of the letters.

On Capitol Hill, the audit brought calls for better oversight and possibly changes in the law.

"There will be oversight hearings," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania. He said the Patriot Act may have to be changed and power given the FBI curtailed because "they appear not to be able to know how to use it."

"You cannot have people act as free agents on something where they are going to be delving into your privacy," Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, said. "We all want to stop terrorists. We all want to stop criminals. But the FBI work for us, the American people, not the other way around."