IP: more on Secret Court Says F.B.I. Aides Misled Judges in 75 Cases ( NY T)

[Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Title: approve:ggfarber more on  Secret Court Says F.B.I. Aides Misled Judges in 75 Cases ( NY T)

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From: "Baker, Stewart" <SBaker@steptoe.com>
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 15:34:24 -0400
To: "'farber@cis.upenn.edu'" <farber@cis.upenn.edu>
Cc: "Albertazzie, Sally" <SAlbertazzie@steptoe.com>
Subject: RE: Secret Court Says F.B.I. Aides Misled Judges in 75 Cases ( NY T)

That's unfair, Dave.  These are screwups and shouldn't have happened, but the court doesn't say they were intentional. 

In fact, the investigation the FISA Court called for, and the sanctions it imposed, were fresh in the minds of the FBI when they got a call from Minneapolis asking for a FISA order against a suspicious guy named Moussaoui.  That was August of 2001.  Not surprisingly, the FBI agents at the other end of the call weren't all that enthusiastic about doing a fast affidavit based on what French intelligence had said about Moussaoui.

The FBI's resistance to the FISA warrant on Moussaoui may have killed our last plausible hope of stopping the attacks.  So, in the "real world," that's the real choice we face:  We can either satisfy our rocking-chair desire to discipline FBI agents for sloppy FISA affidavits or we can have a chance to stop the September 11 attacks.  In an ideal world, we wouldn't have to make that choice, but in this one we do.  And we make that choice every time we suggest that the biggest problem we face is not terrorism but an FBI that is out of control.

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