Reno Reprimand Prompted FBI's Caution on Moussaoui

Thanks for coming up with the NYT article. Here is the relevant part and it appears to have nothing to do with Waco and Ruby Ridge although the pattern is quite similiar to Rowley's version:

ll of the flawed affidavits had been submitted by Michael Resnick, the FBI supervisor who was in charge of coordinating the surveillance operations related to Hamas, the militant Palestinian group. The judges said they would no longer accept applications from Resnick. In response, the FBI director at the time, Louis J. Freeh, ordered a broader review of the eavesdropping applications -- including those related to al-Qaida. That review, the officials said, turned up disturbing signs that al-Qaida applications were also flawed

Does this mean that there was a pattern overall of lying on warrant applictions or only in these two areas (Ruby Ridge/waco and Hammas/Al Quiada)? I still am skeptical that it was an over exuberance of patriotism which caused Resnick to risk his careen over Hammas. These were not mere lapses of judgment or excesses of prosecutorial zeal but were egregious enough to earn Rino herself a personal dressing down in the inner synctum by Judge Lambreth. I confess I am at a loss but something very out of character was afoot.

Any ideas?

OK, I got a theory.

Resnick sought evesdropping warrrants with applicati0ns containing intelligence information obtained from the CIA which information jeopardized sources and methods. Upon learning of this, the CIA raised hell with Judge Lambreth who, in turn, came down on Rino. The CIA severly curtailed its cooperation with the FBI.

The FBI agents at headquarters smelled enough to figure that international terrorism, especially warrant applications, was the third rail of career death because they were too far removed from the source to know whether the application compromised sources or methods foreign or domestic. Hence, back off applications and while you at it back off connecting dots from Phoenix to Minneopolis. The agents in the field were more removed from the intrigue around Rino and Resnick and so naively went about doing their patrotic duty.

Anyway you slice it, the systemic failure of the FBI can be put at Rino's watch.

Anybody like this scenerio?

I don't know why I'm getting upset about this?

I watched the WACO travesty!...I Hated Bubba!...

Aren't these feelings of the need for hard prison time for negligent, possibly TREASONOUS government officials supposed to fade with time???

What COLOSSAL InCOMPETENCE!!! I'm betting a surveillance court like that must have WAY loose standards already...HOW could a professional be BANNED from submitting requests??? I was having such a nice afternoon, too...Oh well, Maybe Reno will hit a deer in her stupid pickup...Couldn't happen to a nicer Guhh...Guhh...whatever...I hope the deer dies immediately...If that Face came at me, I'd figure I was in the lowest circle of Dantes Inferno...I'd rip my own head off rather than see that in the "flesh"? never heard it called that before...

Since writing my post which energized you to ask if I am on Mueller's payroll..

I'll respond here, since this article is interesting. I, obviously, don't think you are on Mueller's payroll. I do think, though, that it is as defendable position as thinking that Rowley is a liberal. I don't have a clue why she referred to Waco and Ruby Ridge. But she also chose to capitalize the word INTEGRITY in her letter, and I think that deserves as much speculation.

This article here; well, this is getting a little old. Most recently, Newsweek "discovered" all about it themselves.

Read it here.

I you go to my comments there, you will find that it was originally reported on Sept. 19 by the NYTimes, which I found in an ABC article that is also linked in my comments. What is hilarious about the Newsweek slant is that they have Lambert dressing down Ashcroft (who was at that time campaigning for the Senate). The media would REALLY, REALLY, like to nail Ashcroft.

Anyhoo, the judges seemed to be most exercised about the liberal use of the "cut-and-paste" method used by Resnik, and probably felt that they were mass-producing surviellance requests. It is pretty clear that that was not the intent of the law in question. Therefore, the FBI wanted make sure every request was justified for unique reasons, and Rowley et. al. hit a brick wall. It is a classic case of crying wolf too often, and not have the credibility to pursue the wolf when he does show up. And it its very, very sad because a prompt search of that computer could have saved so many lives.

I found a 9/19/01 article from the NYT, that uses the same information with a different slant.

In the 5/27/02 article, the onus is put on Resnick, as the excuse for the Reno Justice Department/FBI reluctance to pursue Hamas subpoenas. The 9/19 article doesn't mention Reno at all, but puts the onus on the Bush administration and the Ashcroft Justice Department:

The internal debate at the Justice Department and F.B.I. over wiretap surveillance of terrorist groups ignited in March, prompted by questions raised by Royce C. Lamberth, the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a little- known panel that decides whether to approve Justice Department applications to permit wiretaps and clandestine searches in espionage and international terror cases.

In a letter to Attorney General Ashcroft, Judge Lamberth raised questions about a wiretap request related to a Hamas member, officials said. Under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the F.B.I. must make applications, through the Justice Department, to the surveillance court to authorize wiretaps and clandestine searches of the homes and offices of suspected terrorists and spies.

The foreign surveillance act, passed in 1978 in the wake of Watergate and other revelations of abuses by the F.B.I. and C.I.A., created a legal framework to allow the government to eavesdrop on people considered dangerous to American national security, even if prosecutors had not yet developed a criminal case against them.

The legal standards that the F.B.I. must meet to obtain court authorization under the act are lower than the probable cause required under most criminal cases. But that flexibility comes with a cost: information gathered under the act can be used only in criminal cases under highly limited conditions.

Civil liberties advocates have frequently expressed concerns about whether the act allows the government to blur the lines between intelligence gathering and criminal prosecutions.

Judge Lamberth's concerns about F.B.I. applications to the court are apparently related to whether the bureau was seeking wiretaps under the act on individuals without informing the court of a subject's status pending criminal investigations.

The Bush administration team at the Justice Department reacted to Judge Lamberth's complaints by opening an inquiry into Michael Resnick, an F.B.I. official who coordinates the act's applications.(This graph contradicts the 5/27 story).

Mr. Ashcroft and Robert S. Mueller III, now director of the F.B.I., who at the time was temporarily serving as deputy attorney general, ordered a review of foreign surveillance authorizations. Louis J. Freeh, who was then the F.B.I. director, and Lawrence Parkinson, the bureau's general counsel, ordered a review of several applications in terrorism cases dating back several years.

Disclosure of the internal investigation of the foreign intelligence process comes just as Mr. Ashcroft is seeking Congressional support for an emergency package of anti-terrorism legislation, including an expansion of the Justice Department's ability to use wiretaps in cases of suspected terrorism or espionage.

This "seeking wiretaps under the act on individuals without informing the court of a subject's status pending criminal investigations" is vague.

I'm starting to wonder if the impetus behind this reluctance to pursue Hamas/Islamist warrants was not a result of Muslim influence -- under both administrations. The Washington Times stated yesterday that "political correctness" regarding Moussaoui's Islamic connections caused the FBI supervisor to block the field angent's request. CAIR and AMC have been actively lobbying against "discrimination" against Muslims for years.

Aside from motives, the two quite different slants on this episode is a fascinating example of "creative" journalism by the New York Times.

Well it sure gets curioserer and curiourser. I agree there is no way to reconcile these two reports except perhaps Lamberth sent Ashcroft a letter reiterating what he had told Reno in her confrontation.

I don't know anything about how this special court operates or the enabling legislation but I would be surprised that such a great tempest erupted over "boilerplate" applications. I keep coming back to the feeling that something deeper was going on here. I can't image agents torpedoing the warrant applictions because of career concerns arising out of this scenerio. It is barely plausible that PC concerns about racially profiling arabs/muslims could arouse such career concerns. Let's put ourselves in the supervising agent's shoes who was confronted with the request from Minn. and deep sixed the application. The Minn. agents were in a "frenzy" but he went to sleep because of boilerplate problems? Racial profiling problems? Hello?

Thanks for the articles. Newsweek reads like the National Enquirer and you are right about the Times.

Info on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

The link is a bit erratic; if it doesn’t work, go to www.eff.org, type “FISA” in the search box, click on first link in Google search results.

Another tidbit: according to this 60 Minutes report (which has the FBI blaming yet another entity, French intelligence, for the Moussaoui fiasco): Until last year Eric Holder was deputy attorney general in the Justice Department. One of his responsibilities was reviewing hundreds of FISA applications. “Under FISA you have the ability, over a specified period of time, to not only do one search, but to do a number of searches, and then to take that from that person anything that's of foreign intelligence value,” he says.

This would place Holder in the thick of things when the incident regarding the so-called “Reno reprimand” occurred. FISA warrants skyrocketed under Clinton, and it may be a safe bet to assume they were not all related to terrorism. Perhaps Judge Lamberth simply chose the wrong hill (Hamas) to take a stand on “questionable” applications. He may also have addressed his concerns to Ashcroft, since it’s likely that the same “questionable” apps didn’t suddenly cease with the change of administrations, given the number of Clinton appointees in the Justice Dept.

Another interesting fact: between 1997 and January 2001, only one applcation was rejected by the FISA court, headed by Lamberth, according to reports filed by the Reno Justice Department.

May 28, 2002:

Misleading FBI affidavits submitted during the Clinton administration to a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court resulted in the court's sharp reprimand of Attorney General Janet Reno, in an episode that likely contributed to the FBI's later reluctance to approve a search warrant application for the laptop computer of "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui.

Now, much more than a mere tidbit - your observation on May 29, 2002:

[A]ccording to this 60 Minutes report (which has the FBI blaming yet another entity, French intelligence, for the Moussaoui fiasco): Until last year Eric Holder was deputy attorney general in the Justice Department. One of his responsibilities was reviewing hundreds of FISA applications. “Under FISA you have the ability, over a specified period of time, to not only do one search, but to do a number of searches, and then to take that from that person anything that's of foreign intelligence value,” he says.
This would place Holder in the thick of things when the incident regarding the so-called “Reno reprimand” occurred...

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