Gonzales special prosecutor sought

WASHINGTON — Democrats raised new questions Tuesday about whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales knew about FBI violations of civil liberties when he told a Senate committee considering the renewal of the USA Patriot Act that no such problems occurred.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said Gonzales should resign and a special prosecutor should be appointed.

"Providing false, misleading or inaccurate statements to Congress is a serious crime, and the man who may have committed those acts cannot be trusted to investigate himself," said Nadler, a longtime critic of the Patriot Act, which granted broad powers to law enforcement after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The White House stood behind Gonzales. President Bush "has said repeatedly that he has great faith in the attorney general, and that has not changed," spokesman Scott Stanzel said.

On April 27, 2005, while seeking renewal of the Patriot Act, Gonzales told the Senate Intelligence Committee, "There has not been one verified case of civil-liberties abuse" resulting from the law.

Six days earlier, the FBI had sent Gonzales a copy of a report that said its agents had obtained personal information to which they were not entitled. It wasn't clear if Gonzales had read the report when he made his statements to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

But two senior Justice Department officials said in a conference call with reporters Tuesday that they had told Gonzales of FBI violations of civil liberties and privacy safeguards in recent years.

"I have discussed and informed attorneys general, including this one, about mistakes the FBI has made or problems or violations or compliance incidents, however you want to refer to them," said James Baker, who heads the Justice Department's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review.

Kenneth Wainstein, assistant attorney general for national security, said: "I've discussed a number of times oversight concerns and ... the potential for violations. And I'm sure we've discussed violations that have occurred in the past."

Wainstein described the violations outlined in the documents as mistakes — not intentional acts of abuse or misconduct. "That's not in any way to say that mistakes are not significant. It is a concern," he said.

The documents were released by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The San Francisco-based privacy advocacy group filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the records earlier this year.

Each of the FBI's violations cited in the reports copied to Gonzales was serious enough to require notification of the President's Intelligence Oversight Board, which helps police the government's surveillance activities.

The FBI documents show that many of the possible violations were the result of wrong phone numbers or of Internet provider companies giving agents more information than was requested. A June 1, 2005, memo from the FBI's general counsel, for example, indicates that a special agent had "erroneously issued" a national-security letter for an incorrect phone number in an investigation.

"However, he did so in good faith," the memo concludes.

National-security letters allow agents to secretly collect Americans' phone, computer and bank records without a court order or grand-jury subpoena.

Wainstein defended Gonzales, saying the attorney general had told Congress only that there had been no intentional acts of misconduct. "That is why I cited the definition of 'abuse,' which in Webster's ... implies some sort of intentional conduct. And I think that is sort of the common understanding of the word 'abuse,' " Wainstein said.

Civil-liberties groups and key Democratic lawmakers dismissed that explanation.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., noted that Gonzales said in a written statement last week that he first became aware of problems with the FBI's use of national security letters earlier this year. Copies of the FBI reports sent to Gonzales in 2005 and 2006 described several problems with the letters.

"This inconsistency is a disturbing addition to a growing list of misleading answers by the attorney general to questions from the Judiciary Committee, and it is unacceptable," Leahy said.