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

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
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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