House panels seek info on FBI data collection programs

Nine months after House Science Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee leaders wanted details about the FBI's plans for a massive data collection and tracking program, little has been done to address their concerns. Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Brad Miller, D-N.C., and ranking member James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., asked for a GAO report on the National Security Branch Analysis Center last June. House Oversight and Government Reform National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee Chairman John Tierney, D-Mass., has joined their request.

The FBI sought $12 million for the center in fiscal 2008 to hire 59 employees, including 23 contractors and five FBI agents, according to the lawmakers' letter to the GAO. The effort would increase the FBI's ability to use "predictive models and patterns of behavior" to uncover terrorist sleeper cells, Justice Department documents said. The clearinghouse could hold 6 billion records by 2012, according to some estimates.

Yet the agency has "put very little, even in writing, to tell us that they're not going to tell us anything," Miller said Friday. "We asked them to tell us what the purpose was -- to tell us what they were doing and why -- and to tell us what safeguards would be put in place to make sure the information is not used inappropriately."

At a Wednesday hearing, Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., told FBI Director Robert Mueller that the program bore a striking resemblance to the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness program, which was defunded by Congress in 2003. Mueller said the center would not create a database nor would it facilitate "data-mining" of information to which intelligence agencies do not already have access.

In the months since the lawmakers' request, subcommittee staffers have asked the FBI to explain its lack of cooperation with GAO, but they have been ignored, an aide for Miller said. The FBI did send GAO a schedule for document delivery this week, but it is unclear what they plan to make available and what they refuse to provide, the aide said.

"This isn't Matt Drudge asking; it's the United States Congress and they've taken the view that this is none of our business," said Miller, who noted he does not necessarily oppose the FBI's plans. He said he simply wants to know that it is taking precautions to protect citizens' privacy and civil liberties.

GAO spokesman Charles Young said work on the report is under way but did not have an end date. He refused to discuss the progress of the investigation or provide details about what has been submitted by the FBI. An FBI spokesman said documents requested in the case are under review by the Justice Department.

Former FBI agent Michael German, who works for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the agency's refusal to cooperate "reflects a dangerous shift in the relationship Americans share with their government." Congress and the public need to "demand their right to know what these agencies are doing," he said. Collecting, retaining and analyzing data about innocent people will not improve national security or provide better information about terrorists, German said. "It will only bury analysts under reams of irrelevant data and send them on wild goose chases," he said.