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ALL INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN 15 UNCLASSIFIED CONGRESSIONAL TRANSCRIPTS DaTE 6-12-2007 BY 6517S PMH/FSRSIW March 20, 2007 House Judiciary Committee Holds Hearing on FBI Patriot Act Misuse sletethne Fenrir seteiine meses leereeenedeneentaieminer inrs eels neaeneebee ser eens ornare eTaRL ME ERE rE DS ton MRE pep op get Lebar onae en catinne i inrnncientorrisetebatariescamen sera CONYERS: Good morning. Committee will come to order. We're here for a hearing on the inspector general's independent report on the FBI's use of national security letters. Nearly six years ago, in the immediate aftermath of September 11th, the Department of Justice told us that they needed significantly enhanced authority, while promising the members of this committee in no uncertain terms that these new tools would be carefully and appropriately used. Two years ago, when the Patriot Act was reauthorized, they promised us there was not a single instance in which the law had been abused. Now, to underscore the importance of the reasons that we're holding this hearing, many of us remember the times in the past when the power of our government has been abused: in one war, led to the suspension of habeas corpus; another war, the noforious Palmer raids; in World War II, the internment of Japanese Americans; in the Vietnam War, the secret spying and enemy list. [n my view, we are now in a period where we risk a continuation of these deplorable acts and effect genuine harm to the Constitution and the rule of law. One week ago, the inspector general told us that the exact opposite was true of the promise that had been made that there was not a single instance when the Patriot Act was being reauthorized that the law had been abused. One tool in particular, the national security letters -- essentially, secret subpoenas issued without any court review -- was used repeatedly to invade the privacy of law- abiding Americans outside the law and proper legal process. This was a serious breach of trust. The department had converted this tool into a handy shortcut to illegally gather vast amounts of private information while at the same time significantly underreporting its activities to Congress. CONYERS: We learned that the number of national security letter requests had increased from 8,500 in the year 2000 to in excess of 143,000 from the three-year period between 2003 and 2005. The Department of Justice consistently provided inaccurate information to Congress conceming the national security letters, failing to tdentify at least 4,600 security letter requests to us. The security letters were routinely issued without proper authorization, and outside statutory and regulatory requirements. The inspector general found that more than 60 percent of the investigatory files they looked at included one or more violations of FBI policy.