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National Security Letters — Part 1

1188 pages · May 11, 2026 · Document date: Dec 4, 1981 · Broad topic: General · Topic: National Security Letters · 1018 pages OCR'd
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While the FBI's practices have had their shoricomings, it appears that these are problems that can be easily resolved. And this is good news, Many of the issues that we must review today are administrative in nalure and, to some extent, unavoidable. Government is a human institution, and it is therefore, by definition, imperfect, Those of us who have run corporations know that a perfect audit is a very rare occurrence, particularly on the first go-around. Most business do internal audits -- perhaps many, many internal audits -- to discover where human judgment has fallen short and where to improve before being audited by an outside source. This is an arduous but necessary task, and one that I hope we do well here today, and prospectively. The FBI has vowed that it will make all the adjustments that Mr. Gonzales and Ms. Caproni have recommended. We look forward to the realization of this goal. And with that, [ thank the witnesses for joining us today, and we look forward to hearing your testimony. And thank you, Mr. Chairman. CONYERS: Thank you. The chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from Virginia, Bobby Scott, chairman of the Crime Subcommittee, for two and a half minutes. SCOTT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we ail betieve that it’s important to be aggressive in fighting terrorism. and also aggressive in maintaining privacy and freedoms. And I don't believe we should operate on the premise that we always give up freedom in order to obtain security. SCOTT: But for us to provide appropriate oversight, we have to have accurate information. Unfortunately, there are indications thal we have received clearly inaccurate reports after the significant use of secret, invasive processes that do not appear to be necessary to advance terrorism-related investigations. Whether it’s a secret NSA wiretapping in violation of the FISA law or inappropriate use of the national security letters, we are discovering that what is actually occurring is quite different from what we were being told. And we cannot evaluate the ongoing need for NSA (sic) letlers without accurate information. There's also a clear indication of intentional misuse of the word “exigent” letters to telephone companies as emergency information when, in fact, no emergency existed. Somebody obviously knew this was a problem. There were, in fact, reports to Congress and oversight boards. And we need to find out who these people are. With these disturbing indications, Mr. Chairman, | hope the testimony of the witnesses today will reveal who is responsible for these abuses and who should be held accountable for false reports to the Congress. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | yield back.
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