◆ SpookStack

folks in the field to headquarters, how important they were to the investigations, and showed us examples of that. Having said that I think they're important, there needs to be important checks on these tools because they are obtrusive, and there is information that is obtained and retained for significant periods of time. And so, while they are important investigative tools, there also needs to be appropriate checks on them as well. SMITH: Mr. Fine, in your conclusions -- t's the second one -- you say, "In most but not all of the cases we examined in this review, the FBI was seeking information that it could have obtained properly through national security letters.” SMITH: What percentage would you guess is that? In other words, what percentage of the problems could have been resolved if they had obtained national security letters? FINE: We found tnstances -- a few instances where they obtained information inappropriately and could not have used a national... SMITH: How many of the 739 would you guess that ts? FINE: Well, the 739 is hard to tell, because they could not tie them to appropriate investigations all the time, and there were many times where they couldn't tetl if it was an emergency. So I don't know how many in the 739. That's the most troubling aspect of it. With regard to the others, the national security letters and the Liles we reviewed, I'd say we found about seven where there were illegal uses of them where it was attempting to obtain information through confusion, through error, information that they were not entitled to obtain through a national security letter -- either an educational record or obtaining information -- a full credit report in a counterintelligence case, which they're not allowed to obtain; or not using an NSL. SMITH: You said seven times? FINE: Seven of the ones that we found. And we found in our -- well, seven of the individual ones. And, as you recall, we didn't do a review of every NSL that was issued. We did a smali sample of them. SMITH: OK. Thank you, Mr. Fine.