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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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There was un attempt. to sort of, provide NSLs reasonably soon afler the exigent letters. But the exigent letters continued. And it 1s important to determine who did what, when and how, FINE: And the FBI's going to do that. And we are going to look at that very carefully as well. But our review was not to look at everybody's actions up and down the line, including his or others’, to determine what steps each one of them took. What we tried to do is present the problem and the issue and make sure that it stopped as a result of it. CONYERS: The gentleman's time has expired. The chair recognizes Darrell Issa, the gentleman from California. ISSA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. T guess I'll start off slow and just follow up on Mr. Gohmert for a second. It does seem amazing that an organization of excellence, as the FBI has historically been, would adopt a "We've got you to the Peter principle achievement level” with this up-or-out policy. And I would strongly second Mr. Gohmert's -- what I think he was saying, which is if you have people who can be very good at what they do at the beat level, so to speak, of the FBI, in various positions, if they can, in fact, be superb leaders at a level that they're comfortable, and, quite frankly, in a community that they're comfortable living and working in and building more capability, rapport and analysis capability, and you adopt an up-or-out program, what you do is, you force them either to leave because they don't want to leave communities they're attached to, or, quite frankly, you force them to a management level they may not be comfortable with. It's bad enough that the Army will not allow a great company commander to continue being a company commander and must force them to a staff position somewhere where they endlessly see papers in the hopes that they someday will get a battalion command, but there's a certain amount of history there. 1 strongly suggest that the FBI shouldn't have a history that people doing a good job at a given level be forced on. ISSA: Having said that, that's a management decision that the next administration, hopefully, will straighten out. But speaking of management decisions, Mr. Fine, 1 am -- or General Fine -- I'm a little shocked that, under this attorney general, this administration seems to look at violations of constitutional rights for limited capabilities that we have granted from this body as, as the general counsel said, troubling.
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