Report on FBI Tool Is Disputed

Justice Dept. Criticizes Post Article on 'National Security Letters'

By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 30, 2005; A08

The Justice Department has criticized as misleading and inaccurate a Washington Post report about the FBI's expanded power to collect the private records of ordinary Americans while conducting terrorism and espionage investigations.

The Nov. 6 article detailed the dramatic increase in the use of "national security letters," a three-decade-old investigative tool that was given new life with the passage of the USA Patriot Act in 2001. The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, a hundredfold increase over historic norms, the article said.

Instead of merely enabling the FBI to review in secret the customer records of suspected foreign agents, national security letters allow investigators to secretly scrutinize some records of U.S. residents and visitors who are not alleged to be terrorists or spies, the article said.