WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department’s inspector general says the FBI used a variety of methods that circumvented legal requirements for obtaining phone records in terrorism investigations.
The inspector general says that for several years the FBI obtained some phone records through requests by e-mail, post-it notes and by telephone — all informal approaches that the inspector general found were improper.
Part of the IG’s 289-page examination released Wednesday focused on the use of 700 exigent letters to obtain the calling records for more than 2,000 phone numbers from 2003 to 2006. The IG concluded that contrary to the statements in the letters, many of the investigations for which the letters were used did not meet legal standards.
