-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: February 21, 2007 11:10:17 AM PST
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Is Bush Winning the "War on Terror"? The Administration's
"Official Numbers" Are BOGUS!
AUDIT: ANTI-TERROR CASE DATA FLAWED
By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer
Tue Feb 20, 4:35 PM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070220/ap_on_go_ot/terror_prosecutions
WASHINGTON - Federal prosecutors counted immigration violations,
marriage fraud and drug trafficking among anti-terror cases in the
four years after 9/11 even though no evidence linked them to terror
activity, a Justice Department audit said Tuesday.
Overall, nearly all of the terrorism-related statistics on
investigations, referrals and cases examined by department
Inspector General Glenn A. Fine were either diminished or inflated.
Only two of 26 sets of department data reported between 2001 and
2005 were accurate, the audit found.
Responding, a Justice spokesman pointed to figures showing that
prosecutors in the department's headquarters for the most part
either accurately or underreported their data — underscoring what
he called efforts to avoid pumping up federal terror statistics.
The numbers, used to monitor the department's progress in battling
terrorists, are reported to Congress and the public and help, in
part, shape the department's budget.
"For these and other reasons, it is essential that the department
report accurate terrorism-related statistics," the audit concluded.
Fine's office took care to say the flawed data appear to be the
result of "decentralized and haphazard" methods of collection or
disagreement over how the numbers are reported, and do not appear
to be intentional.
Still, the errors led Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., to question
whether the department had exaggerated the number of terror cases.
"If the Department of Justice can't even get their own books in
order, how are we supposed to have any confidence they are doing
the job they should be?" said Schumer, who sits on the Senate
Judiciary Committee, which oversees the department. "Whether this
is just an accounting error or an attempt to pad terror prosecution
statistics for some other reason, the Department of Justice of all
places should be classifying cases for what they are, not what they
want us to think them to be."
Auditors looked at 26 categories of statistics — including numbers
of suspects charged and convicted in terror cases, and terror-
related threats against cities and other U.S. targets — compiled by
the FBI, Justice's Criminal Division, and the Executive
Office of U.S. Attorneys.
It found that data from the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys were
the most severely flawed. Auditors said the office, which compiles
statistics from the 94 federal prosecutors' districts nationwide,
both under- and over-counted the number of terror-related cases
during a four-year period.
The office has since agreed to change the way it counts and
classifies anti-terrorism cases, said department spokesman Dean Boyd.
Boyd denied suggestions that the department pumped up its numbers.
He said Criminal Division prosecutors at Justice headquarters and
the FBI have overhauled their respective case reporting systems
since 2004 for a more accurate picture of terror-related workloads.
Both agencies, he said, were strained to accurately report
terrorism data in the flood of cases immediately after the Sept.
11, 2001, attacks.
"The notion that the Justice Department intentionally inflated its
statistics is false and flatly contradicted by the OIG report
itself," Boyd said.
In all but one area, Criminal Division prosecutors either
accurately stated or underreported their data — the ones the
department usually uses in public statements about its
counterterror efforts, Boyd noted. He said the Justice Department
has already completed most of the fixes recommended in the audit.
Much of the problem stemmed from how that office defines anti-
terrorism cases.
A November 2001 federal crackdown on security breaches at airports,
for example, yielded arrests on immigration and false document
charges, but no evidence of terrorist activity. Nonetheless, the
attorneys' office lumped them in with other anti-terror cases since
they were investigated by federal Joint Terrorism Task Forces or
with other counterterror measures.
Other examples, according to the audit, included:
_Charges against a marriage-broker for being paid to arrange six
fraudulent marriages between Tunisians and U.S. citizens.
_Prosecution of a Mexican citizen who falsely identified himself as
another person in a passport application.
_Charges against a suspect for dealing firearms without a license.
The prosecutor handling the case told auditors it should not have
been labeled as anti-terrorism.
"We do not agree that law enforcement efforts such as these should
be counted as anti-terrorism," the audit concluded. Even if those
cases were not taken into account, the audit said, the U.S.
attorneys' office had overstated statistics in all other categories
it reported.
___
On the Net:
The audit can be found at: http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/reports/plus/
a0720/final.pdf
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