[Infowarrior] - Audit: Anti-Terror Case Data Flawed

Tue Feb 20 22:44:39 EST 2007

Associated Press
Audit: Anti-Terror Case Data Flawed
By LARA JAKES JORDAN 02.20.07, 3:25 PM ET
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/02/20/ap3445818.html

Federal prosecutors counted immigration violations, marriage fraud and drug
trafficking among anti-terror cases in the four years after 9/11 despite no
evidence linking 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 its 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 panel that 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, the Justice
Department'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.

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.

The office has since agreed to change the way it counts and classifies
anti-terrorism cases, department spokesman Dean Boyd said.

Additionally, Boyd said, Criminal Division prosecutors at the department's
headquarters and the FBI have overhauled their respective case reporting
systems since 2004 for a more accurate picture of terror-related workloads.
He said both agencies were strained to accurately report terrorism data in
the flood of cases immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

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.