Error Gave F.B.I. Unauthorized Access to E-Mail
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: February 17, 2008
WASHINGTON — A technical glitch gave the F.B.I. access to the e-mail messages from an entire computer network — perhaps hundreds of accounts or more — instead of simply the lone e-mail address that was approved by a secret intelligence court as part of a national security investigation, according to an internal report of the 2006 episode.
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Times Topics: FISA
F.B.I. officials blamed an “apparent miscommunication” with the unnamed Internet provider, which mistakenly turned over all the e-mail from a small e-mail domain for which it served as host. The records were ultimately destroyed, officials said.
Bureau officials noticed a “surge” in the e-mail activity they were monitoring and realized that the provider had mistakenly set its filtering equipment to trap far more data than a judge had actually authorized.
The episode is an unusual example of what has become a regular if little-noticed occurrence, as American officials have expanded their technological tools: government officials, or the private companies they rely on for surveillance operations, sometimes foul up their instructions about what they can and cannot collect.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/washington/17fisa.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1203264987-qlsXz5xpIr5DsYGbKBf91g
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