Illegally Seeking Personal Information
Frederick Swiger
RES351
June, 26, 2013
Thomas Allen

Illegally Seeking Personal Information
The Federal Bureau of investigation (FBI) is a federal agency responsible for investigating crimes. The FBI is responsible for protecting the United States. In order to get information about people they are investigating the FBI often tends to get information the wrong way at the wrong times making it unethically irresponsible. U.S citizens have the right to have their information kept private but when a crime is committed or there is a reason to be investigated, the FBI has the right to seek the citizens personal information.
Law enforcement officials said that the laws were broken when the FBI secretly got information about U.S citizens. FBI agents sometimes demanded information such as telephone records from the citizens when it was not necessary and they did not have permission (Jordan, 2007). Under the Patriot Act , national security letters give the FBI permission to seek information about U.S citizens from telephone companies, banks, and internet service providers, however evidence was found stating that the FBI underreported to congress how often the security letters were issued (Jordan, 2007). The USA Patriot Act was activated in 2001, 6 weeks after the September 11 attacks (Pike,2006). By activating this Act, sharing of information to track down terrorist became available (Jordan, 2007). Bad record keeping and human error were the reason for the mishandling of the security letters as the FBI was using the letters during unnecessary times. There are times when the FBI needs to conduct business research to and analyze their data to solve a crime, but by illegally gathering the information that is needed to solve their research, the affected are the U.S citizens and the government.
When the FBI conducts illegal activity,