Just asking...

No doubt the story is even worse than WaPo lets on. Nevertheless:

FBI counterterrorism officials continued to use flawed procedures to obtain thousands of U.S. telephone records during a two-year period...

The flawed procedures involved the use of emergency demands for records, called "exigent circumstance" letters, which contained false or undocumented claims. They also included national security letters that were issued without FBI rules being followed. Both types of request were served on three phone companies.

"Exigent circumstances..." I love it. Sounds like some weasel-faced Federalist Society operative scribbling in the dimly lit dankness of Shooters's bunker thought that one up, eh?

The exigency letters, created by the FBI's New York office after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, told telephone providers that the FBI needed information immediately and would follow up with subpoenas later. There is no basis in the law to compel phone companies to turn over information using such letters, [Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A.] Fine found, and in many cases, agents never followed up with the promised subpoenas, he said.

Fine's report said the bureau's counterterrorism office used the exigency letters at least 739 times between 2003 and 2005 to obtain records related to 3,000 separate phone numbers.

"Related to" is awfully vague. Related through six degrees of separation perhaps?

FBI officials acknowledged that the process was so flawed that they may have to destroy some phone records to keep them from being used in the future, if the bureau does not find proof they were gathered in connection with an authorized investigation.

Actually, they can't destroy them. Ashcroft's order setting up the program under the so-called Patriot act mandates that they "shall" keep them, no matter whether they are flawed or not.

But Fine's report made no mention of the FBI's subsequent efforts to legitimize those actions with improperly prepared national security letters last year.

That's bad enough. So much for the rule of law and the right to be secure in our papers and effects.

Now, the money quote:

But the inspector general's probe concluded that many of the letters were "not sent in exigent circumstances" and that "there sometimes were no open or pending national security investigations tied to the request," contrary to what U.S. law requires. No subpoenas had actually been requested before the letters were sent. The phone companies nonetheless promptly turned over the information, in anticipation of getting a more legally viable document later, FBI officials said.

Well, then why did the FBI send the letters, if there were no national security investigations?

Could it be.... ratfucking? (And do check out the McClatchy quote at the other end of that link. It contains the words "politically explosive.")

NOTE We should obviously be calling the US Attorney scandal Ratfucking, because that's what it is.