The BushAdministration’snumbers on itsanti-terroreffectiveness aredead wrong.
Internal Audit Reveals Justice Anti-Terror Data ‘Inaccurately Reported’By Cliff Montgomery – Feb. 21st, 2007Bush Administration prosecutors have counted everything from immigration violations and marriage fraud to drug trafficking as among its anti-terror cases in the four years after 9/11,without a shred of evidence linking them to terror activity, a Justice Department audit found Tuesday.Overall, nearly all of the terrorism-related statistics on investigations, referrals and cases examined by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine were dead wrong.These highly inaccurate numbers have served as the basis for administration claims that its methods are working to keep America safe in its “war on terror.”The study encompassed 26 sets of department data reported between 2001 and 2005, and “determined that the FBI, EOUSA (Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys), and the Criminal Division did not accurately report 24 of the 26 statistics we reviewed,” the report concluded.”Some of these statistics were significantly overstated or understated, while others were overstated or understated by minor amounts,” according to the report.”The statistics were inaccurately reported for various reasons, including that the components: (1) could not provide support for the numbers reported for the statistics; (2) could not provide support of the terrorism link used to classify statistics as terrorism-related; and (3) could not provide documentation to show that some items counted in the statistic…occurred in the period reported, or the evidence provided showed that some items counted in the statistic…did not occur in the period reported,” the auditors wrote.The numbers, used to monitor the Justice Department’s achievements in battling terrorists, are reported to both Congress and the American people, and partly help shape the department’s perceived budget needs.That’s saying something. An audit footnote states, “The Department received $3.6 billion in Fiscal Year (FY) 2006 for counterterrorism activities, an increase of almost 400 percent over the $737 million received in FY 2001.””For these and other reasons, it is essential that the department report accurate terrorism-related statistics,” the auditors concluded.Fine’s office stressed however that the wrong numbers appear to be the result of disagreements over how the data are collected and reported, and do not appear to be intentional.Auditors looked at 26 categories of statistics, including numbers of suspects charged and convicted in terrorist cases, and terror-related threats against U.S. cities and other American targets. The audit discovered that data from the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys, which compiles statistics from the 94 federal prosecutors’ districts nationwide, were the most severely flawed.A November 2001 federal clampdown on security breaches at airports, for example, yielded arrests on immigration and false document charges, but no evidence of terrorist activity. But the attorneys’ office still counted them as 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 accepting money to arrange six fraudulent marriages between Tunisian nationals and U.S. citizens;- Prosecution of a Mexican citizen who, in a passport application, falsely identified himself as another person;- Charges against a suspect for dealing firearms without a license. In this case even the prosecutor handling the case told auditors it was wrongly labeled as “anti-terrorism”.”We do not agree that law enforcement efforts such as these should be counted as anti-terrorism,” wrote auditors.Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd remained adamant however, pointing out to the Associated Press (AP) that in all but one area, the audit shows that Criminal Division prosecutors either accurately stated or underreported their data–numbers the department usually uses in public statements about its counterterror efforts, he claims.But a closer review tells the whole story.In its overview of the Criminal Division, the audit reports that “the Criminal Division provided varying sets of data to us regarding its statistics. Because the Criminal Division had not established effective procedures to gather and report accurate terrorism data, the Criminal Division had difficulty providing us a stable or reliable list of cases reported for each of the…statistics we reviewed.”In the first attempt to clean up its numbers, the Criminal Division submitted reconstructed data to auditors in March 2006, who found that “analysis of the reconstructed data and supporting documentation showed that the statistics were overstated six times, understated two times, and reported accurately one time.”Yes, the Criminal Division may claim to have finally “under-reported most of its statistics,” but the audit stresses that’s “based on the support it eventually provided to us.”Boyd admitted to AP that Criminal Division prosecutors and the FBI have overhauled their respective case reporting systems since 2004 for a more accurate picture of terror-related activities.”The [audit] findings, with respect to U.S. attorneys’ statistics, largely boiled down to a difference of opinion over the definition of anti-terrorism,” Boyd told AP.One wonders if, away from auditors, those differences will remain.
