FBI Illegally Collected Telephone Records

From 2002 to 2006, the FBI was illegally collecting thousands of U.S. telephone call records and approving them afterward to "justify their actions," reports The Washington Post. To do this, they cited terrorism emergencies that didn't exist, and in some cases simply convinced telephone companies to hand over the records. "We should have stopped those requests from being made that way," said FBI General Counsel Valerie Caproni. "What this turned out to be was a self-inflicted wound." According to Caproni, FBI Director Robert Mueller III was unaware of the problem until it surfaced in 2006, but documents show other senior managers approved the procedures for two years. The FBI now claims they revised their ways with safeguards enacted in 2007.