

FBI chastened by court for lying about existence of surveillance records - grellas
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/05/fbi-chastised-court-lying-about-existence

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ataggart
I find it interesting that "perjury" isn't mentioned. The chastening by the
court means little if the government suffers no ill effects from lying under
oath.

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anigbrowl
At a guess, this is because may not be immediately obvious who committed
perjury. Not everyone on the government side is necessarily on the same page,
and over the 5-year lifetime of this case several of the people involved may
have changed jobs.

The US attorney representing the FBI in court might have been acting in good
faith, for example, because someone within the FBI had decided that neither
the court nor the attorney had a 'need to know' about the existence of other
documents. Establishing exactly who made that decision and how many other
people knew about it and when they knew etc. etc. will require a separate
investigation. (I have only read the opinion so far, and not looked at the
procedural history of the case which might answer some of those questions.)

My understanding is that there are a few costs to the government when this
happens. There's an investigation as mentioned above, which can take years. In
the short term, the government may have to pay some or all of the plaintiff's
legal costs - that can also take years, but it has an immediate effect on
agencies' budget planning. Lastly, either the government appeals or the
decision will be cited in existing or future litigation about similar issues.

I have a hunch that there will be a huge amount of information- and security-
related litigation against the government for the next 5-10 years. Now that
Osama bin Laden is gone there will be increasing domestic pressure to reassess
foreign policy, military commitments, and the role of security in public life.
People are tired of the war on terror and the security theater that goes with
it, and bin Laden's death is a sufficiently large milestone that legal and
legislative debates will broaden considerably. 'But al qaeda' will no longer
substitute for an actual argument as it has for most of the last 10 years.

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Joakal
<http://i.imgur.com/0QIIb.jpg> Like this?

Edit: I'm probably downvoted for lack of information; it's Obama's speech
announcing the death of Osama and changes to USA policies similar to that of
parent's last paragraph.

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Groxx
that looks nothing like this: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/02/osama-
bin-laden-dea...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-
dead-obama-speech-video-transcript_n_856122.html)

~~~
Joakal
Indeed, in fact Obama actually said that more security is needed.

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trafficlight
That's about as effective as writing a stern letter to the editor.

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iandanforth
Chastised maybe. Chastened? Never.

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alecco
They get away with this kind of things all the time. This is likely just one
time in many. Slap in the wrist, move along.

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rorrr
Nobody is prosecuted, no obstruction of justice charges filed = judge is a
pussy and this shit will keep happening.

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anigbrowl
Courts do not file charges or spin off criminal proceedings in the middle of
an ongoing civil trial - it's not like forking something on GitHub. I think
the Office of the Inspector General inside the DoJ would appoint a prosecutor
whose job it would be to investigate and file charges if appropriate.
Alternatively, Congress also has powers to initiate investigations of the
executive branch.

People do sometimes go to jail for this sort of thing, but it's rarely front
page news because the cases are so technical, and because the prosecutions
take so long that the general public usually ends up losing interest, if they
ever had any to begin with. Here's a recent example:
<http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0311/033111RB1.htm>

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anigbrowl
_Most_ interesting - thanks for posting this, as it answers several questions
about a similar case.

