Homeland Security Department Improperly Collected Intelligence on U.S. Citizens

On three separate occasions over the past several years, staffers at the Department of Homeland Security unlawfully collected information on American citizens or lawful residents, the New York Times reports. In all three cases, Homeland Security officials expressed concern that there was insufficient evidence to prompt the investigations and the reports were destroyed.

In February, a Homeland Security staffer wrote a "threat assessment" for Wisconsin police in preparation for an upcoming pro- and anti-abortion demonstration and counter-demonstration. The report was eventually criticized within the department because the advocacy groups were not terrorist threats. The staffer was given remedial training.

In March 2008, the department produced a "terrorism watch list" for a Muslim conference in Georgia at which several Americans spoke, despite having no evidence the event had any connection to radical Islam.

In October 2007, the office circulated a report on the Nation of Islam that should never have been written because the 180-day examination period had passed without uncovering evidence of terrorist activity.

"I think it's a positive sign that these agencies responded to this and took steps to correct the situation," said Marsha Hoffman, a staff lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which obtained the reports under the Freedom of Information Act. "We would never have known that this happened had we not seen these internal reports."