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Audit: Anti-terror case data flawed |
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By Lara Jakes Jordan, Associated Press
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WASHINGTON - Federal prosecutors counted immigration violations, marriage fraud and drug trafficking among anti-terror cases in the four years after 9/11 despite no evidence linking them to terror activity, a Justice Department audit said on February 20.
Overall, nearly all of the terrorism-related statistics on investigations, referrals and cases examined by department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine were either diminished or inflated. Only two of 26 sets of department data reported between 2001 and 2005 were accurate, the audit found.
The numbers, used to monitor the department’s progress in battling terrorists, are reported to Congress and the public and help, in part, shape the department’s budget.
"For these and other reasons, it is essential that the department report accurate terrorism-related statistics," the audit concluded.
Fine’s office took care to say the flawed data appear to be the result of "decentralized and haphazard" methods of collection or disagreement over how the numbers are reported, and do not appear to be intentional.
Still, the errors led Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., to question whether the department had exaggerated the number of its terror cases.
"If the Department of Justice can’t even get their own books in order, how are we supposed to have any confidence they are doing the job they should be?" said Schumer, who sits on the Senate panel that oversees the department.
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