FBI Responds to OIG Report on FBI Activities Concerning Potential Protestors at the 2004 Conventions

Results show FBI acted appropriately

Washington, D.C. - The FBI today released the following statement in response to today’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) report:

We appreciate the work of the Office of Inspector General in examining the FBI’s investigative activities concerning potential protestors at the 2004 Democratic and Republican national political conventions. We welcome this scrutiny and are pleased with the results. The findings essentially refute many published allegations and claims that the FBI engaged in misconduct. In the course of their 10-month review, the OIG conducted dozens of interviews of FBI Headquarters and field personnel and reviewed thousands of documents.

The OIG found that the FBI’s investigative activity during this time was related to addressing threats that fall directly within the FBI’s domestic terrorism program and were conducted for a legitimate law enforcement purpose. Additionally, all actions were in accordance with Attorney General’s Guidelines on General Crimes as well as FBI policy.

With respect to protestor-related interviews, the OIG found that the FBI’s contacts with these individuals were appropriate and necessary in furtherance of criminal investigations into specific threats of violence.

As FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, stated earlier this week in New York, “The FBI will be measured not only by our ability to protect the nation from terrorism. We will also be measured-as we should be-by our commitment to protecting the rights and freedoms we enjoy as Americans. If we accomplish the first goal, but fail in the second, it will indeed be a pyrrhic victory.”