WASHINGTON, DC — In spite of repeated assurances to the American public that fighting terrorism is Job One for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the fact is that fighting pornography and obscenity has gotten far more attention from the agency.According to NPR there are fewer FBI prosecutions than ever before, with Syracuse University reporting that 87-percent of all international terrorism cases brought before the FBI during the first nine years of 2006 were not prosecuted, something mirrored with white collar crime, drug offenses, and organized crime. Such has not been the case with obscenity or pornography, however, both of which are said to be experiencing record highs.
The FBI, however, insists that the 87-percent figure is inaccurate and that the methodology used by the university in order to get the figures showed an “astonishing misunderstanding” about how the federal criminal justice system works.
According to Department of Justice representative Brian Roehrkasse, “This report contains inaccurate figures, relies on a faulty assumption that every referral from an investigative agency should result in a criminal prosecution, and ignores the reality of how the war on terrorism is being conducted.”
The university’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) had determined that the number of cases that were rejected has been increasing since 2001, with prosecutions falling from118 defendants in 2002 to 19 between October 1st and June 30th of 2005.
David Burnham, director of TRAC, claims that nine out of every 10 cases presented to for prosecution of international terrorism have been turned down and suggests that those who have issues with the university’s conclusions should check their own records, since that is where his team drew their numbers.
Roehrkasse claims that the Justice Department has experienced massive changes since the attacks of September 11th and has moved from being prosecution-driven to being prevention focused, with an emphasis on developing a domestic intelligence system. This, and not a lack of interest, is what he contends is responsible for the drop in numbers. According to Roehrkasse, this does not mean that the cases are necessarily closed. Further, he insists that a more accurate number is 67-percent and points out that 36 international terrorist defendants have been prosecuted, nearly doubling the number that appears in the TRAC report.
No word on why the agency’s rate of referrals-to-prosecutions are so much higher when it comes to pornography and obscenity, however.
