WASHINGTON (AP) — Top-level FBI counterterrorism executives issued improper blanket demands in 2006 for records of 3,860 telephone lines to justify the fact that agents already had obtained the data using an illegal procedure that is now prohibited, the Justice Department inspector general reported Thursday.

Glenn A. Fine also reported that in one case FBI anti-terrorism agents circumvented a federal court which twice had refused a warrant for personal records because the judges believed the agents were investigating conduct protected by the First Amendment. Fine said the agents got the records using national security letters, which do not require a judge’s approval, without altering or re-examining the basis of their suspicions — the target’s association with others under investigation.

These findings were highlighted in Fine’s second report in two years on how the FBI has used broad authority to gather personal information about Americans granted by the USA Patriot Act and other statutes since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Overall, Fine’s new report found, as expected, that FBI privacy abuse during terrorism investigations continued to rise in 2006. He reserved judgment on whether corrective actions under way will work.

“It is too early to tell whether these measures will eliminate fully the problems,” Fine said.

He added that the FBI and Justice Department had made significant progress in implementing revised procedures since last year but some measures still are not fully in use or tested.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers acknowledged that “the FBI has taken important steps to repair” the problems but said, “I remain disappointed.”

Conyers, D-Mich., said his committee would question FBI Director Robert Mueller about the inspector general’s report at a hearing next month.

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., said Congress should “finally put limits on the overbroad authority it granted in the Patriot Act.”

“The FBI has flagrantly put aside the rule of law and its internal guidelines time and again,” said Michael German, a former FBI agent and American Civil Liberties Union national security counsel. “Because this power is not subject to meaningful judicial oversight, it is being grossly abused.”

In written statements, both the FBI and the Justice Department noted that the 2006 abuses occurred before Fine’s first report brought problems to light last year and led to new procedures. Neither of Fine’s reports cited any criminal intent; he blamed even illegal procedures on mistakes, poor training and record-keeping, and short resources.

The new procedures govern how FBI agents use national security letters, which allow them to obtain telephone, bank, Internet and credit records without first getting a warrant from a judge. The new rules also prohibit so-called exigent letters.

Fine reported last year that from 2003 through 2005 FBI agents sent more than 700 of these exigent, or emergency, letters to telecommunication companies to obtain telephone records quickly. Fine said the letters violated requirements of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and Justice and FBI guidelines by falsely stating they were needed for specific national security investigations under grand jury investigation and that national security letters were being drafted to cover the requests. In fact, there were no specific grand jury investigations behind the requests and no NSLs were being prepared.

Thursday, Fine reported that in 2006 top counterterrorism officials at FBI headquarters tried to remedy the problem with these letters but in the process committed “the most serious violations involving the use of national security letters in 2006.”

They issued 11 blanket NSLs “to ’cover’ or ’validate’ the information obtained from exigent letters and other improper requests,” Fine said. All 11 violated FBI rules and eight of them did not comply with the Patriot Reauthorization Act, Fine said. They were signed by the assistant director in charge of the counterterrorism division and several of his deputies.

“We are concerned by the failure of senior counterterrorism division officials to comply with statutory requirements and internal policy regarding issuance of NSLs,” Fine said.

Assistant FBI Director John Miller said, “It was a well-intentioned effort to do the right thing but it introduced new problems we are still working to correct.”

Some of the first questions about the blanket letters were raised by an FBI whistleblower, Bassem Youssef, chief of the division’s communications analysis unit. Youssef’s lawyer, Stephen Kohn, said, “The responsible assistant directors failed in their duty to know the laws governing NSLs. This is very troubling for the way they conduct counterterrorism investigations.”

Fine highlighted another episode involving the First Amendment’s freedom to associate with people of one’s choice.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which meets in secret, twice denied the FBI’s request for a warrant under section 215 of the Patriot Act for business records about a target “based on concerns that the investigation was premised on protected First Amendment activity,” Fine said. So without altering the basis of its investigation, the bureau got the same records without a warrant using national security letters.

FBI General Counsel Valerie Caproni told Fine “she disagreed with the court” and the NSLs were appropriate. “She stated the FBI would have to close numerous investigations if it was not permitted to investigate individuals based on their contact with other subjects of FBI investigations,” Fine said.

Details of this episode and the blanket NSLs were blacked out for security reasons, but Fine promised a more extensive report on them soon.

Last year, Fine found 48 violations of law or rules in the bureau’s use of national security letters from 2003 to 2005.

Fine said Thursday the number of abuses found and reported by the FBI itself in 2006 “was significantly higher than the number of reported violations in prior years.”

In 2006, FBI personnel self-reported 84 possible violations to headquarters. Of these, the FBI reported 34 to the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board, which polices intelligence-gathering abuses.

The errors included issuing national security letters without proper authorization, improper requests and unauthorized collection of telephone or Internet e-mail records, Fine said.

Fine determined 20 of the violations resulted from FBI mistakes and 14 resulted initially from errors by companies that received the letters. But Fine added that “the FBI may have compounded these errors” by recipients because agents did not recognize they were given too much information and went on to use the data they weren’t entitled to.

The FBI’s use of national security letters rose by 4.7 percent in 2006, to 49,425 letters from 47,221 letters in 2005, Fine said. Since 2003, U.S. citizens and foreigners legally living here permanently have increasingly been the targets of the letters, rising from 39 percent of requests in 2003 to 57 percent in 2006, Fine reported.

The FBI’s Miller said new rules require that an attorney review the letters before they are sent and agents are getting more training about national security letters.

“We are committed to using them in ways that maximize their national security value while providing the highest level of privacy and protection of the civil liberties of those we are sworn to protect,” Miller said.

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On the Net:

Justice Department IG: http://www.usdoj.gov/oig