FBI finds most terrorism threat reports baseless (Reuters)

FBI finds most terrorism threat reports baseless
Fri Nov 7, 2008 6:23pm EST

By Randall Mikkelsen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI tracked about
108,000 potential terrorism threats or suspicious
incidents from mid-2004 to November 2007, but most
were found groundless, a Justice Department review
found on Friday.

The department's office of inspector general gave
the figure in an audit of the FBI's terrorism case-
tracking system, called Guardian, launched in 2002
after the September 11 attacks.

"The FBI determined that the overwhelming majority
of the threat information documented in Guardian
had no nexus to terrorism. However, as a result
of information reported in Guardian the FBI initiated
over 600 criminal and terrorism-related
investigations from October 2006 to December
2007," the inspector general's report said.

The report did not discuss the result of the
investigations.

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