It turns out that when you give law enforcement sweeping powers to demand access to private records with minimal oversight, you get lots of abuses. A Justice Department audit of the FBI’s use of “national security letters” surveyed 293 such letters from 77 casefiles and found 22 potential breaches (at least one in almost a quarter of the casefiles) of FBI regulations—and in some cases possibly the law—governing their use. In 2005 alone, over 19,000 such letters were issued. You do the math. Unqualified Offerings has more.