FBI Gained Unauthorized Access to Large Amount of E-mail
A technical glitch gave the F.B.I. access to the e-mail messages from an entire computer network � perhaps hundreds of accounts or more � instead of simply the lone e-mail address that was approved by a secret intelligence court as part of a national security investigation, according to an internal report of the 2006 episode. F.B.I. officials blamed an �apparent miscommunication� with the unnamed Internet provider, which mistakenly turned over all the e-mail from a small e-mail domain for which it served as host. The records were ultimately destroyed, officials said.
F.B.I. Gained Unauthorized Access to E-Mail, New York Times, February 17, 2008.
