Editorial: A numerical nightmare

Saturday, Feb. 24, 2007 | 6:55 a.m.

A federal audit says that the Justice Department's tally of anti-terror cases in the four years after the 2001 terrorist attacks was seriously flawed and included investigations of marriage fraud, drug trafficking and other crimes that were not linked to terrorist activity.

According to the review by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine, nearly all of the terrorism-related figures the department reported from 2001 through 2005 were either too high or too low. In fact, Fine's examination shows that only two of the 26 sets of figures reported during that period were accurate.

Through interviews with officials from the FBI and other federal investigation agencies, Fine discovered that the collection of terrorism-related data is "decentralized and haphazard." Most of the incidents were reported multiple times by different agencies, Fine says, and the agencies lacked controls - or failed to use controls - to ensure that terrorism statistics were accurately gathered, classified and reported.

The agencies also lacked a clear definition of what constitutes terrorist activity or failed to reclassify investigations after no terrorism link was found. Not knowing exactly how many federal cases actually involve terrorism makes it impossible to determine how effectively the Justice Department is fighting terrorist activity. And the Bush administration and Congress also use the figures to determine the potential risks of terrorist activity to shape funding priorities.

While Fine says the errors do not appear to be intentional, the audit shows a clear lack of communication and controls among the federal agencies that are charged with investigating terrorist activity. In an Associated Press story on Wednesday, Justice Department officials said that they have enacted many of the audit's recommendations.

We certainly hope so. But it has been five years since terrorists attacked the United States - ample time, it seems, for the Justice Department to have figured out how to accurately classify and track terrorist activity.