Much ink has been spilled over the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping of domestic phone calls. But other federal agencies have also proved unable to demarcate the post-9/11 line between security and privacy.

The Washington Post’s Dan Eggen reports that FBI Director Robert Mueller admitted to a Senate committee yesterday that the agency extensively misused national security letters to subpoena information from citizens. The FBI, a division of the Justice Department, must grapple with an upcoming report from Justice’s Inspector General stating that it improperly obtained telephone logs, banking records and credit card information from U.S. citizens. Mueller promised senators that the Inspector General report “predates the reforms we now have in place.”  Read Eggen here.

Food and Drug Administration investigators have linked the widespread death and injuries caused by the blood thinner heparin to a contaminant already in the drug when it was given to Chinese and Wisconsin manufacturing plants. The New York Times Gardiner Harris and Walt Bogdanich lay out the ongoing probe of heparin produced by Baxter International Inc, which has since recalled the product.

The drug has now caused anywhere from four (Baxter’s number) to nineteen (the FDA’s present total) to forty-six (the number of deaths reported to agency as heparin-related).  Harris and Bogdanich make the point that the FDA is investigating not just Baxter and its overseas manufacturing partners, but its own role as well.  How did the agency completely overlook the drug’s Chinese manufacturing plant until it was too late for as many as 50 Americans?  Read Bogdanich and Harris here.

Spencer S. Hsu of the Washington Post, who has covered the Department of Homeland Security since its March 2003 creation, provides elements of a fifth anniversary overview today. Hsu writes that, “The evolving 208,000-worker, $38 billion agency remains hindered by the crisis-of-the-moment environment, in which the rush to fulfill each new mandate or meet every threat undermines its ability to hold a strategic course and deliver promised results.” (more…)