WASHINGTON (AFP) – FBI Director Robert Mueller told US senators Wednesday that, despite criticism from civil liberty groups, his agency has shown respect for the rights of citizens as it seeks to keep the country safe from terrorist attacks.
Mueller spoke nearly two weeks after legislation was introduced in the US Senate that would allow him to stay on as head of the country's domestic intelligence service for another two years.
Keeping the country safe from terror attacks "brings us to the point where we are balancing day-in and day-out civil liberties in the necessity for disrupting a plot that could kill Americans," Mueller told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who are considering the two-year extension request.
"I do not believe that we have abused our powers in any way, with maybe one or two isolated examples," he said.
US law provides one 10-year term for the FBI director in an effort to keep the post from being politicized, and Mueller's is set to expire in September. President Barack Obama has asked the Senate to allow him to stay on.
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents have been working under broad authority obtained under the Patriot Act, approved after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States.
"I don't believe the (Inspector General) has found such substantial misuse," Mueller said.
Concerning surveillance of mosques and Muslim community centers, "we have done it appropriately and with appropriate predication under the guidelines in the applicable statutes even though there are allegations out there to the contrary," Mueller said.
"Whenever these allegations come forward, I take them exceptionally seriously," he said.
"I make certain that our inspection division or others look into it to determine whether or not we need to change anything," he said.
Mueller also stressed the need to simplify ways of getting telecommunications companies to provide information in cases of terrorist investigations, child pornography or financial crimes.
One of the leading US rights groups, the American Civil Liberties Union, opposes Mueller's extension on the job.
In a mid-May statement the ACLU deplored the FBI?s "significant misuse" of its authority, as well as the "infiltration of mosques, the abuse of the material witness statute, the FBI surveillance of peaceful groups with no evidence of criminal wrongdoing and the mishandling of the FBI watch list."
Mueller, who was named to the FBI post by president George W. Bush just one week before the September 11 terror attacks, has been heavily involved in the government's anti-terrorism efforts.
The current procedure for nominating FBI directors and limiting their tenure to 10 years was brought in around the death in 1972 of the powerful J. Edgar Hoover, who had maintained an iron rule in the post for 48 years.
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