Responding, a Justice spokesman pointed to figures showing that prosecutors in the department's headquarters for the most part either accurately or underreported their data — underscoring what he called efforts to avoid pumping up federal terror statistics.
The numbers, used to monitor the department's progress in battling terrorists, are reported to Congress and the public and help, in part, shape the department's budget.
"For these and other reasons, it is essential that the department report accurate terrorism-related statistics," the audit concluded.
Fine's office took care to say the flawed data appear to be the result of "decentralized and haphazard" methods of collection or disagreement over how the numbers are reported, and do not appear to be intentional.
Still, the errors led Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., to question whether the department had exaggerated the number of terror cases.
Not sure if that constitutes "profiteering" or not, but I'm pretty sure that like all advertising, it creates a growing demand that did not used to exist... at least I assume so. Since it's apparently so damned good for everyone, it's hard to know how sacrosanct the data actually are.
from the headlines on today's democracynow,
Audit: Terror Statistics Inaccurate, Inflated
And finally, a new audit has found widespread inaccuracy in how the government collects statistics on terrorism. The Justice Department Inspector General says hundreds of completely unrelated cases have helped inflate numbers on offenses and prosecutions. Offenses including drug trafficking, marriage fraud and immigration violations were among those wrongly included. Just two of twenty-six collections of statistics were found to be accurate. The Bush administration has previously cited the statistics in efforts to provide evidence of successes in prosecuting terrorism cases.
apart from the announcement, this is not new news to many here, but it's good to finally see gvt acknowledgment that they've been lying to us.
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