Information obtained through the Freedom of Information Act has revealed that the FBI has illegally conducted surveillance against U.S. citizens and has not followed the rules established by Congress, the Justice Department or presidential directives.

According to audit data gathered by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, hundreds of cases have been investigated by internal audits.

The FBI has secretly tracked U.S. residents for as long as 18 months without following appropriate procedures and without oversight. The agency has seized banking records in violation of bank privacy laws and improperly conduced physical searches and seized e-mails and other communications.

The results of the EPIC FOIA requests were first reported Monday in The Washington Post and show that in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks and the passage of the USA Patriot Act the agency has not followed the law or its own rules, and appropriate oversight has been neglected.

By its actions, the FBI has jeopardized investigations and unnecessarily put the nation at risk. What the agency defends as simple administrative errors are, instead, breaches of procedure that violate the rights of U.S. citizens and call into question the FBI’s commitment to acting within the law.

“We’re seeing what might be the tip of the iceberg at the FBI and across the intelligence community,” EPIC’s David Sobel told the Post. “It indicates that the existing mechanisms do not appear adequate to prevent abuses or to ensure the public that abuses that are identified are treated seriously and remedied.”

While freewheeling FBI agents who disregard the law in pursuit of results might make good television, they don’t work nearly as well in real life where evidence is lost and suspects escape justice.

Almost 300 separate violations were reported in the incomplete information received by EPIC. The full scope of the FBI’s actions won’t be known until Congress overcomes its bashful behavior and holds the federal law enforcement bureaucracy accountable for its actions.