WASHINGTON — Although the FBI has acknowledged it improperly obtained thousands of Americans’ phone records for years, the Obama administration continues to assert that the bureau can obtain them without any formal legal process or court oversight. The FBI revealed this stance in a newly released report, troubling critics who’d hoped the bureau had been chastened enough by its own abuses to drop such a position. In further support of the legal authority, however, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel backed the FBI in a written opinion issued this month. The opinion by the OLC - the section that wrote the memos that justified enhanced interrogation techniques during the last administration - appears to be yet another sign that the Obama administration can be just as assertive as Bush’s in claiming sweeping and controversial anti-terrorism powers. The Justice Department’s watchdog, the inspector general, said the OLC opinion has ‘significant policy implications that need to be considered by the FBI, the Department, and the Congress.’ ‘The FBI says that this kind of activity is in the past,’ said Michael German, a former FBI agent who’s now the American Civil Liberties Union’s policy counsel. ‘But if […]