ANCHORENA PARK, Uruguay — President Bush on Saturday pledged an end to FBI lapses that led to illegal prying into people's lives.
"Those problems will be addressed as quickly as possible," Bush said during a news conference in Uruguay, the second stop on his Latin America trip.
A new audit by the Justice Department's internal watchdog found that the FBI improperly used a tool called national security letters. The letters are administrative subpoenas that don't require judicial approval.
Agents sometimes demanded personal data on people without official authorization, and in other cases improperly obtained telephone records. Shoddy record-keeping and human error were to blame in most cases, the audit found.
"My question is, `What are you going to do solve the problem and how fast can you get it solved?"' said Bush, who was briefed on the report last week.
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Bush said he was pleased by the response of FBI Director Robert Mueller, who has taken responsibility and promised to fix the problems.
Bush expressed confidence in Mueller and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
The president said that while the report by the Justice Department's inspector general "justly made issue of FBI shortfalls, (it) also made clear that these letters were important to the security of the United States."
