The way the FBI responded to Jill Kelley’s complaint about receiving harassing emails, which ultimately unraveled or scarred the careers of ex-CIA Director David N. Petraeus and Marine Gen. John Allen, is the exception, not the rule.
The FBI commonly declines to pursue cyberstalking cases without compelling evidence of serious or imminent harm to an individual, victims of online harassment, advocacy groups and computer crime experts told The Associated Press.
But in the sensational episode that uncovered the spy chief’s adulterous affair, the FBI’s cyberdivision devoted months of tedious investigative work to uncover who had sent insulting and anonymous messages about Mrs. Kelley, the Florida socialite who was friendly with Mr. Petraeus and Gen. Allen — and friends with a veteran FBI counterterrorism agent in Tampa.
The bureau probably would have ignored Mrs. Kelley’s complaint had it not been for information in the emails that indicated the sender was aware of the travel schedules of Mr. Petraeus and Gen. Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. Instead, the FBI considered this from the earliest stages to be an exceptional case, and one so sensitive that FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. were kept notified of its progress.
How the FBI’s investigation unfolded — especially its decision not to alert the White House, the director of national intelligence or Congress about its discovery of Mr. Petraeus’ sexual affair until Election Day — is under scrutiny, especially because there is no indication so far that any criminal charges will be filed.
Mr. Mueller and his deputy, Sean Joyce, have met privately with lawmakers to defend how the inquiry was handled. Mr. Holder said on Thursday that law enforcement officials did not inform the president and Congress about the probe because it did not uncover any threat to national security.
President Obama said he was withholding judgment until he learns more. “You know, we don’t have all the information yet,” Mr. Obama said at a White House news conference. “But I want to say that I have a lot of confidence generally in the FBI.” He added that it was “best right now for us to just see how this whole process is unfolding.”
The FBI’s cybersquads, like the one in Tampa that investigated the Petraeus case, are primarily focused on blocking criminals and terrorists from using the Internet to threaten national security or steal valuable information stored in government and corporate computers.
An AP review of court records found only nine cases over the past two years that identified cyberstalking or cyberharassment as the underlying crime in federal criminal complaints. In one recent case, a Michigan man was charged with cyberstalking after using the Internet and text messages to contact female victims, many of them minors, in an effort to obtain pornographic pictures. In another case, the FBI arrested a man for sending emails threatening to kill Los Angeles model Kourtney Reppert and her family.
“They turn people away all the time on the grounds that (cyberstalking) is a civil matter, not a criminal one,” said Danielle Citron, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law who studies cyberharassment issues.
In one such incident, a woman told the AP that her ex-boyfriend posted online an intimate video and nude photos of her with her name and email address, and she complained to the FBI. Speaking on condition of anonymity because she feared personal and professional repercussions, the woman said she had been deluged with offensive messages from strangers who viewed the photos and video. Her personal and professional reputation had been ruined. She changed her name.
The FBI’s advice to her: hire a lawyer.
But the FBI considered Mrs. Kelley’s complaint significant. And for good reason, said David Laufman, a former federal prosecutor who handled national security cases. “Most cases aren’t going to get this level of attention or resources,” he said. “But most cases don’t involve the incumbent director of the CIA or the head of U.S. military forces in Afghanistan.”
The first anonymous emails, which the FBI ultimately traced to Paula Broadwell, an Army reservist and Mr. Petraeus’ biographer, were sent in May to Gen. Allen and several other generals warning them to stay away from Mrs. Kelley. The emails came from the pseudonym “Kelleypatrol” and included notes on Gen. Allen’s plans to see Mrs. Kelley in Washington the following week. Concerned about how anyone else would know about his personal plans, Gen. Allen forwarded the emails to Mrs. Kelley to see whether she was playing a prank on them. Other generals also forwarded to Mrs. Kelley copies of emails they received.
In early June, Mrs. Kelley herself received the first of as many as five emails sent from different anonymous accounts alleging that she was up to no good. One of messages cited Mr. Petraeus by name and mentioned an upcoming social visit they had planned in Washington. The mysterious emails were sent to Mrs. Kelley’s personal account and to a separate account she jointly monitored with her husband.
Mrs. Kelley contacted an FBI agent in Tampa she had met years earlier. The bureau believed the emails were serious because they suggested the mysterious sender knew about upcoming meetings of the CIA director and a Marine Corps general.
Agents examined the digital fingerprints that emails leave behind and eventually determined Mrs. Broadwell had sent the messages from an account set up with a fictitious name. As the agents looked further, they came across a private Gmail account that used an alias name. It turned out to be Mr. Petraeus’. The contents of several of the exchanges between Mr. Petraeus and Mrs. Broadwell indicated they were having an affair. A search of Mrs. Broadwell’s computers also found classified documents.
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