A report by internal investigators at the Justice Department has identified dozens of recent cases in which department employees have been accused of serious civil rights and civil liberties violations involving enforcement of ... the USA Patriot Act. The report said that in the six-month period that ended on June 15 [2003], the inspector general's office had received 34 complaints of civil rights and civil liberties violations by department employees that it considered credible, including accusations that Muslim and Arab immigrants in federal detention centers had been beaten. The accused workers are employed in several of the agencies that make up the Justice Department, with most of them assigned to the Bureau of Prisons. The report said that credible accusations were also made against employees of the F.B.I., the [D.E.A.] and the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The report ... suggests that the relatively small staff of the inspector general's office has been overwhelmed by accusations of abuse, many filed by Muslim or Arab inmates in federal detention centers. The inspector general said that from Dec. 16 through June 15, his office received 1,073 complaints suggesting a Patriot Act-related" abuse of civil rights or civil liberties. 272 [accusations] were determined to fall within the inspector general's jurisdiction, with 34 raising "credible Patriot Act violations on their face." In those 34 cases, it said, the accusations "ranged in seriousness from alleged beatings of immigration detainees to B.O.P. correctional officers allegedly verbally abusing inmates."

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