Released: September 01, 2006

US DOE provided student loan data to FBI

Source: By Greg Toppo, USA Today

A little-known federal program created days after Sept. 11, 2001, examined financial aid records of college students targeted by the FBI in terrorism investigations, but it’s unclear whether it netted any terrorists, according to U.S. Education Department documents. The program, called Project Strike Back, was a joint project of the department and the FBI and was created 10 days after the terrorist attacks, according to the documents from the department’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG).

The documents were released to USA TODAY through Freedom of Information Act requests. They were also obtained by a Medill School of Journalism reporter working with the Associated Press.

About 14 million students apply for federal financial aid for college each year, the Education Department says. FBI spokeswoman Catherine Milhoan said the FBI gave the OIG “a small, select list of a couple of hundred names associated with ongoing investigations.”

Intelligence has repeatedly indicated terrorists have exploited student-visa and financial-aid programs, and identity theft has been a factor in some student loan frauds, said John Miller, FBI assistant director of public affairs, in a statement Thursday.

The FBI asked the inspector general’s office “to run names of subjects already material to counter-terrorism investigations against the databases to look for evidence of either student loan fraud or identity theft,” Miller said. “No records of people other than those already under investigation were called for. This was not a sweeping program, in that it involved only a few hundred names.”

Milhoan said Project Strike Back “was one of many utilized by the FBI to identify potential people of interest. 

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