A report released by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University concludes that the Justice Department increasingly has refused to prosecute FBI cases targeting suspected terrorists over the past five years. TRAC co-director Susan Long said researchers relied on the Justice Department's own numbers to come up with the findngs. The study was based on the most recent data available from the Justice Department's executive office for U.S. attorneys.

The government disputes the findings as inaccurate and "intellectually dishonest."

Prosecutors declined to bring charges in 87 percent, of international terrorist case referrals from the FBI between October 2005 and June 2006, according to the report.

During the 2001 budget year, prosecutors rejected 33 percent of such cases from the FBI. The data "raise troubling questions about the bureau's investigation of criminal matters involving individuals the government has identified as international terrorists," the report said. Also noted in the report, was the fact that while the number of agents and other employees has risen, prosecutions in traditional FBI investigations since 2001 - including drug cases, white collar crimes and organized crimes - have decreased.

The report states, "So with more special agents, many more intelligence analysts, and many fewer prosecutions the question must be asked: What is the FBI doing?"

A Justice Department spokesman, Brian Roehrkasse noted that terrorist hoax cases that were quickly dismissed may have been included in the government data, adding also that while some cases are referred to prosecutors to obtain subpoenas or other legal orders in investigations, they ultimately never result in criminal charges. Roehrkasse disputed the findings of TRAC and said that prosecutors rejected 67 percent of FBI international terrorist cases in the nine-month period - not 87 percent.

John Miller, the FBI's assistant director, said about half of the FBI's resources go to detection and information gathering of terrorist networks in cases that do not always result in arrests, reflecting changes in how investigations have been conducted since the Sept. 11, resulting in what appears to be a low number of cases prosecuted. Miller said, "It's not about the numbers and for TRAC to suggest as much is to be intellectually dishonest. The FBI has been very clear about how we have changed the way we do business since 9/11."