[Ppnews] FBI to get freer rein to look for terrorism suspects

[Political Prisoner News]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/v-print/story/48078.html

Posted on Thu, Aug. 14, 2008


FBI to get freer rein to look for terrorism suspects




Marisa Taylor | McClatchy Newspapers

last updated: August 13, 2008 07:30:47 PM

WASHINGTON ­ Attorney General Michael Mukasey 
confirmed plans Wednesday to loosen 
post-Watergate restrictions on the FBI's national 
security and criminal investigations, saying the 
changes were necessary to improve the bureau's ability to detect terrorists.

Mukasey said he expected criticism of the new 
rules because "they expressly authorize the FBI 
to engage in intelligence collection inside the 
United States." However, he said the criticism 
would be misplaced because the bureau has long had authority to do so.

Mukasey said the new rules "remove unnecessary 
barriers" to cooperation between law enforcement 
agencies and "eliminate the artificial 
distinctions" in the way agents conduct 
surveillance in criminal and national security investigations.

"There was clear-eyed and bipartisan recognition 
after the attacks that we needed to be able ­ and 
allowed ­ to collect intelligence in the United 
States," he said in speech prepared for an 
anti-terrorism conference in Portland, Ore. 
"Indeed, there was a loud demand for it."

Noting one area that needs to change, he said 
agents currently can rely on informants to gather 
information in ordinary criminal investigations, 
but are more limited in national security cases. 
The new rules, he said, will do away with those differences.

"Under the new guidelines, the investigative 
steps that the FBI may take in a particular 
investigation will not be driven by irrelevant 
factors, such as the type of paperwork the agent 
uses to open the investigation," he said.

In addition, agents assigned to national security 
investigations will be given more latitude to 
conduct surveillance based on a tip. Also, agents 
will be permitted to search more databases than 
allowed previously in criminal cases. As it 
stands now, agents who get a tip about a possible 
organized crime figure cannot use certain 
databases that they are allowed to access in 
national security cases, such as those containing 
information about state-issued drivers' licenses.

The Justice Department has kept the draft rules 
under wraps for at least a month and is expected 
to publicly release the final version within 
several more weeks. Even then, portions are 
expected to remain classified for national security reasons.

Mukasey said he planned to consult with Congress 
about the rules before releasing them. 
Nonetheless, Mukasey provided enough detail 
Wednesday to alarm civil libertarians.

Michael German, a former veteran FBI agent who is 
now policy counsel for the American Civil 
Liberties Union, said if Mukasey moves ahead with 
the new rules as he describes them, he'll be 
weakening restrictions originally put in place 
after the Watergate scandal to rein in the FBI's 
domestic Counter Intelligence Program, or 
COINTELPRO. At the time, the FBI spied on 
American political leaders and organizations 
deemed to be subversive throughout the late 1950s and into the 1960s.

"I'm concerned with the way the attorney general 
frames the problem," German said. "He talks about 
'arbitrary or irrelevant differences' between 
criminal and national security investigations but 
these were corrections originally designed to 
prevent the type of overreach the FBI engaged in for years."

The Justice Department's Inspector General has 
found that between 2003 and 2006 the FBI sought 
personal records of Americans by relying 
improperly on so-called "national security 
letters", rather than seeking court approval. 
Last week, the FBI apologized to two newspapers 
for secretly obtaining reporters' phone records 
without following proper bureau procedures.

FBI officials have said the bureau has since 
instituted stronger oversight to prevent abuses, 
but German said recent events demonstrated that 
Mukasey needed to strengthen the FBI's guidelines, not "water them down."

"Nobody's complaining about the FBI collecting 
domestic intelligence when it's appropriate and 
authorized under the law," German said. "What the 
attorney general is doing is expanding the 
bureau's intelligence collection without 
addressing the mismanagement within the FBI. If 
you have an agency collecting more with less 
oversight, it's only going to get worse."

Mukasey denied that the new rules would allow 
agents to investigate someone simply based on 
race, religion or exercise of First Amendment rights.

Earlier, the Associated Press had reported that 
Mukasey was considering allowing agents to 
investigate someone based on a terrorism profile 
that could rely on race or ethnicity as a factor.

However, Mukasey did not say whether the new 
guidelines would give the FBI more leeway to rely 
on race or ethnicity as a significant factor in 
determining whether an investigation should be launched.

McClatchy Newspapers 2008




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