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FBI May Start Spying On Americans "Without Any Basis For
Suspicion"
New Guidelines Would Give F.B.I. Broader
Powers
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
21/08/08 "New
York Times" -- --
WASHINGTON — A Justice Department plan would loosen
restrictions on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to allow
agents to open a national security or criminal investigation
against someone without any clear basis for suspicion,
Democratic lawmakers briefed on the details said Wednesday.
The plan, which could be made public next month, has already
generated intense interest and speculation. Little is known
about its precise language, but civil liberties advocates say
they fear it could give the government even broader license to
open terrorism investigations.
Congressional staff members got a glimpse of some of the details
in closed briefings this month, and four Democratic senators
told Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey in a letter on
Wednesday that they were troubled by what they heard.
The senators said the new guidelines would allow the F.B.I. to
open an investigation of an American, conduct surveillance, pry
into private records and take other investigative steps “without
any basis for suspicion.” The plan “might permit an innocent
American to be subjected to such intrusive surveillance based in
part on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, or on
protected First Amendment activities,” the letter said. It was
signed by Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Richard J. Durbin of
Illinois, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Sheldon
Whitehouse of Rhode Island.
As the end of the Bush administration nears, the White House has
been seeking to formalize in law and regulation some of the
aggressive counterterrorism steps it has already taken in
practice since the Sept. 11 attacks.
Congress overhauled the federal wiretapping law in July, for
instance, and President Bush issued an executive order this
month ratifying new roles for intelligence agencies. Other
pending changes would also authorize greater sharing of
intelligence information with the local police, a major push in
the last seven years.
The Justice Department is already expecting criticism over the
F.B.I. guidelines. In an effort to pre-empt critics, Mr. Mukasey
gave a speech last week in Portland, Ore., describing the
unfinished plan as an effort to “integrate more completely and
harmonize the standards that apply to the F.B.I.’s activities.”
Differing standards, he said, have caused confusion for field
agents.
Mr. Mukasey emphasized that the F.B.I. would still need a “valid
purpose” for an investigation, and that it could not be “simply
based on somebody’s race, religion, or exercise of First
Amendment rights.”
Rather than expanding government power, he said, “this document
clarifies the rules by which the F.B.I. conducts its
intelligence mission.”
In 2002, John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, allowed F.B.I.
agents to visit public sites like mosques or monitor Web sites
in the course of national security investigations. The next
year, Mr. Bush issued guidelines allowing officials to use
ethnicity or race in “narrow” circumstances to detect a
terrorist threat.
The Democratic senators said the draft plan appeared to allow
the F.B.I. to go even further in collecting information on
Americans connected to “foreign intelligence” without any
factual predicate. They also said there appeared to be few
constraints on how the information would be shared with other
agencies.
Michael German, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union
and a former F.B.I. agent, said the plan appeared to open the
door still further to the use of data-mining profiles in
tracking terrorism.
“This seems to be based on the idea that the government can take
a bunch of data and create a profile that can be used to
identify future bad guys,” he said. “But that has not been
demonstrated to be true anywhere else.”
The Justice Department said Wednesday that in light of requests
from members of Congress for more information, Mr. Mukasey would
agree not to sign the new guidelines before a Sept. 17
Congressional hearing.
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