ashcroft still buggering freedom

[Khoder bin Hakkin]

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/nyt/20011201/ts/ashcroft_seeking_to_free_f_b_i_to_spy_on_groups_1.html

Saturday December 01 09:01 AM EST

Ashcroft Seeking to Free F.B.I. to Spy on Groups

By DAVID JOHNSTON and DON VAN NATTA Jr. The New York Times

Attorney General John Ashcroft is considering a plan to relax
restrictions on the F.B.I.'s spying on religious
and political organizations.

                      WASHINGTON, Nov. 30 Attorney General John Ashcroft
is considering a plan to relax
                      restrictions on the F.B.I.'s spying on religious
and political organizations in the United States,
                      senior government officials said today.

                      The proposal would loosen one of the most
fundamental restrictions on the conduct of the
                      Federal Bureau of Investigation and would be
another step by the Bush administration to
                      modify civil-liberties protections as a means of
defending the country against terrorists, the
                      senior officials said.

                      The attorney general's surveillance guidelines
were imposed on the F.B.I. in the 1970's after the
                      death of J. Edgar Hoover and the disclosures that
the F.B.I. had run a widespread domestic
                      surveillance program, called Cointelpro, to
monitor antiwar militants, the Ku Klux Klan, the
                      Black Panthers and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr., among others, while Mr. Hoover was
                      director.

                      Since then, the guidelines have defined the
F.B.I.'s operational conduct in investigations of
                      domestic and overseas groups that operate in the
United States.

                      Some officials who oppose the change said the
rules had largely kept the F.B.I. out of politically
motivated investigations, protecting the bureau from embarrassment and
lawsuits. But others, including senior Justice
Department officials, said the rules were outmoded and geared to
obsolete investigative methods and had at times
hobbled F.B.I. counterterrorism efforts.

Mr. Ashcroft and the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, favor the
change, the officials said. Most of the opposition
comes from career officials at the F.B.I. and the Justice Department.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said today that no final decision had
been reached on the revised guidelines.

"As part of the attorney general's reorganization," said Susan Dryden,
the spokeswoman, "we are conducting a
comprehensive review of all guidelines, policies and procedures. All of
these are still under review."

An F.B.I. spokesman said the bureau's approach to terrorism was also
under review.

"Director Mueller's view is that everything should be on the table for
review," the spokesman, John Collingwood, said.
"He is more than willing to embrace change when doing so makes us a more
effective component. A healthy review
process doesn't come at the expense of the historic protections inherent
in our system."

The attorney general is free to revise the guidelines, but Justice
Department officials said it was unclear how heavily they
would be revised. There are two sets of guidelines, for domestic and
foreign groups, and most of the discussion has
centered on the largely classified rules for investigations of foreign
groups.

The relaxation of the guidelines would follow administration measures to
establish military tribunals to try foreigners
accused of terrorism; to seek out and question 5,000 immigrants, most of
them Muslims, who have entered the United
States since January 2000; and to arrest more than 1,200 people, nearly
all of whom are unconnected to the terrorist
attacks of Sept. 11, and hold hundreds of them in jail.

Today, Mr. Ashcroft defended his initiatives in an impassioned speech to
United States attorneys.

"Our efforts have been deliberate, they've been coordinated, they've
been carefully crafted to not only protect America
but to respect the Constitution and the rights enshrined therein," Mr.
Ashcroft said.

"Still," he added, "there have been a few voices who have criticized.
Some have sought to condemn us with faulty facts
or without facts at all. Others have simply rushed to judgment, almost
eagerly assuming the worst of their government
before they've had a chance to understand it at its best."

Under the current surveillance guidelines, the F.B.I. cannot send
undercover agents to investigate groups that gather at
places like mosques or churches unless investigators first find probable
cause, or evidence leading them to believe that
someone in the group may have broken the law. Full investigations of
this sort cannot take place without the attorney
general's consent.

Since Sept. 11, investigators have said, Islamic militants have
sometimes met at mosques apparently knowing that the
religious institutions are usually off limits to F.B.I. surveillance
squads. Some officials are now saying they need broader
authority to conduct surveillance of potential terrorists, no matter
where they are.

Senior career F.B.I. officials complained that they had not been
consulted about the proposed change a criticism they
have expressed about other Bush administration counterterrorism
measures. When the Justice Department decided to
use military tribunals to try accused terrorists, and to interview
thousands of Muslim men in the United States, the
officials said they were not consulted.

Justice Department officials noted that Mr. Mueller had endorsed the
administration's proposals, adding that the
complaints were largely from older F.B.I. officials who were resistant
to change and unwilling to take the aggressive
steps needed to root out terror in the United States. Other officials
said the Justice Department had consulted with F.B.I.
lawyers and some operational managers about the change.

But in a series of recent interviews, several senior career officials at
the F.B.I. said it would be a serious mistake to
weaken the guidelines, and they were upset that the department had not
clearly described the proposed changes.

"People are furious right now very, very angry," one of them said. "They
just assume they know everything. When you
don't consult with anybody, it sends the message that you assume you
know everything. And they don't know
everything."

Still, some complaints seem to stem from the F.B.I.'s shifting status
under Mr. Ashcroft. Weakened by a series of
problems that predated the Sept. 11 attacks, the F.B.I. has been forced
to follow orders from the Justice Department a
change that many law enforcement experts thought was long overdue. In
the past, the bureau leadership had far more
independence and authority to make its own decisions.

Several senior officials are leaving the F.B.I., including Thomas J.
Pickard, the deputy director. He was the senior
official in charge of the investigation of the attacks and was among top
F.B.I. officials who were opposed to another
decision of the Bush administration, the public announcements of Oct. 12
and Oct. 29 that placed the country on the
highest state of alert in response to vague but credible threats of a
possible second terrorist attack. Mr. Pickard is said to
have been opposed to publicizing threats that were too vague to provide
any precautionary advice.

Many F.B.I. officials regard the administration's plan to establish
military tribunals as an extreme step that diminishes the
F.B.I.'s role because it creates a separate prosecutorial system run by
the military.

"The only thing I have seen about the tribunals is what I have seen in
the newspapers," a senior official complained.

Another official said many senior law enforcement officials shared his
concern about the tribunals. "I believe in the rule
of law, and I believe if we have a case to make against someone, we
should make it in a federal courtroom in the United
States," he said.

Several senior F.B.I. officials said the tribunal system should be
reserved for senior Al Qaeda members apprehended by
the military in Afghanistan or other foreign countries.

Few were involved in deliberations that led to the directive Mr.
Ashcroft issued this month to interview immigrant men
living legally in the United States. F.B.I. officials have complained
that the interview plan was begun before its
ramifications were fully understood.

"None of this was thought through, a senior official said. "They just
announced it, and left it to others to figure out how
to do it."

The arrests and detentions of more than 1,200 people since Sept. 11 have
also aroused concerns at the F.B.I. Officials
noted that the investigations had found no conspirators in the United
States who aided the hijackers in the Sept. 11
attacks and only a handful of people who were considered Al Qaeda
members.

"This came out of the White House, and Ashcroft's office," a senior
official said. "There are tons of things coming out
of there these days where there is absolutely no consultation with the
bureau."

Some at the F.B.I. have been openly skeptical about claims that some of
the 1,200 people arrested were Al Qaeda
members and that the strategy of making widespread arrests had disrupted
or thwarted planned attacks.

"It's just not the case," an official said. "We have 10 or 12 people we
think are Al Qaeda people, and that's it. And for
some of them, it's based only on conjecture and suspicion."