ashcroft still buggering freedom

[Anonymous]

hakkin at sarin.com (Khoder bin Hakkin) writes:

[reformated as a courtesy to the list]

> 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."