[iwar] [fc:FBI.agents.rebel.over.new.powers]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-12-02 00:04:31


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Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2001 00:04:31 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [iwar] [fc:FBI.agents.rebel.over.new.powers]
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FBI agents rebel over new powers

Liberty Watch: Observer campaign

Ed Vulliamy in New York
Sunday December 2, 2001
The Observer 

The US Attorney General, John Ashcroft, was yesterday reported to be ready
to relax restrictions on the FBI's powers to spy on religious and
church-based political organisations.

His proposal, leaked to the New York Times, would loosen limits on the FBI's
surveillance powers, imposed in the 1970s after the death of its founder J.
Edgar Hoover. 

The plan has caused outrage within the FBI itself with agents expected to
act upon new surveillance powers describing themselves as 'very, very
angry'. 

The spying, wiretapping and surveillance campaign unleashed by Hoover
against church and political groups was called 'Cointelpro', and was aimed
mainly at the movement behind civil rights activist Martin Luther King, the
Black Panthers, the anti-Vietnam war movement and, on the other wing, the Ku
Klux Klan. 

When the system was revealed, upon Hoover's death, restrictions were put on
the security bureau, in the form of two sets of regulations pertaining to
foreign-based and domestic groups. The rules forbade FBI agents from sending
undercover agents into churches, synagogues or mosques unless they found
'probable cause or evidence' that someone in them had broken the law.

A Justice Department spokeswoman, Susan Dryden, said no final decision had
been made on their reintroduction.

According to sources, the plan has caused a sharp rift within the department
and the FBI. Ashcroft and the new FBI director, Robert Mueller, are pushing
the plan eagerly, but there is strong opposition among officials inside both
the bureau and the Justice Department.

Internal opposition to the plan will exacerbate an already fractious
atmosphere in the FBI since President Bush took office.

Some agents told the New York Times that they considered any weakening of
the guidelines 'a serious mistake', and that the Justice Department had 'not
clearly described' the proposed changes. 'People are furious right now,'
said one agent. 

The changes would become part of what civil liberties groups regard as a
dangerously changing legal landscape in the US: 1,200 people with
connections to Islamic groups have been taken into custody, and Draconian
security measures, such as wiretapping of lawyers, pushed through Congress.

Further plans are now afoot to seek out and interview some 5,000 immigrants,
mostly Muslims, who have entered the US since January

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