www.DemocraticFundamentalism.org - Archives - Historical Events - The War On Terrorism - 5/30/2002 - Ashcroft Permits F.B.I. to Monitor Internet and Public Activities

	Globalization - Countries - United_States see also Archives - Historical Events - 911 Ashcroft Permits F.B.I. to Monitor Internet and Public Activities By Neil A. Lewis, New York Times



	WASHINGTON, May 30 - Attorney General John Ashcroft said today that he was stepping up the fight against terrorism by expanding the F.B.I.'s authority to monitor the World Wide Web, political groups, libraries and religious organizations, including houses of worship like mosques. Mr. Ashcroft said guidelines restricting the bureau, imposed a quarter of a century ago in response to abuses by federal law enforcement officials, were outdated and left investigators at a disadvantage in fighting terrorism today. "Men and women of the F.B.I. in the field are frustrated because many of our own internal restrictions have hampered our ability to fight terrorism," Mr. Ashcroft said to reporters. "In many instances," he added, "the guidelines bar F.B.I. field agents from taking the initiative to detect and prevent future terrorist attacks, or act unless the bureau learns of possible criminal activity from external sources." Mr. Ashcroft said the old guidelines prohibited F.B.I. investigators from surfing the Web "in the same way that you and I can look for information." Justice Department officials said that under 1999 guidelines, the Policies for Online Criminal Investigation, F.B.I. agents could not search for leads on the Internet but could use it only in cases where a criminal investigation had been established. For example, one official said, agents would have been permitted in recent months to look at Web sites for information about anthrax because of the agency's broad investigation of anthrax-contaminated letters to officials. But agents would not have been allowed to search the Internet for information about smallpox's potential as a biological weapon, he said, because it was not the subject of a criminal investigation. Those guidelines are based on principles dating to the days of President Gerald R. Ford and Attorney General Edward H. Levi that prohibited agents from using publicly available sources of information like libraries to collect information, except in a criminal investigation. An investigation requires some complaint of wrongdoing. The prohibitions were a reaction to Cointelpro, an F.B.I. domestic spying operation aimed at disrupting political groups. Its best-known target was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The guidelines were based on the principle that federal agents should not compile dossiers on people and groups without some reason to be believe a crime had been committed. The changes announced today by Mr. Ashcroft are certain to produce a new chapter in the debate over whether the nation's security agencies are updating antiquated policies to combat terrorism or simply taking advantage of the Sept. 11 attacks and their aftermath to obtain new powers. Kate Martin, a policy analyst at the Center for National Security Studies, a civil liberties group in Washington, said Mr. Ashcroft's unilateral announcement of the changes "shows that the administration continues to be disdainful of any open policy-making." Other changes imposed by Mr. Ashcroft will allow supervisors in the bureau's 56 field offices to initiate counterterrorism inquiries without approval from headquarters in Washington. Agents will also be allowed once again to search commercial databases without the need to show a crime may have been committed, as was required before today. As for attending events at places like mosques, the change reads: "For the purpose of detecting or preventing terrorist activities, the F.B.I. is authorized to visit any place and attend any event that is open to the public, on the same terms and conditions as members of the public generally." As the bureau dealt in recent weeks with criticism that it mishandled information that could have uncovered the Sept. 11 plot, senior officials at the Justice Department and the bureau have adopted a posture of acknowledging that serious mistakes were made. As part of that approach, Mr. Ashcroft used the widely praised complaint of Coleen Rowley, a senior agent in Minneapolis, to help justify his changes. Ms. Rowley had said officials at F.B.I. headquarters stymied investigations that might have uncovered the Sept. 11 plot. Mr. Ashcroft said his changes would help agents in the field, like Ms. Rowley. At the White House today, President Bush joined in sending the administration's message that the bureau had serious problems but that recent changes would put it on the right track. "The F.B.I. needed to change," Mr. Bush said. "It was an organization full of fine people who loved America, but the organization didn't meet the times." A joint investigation of the government's performance before Sept. 11 by the House and Senate intelligence committees will begin next week. An aide to Senator Bob Graham, Democrat of Florida and chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, said today that the first closed hearings, on Tuesday, would be for briefings by the committee's investigative staff. The aide, Paul Anderson, said staff investigators would brief the members of the House and Senate panels on their findings from a review of more than 100,000 pages of documents and testimony from 175 witnesses. No witnesses are scheduled to appear in the first week of hearings, Mr. Anderson said.