Hey, here’s an idea: Our domestic spooks are incompetent when it comes to getting their electronic surveillance gizmo working, so let’s give them even broader authority to monitor us.
In late May, the US Justice Department did just that when it relaxed restrictions on the FBI. The previous restrictions prevented FBI agents from searching the Internet and other public information sources for criminal activity and from entering public events.
Those of us who have been politically active in the past will find claims that there were ever restrictions on the FBI with regard to entering public events amazing, even hard to believe. But that’s exactly what Attorney General John Ashcroft is now allowing: “Our new guideline reads, ‘For the purpose of detecting or preventing terrorist activities, the FBI 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.”
Attorney General John Ashcroft declared that the newly relaxed policies would be instituted with “scrupulous respect for civil rights and personal freedom.” Nonetheless, it’s disturbing that under the new guidelines, FBI agents will no longer need to show probable cause or possess information that crimes are being committed to begin investigations.
The restrictions were placed on the FBI three decades ago when it was discovered that agents were spying on nonviolent anti-war demonstrators, religious, and political organizations under J. Edgar Hoover’s counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO).
At first glance, allowing the FBI to conduct a Google search would seem to be a reasonable approach to implementing a counterterrorism methodology. And it would be if it ended there. But according to the New York Times, this is hardly the case: “The bureau will also use commercial ‘data-mining services’ from companies that collect, organize and analyze marketing and demographic information from the Internet to help develop leads on potential crimes like threats to the security of computer networks.” Even though you thought it was safe to buy those gardening supplies on the net, maybe there’s a new application revival ahead for dot-bomb technologies.
Laura W. Murphy, national director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) summed up the effect of the new guidelines succinctly:
“These new guidelines say to the American people that you no longer have to do something wrong in order to get that FBI knock at your door. The government is rewarding failure. It seems when the FBI fails, the response by the Bush administration is to give the bureau new powers, as opposed to seriously look at why the intelligence and law enforcement failures occurred.”
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FBI incompetence garners broader monitoring was originally published by ARTS & FARCES internet on Tuesday, 4 June 2002 at 6:56 PM CDT. Copyright © ARTS & FARCES LLC. All rights reserved. | ISSN: 1535-8119 | OCLC: 48219498 | Digital fingerprint: 974a89ee1284e6e92dd256bbfbef3751 (64.237.45.114)