Corrupt, Inept US Secret Police Get More Power Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Reuters via Yahoo - May 30, 2002 FBI Gets More Powers for Domestic Surveillance By Deborah Charles WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI on Thursday won additional powers to conduct domestic counterterrorism surveillance that critics said could trample on Americans' constitutional rights. A quarter century after the government imposed guidelines to curtail domestic spying, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced changes to lift FBI restrictions on conducting surveillance of public gatherings, religious and political organizations and surfing the Internet as part of the government's response to Sept. 11 attacks. "Today I am announcing comprehensive revisions to the department's investigative guidelines," Ashcroft said. "The guidelines emphasize that the FBI must not be deprived of using all lawful authorized methods in investigations, consistent with the Constitution ... to pursue and prevent terrorist actions." FBI Director Robert Mueller, whose bureau has been under fire for its failure to act on information that might have prevented the deadly Sept. 11 attacks, said the changes are needed to properly fight terrorism. "The guidelines changes that the attorney general is announcing today are important, they're important steps to help remove unnecessary bureaucratic obstacles to the effective investigation of terrorist cases," Mueller said. "These changes complement the reforms we announced yesterday to strengthen our, the FBI's, capacity to prevent terrorism in the wake of September 11." Ashcroft said the changes will allow FBI agents to do what regular citizens can already do -- monitor and watch events in this area. Under the previous guidelines, FBI agents had to offer evidence of criminal activity to get approval for such surveillance. Civil liberties and rights groups have warned that the changes could result in a return to the days of domestic spying. However, President Bush defended the change, saying it was a part of necessary reforms at the FBI. "We intend to honor our Constitution and respect the freedoms that we hold so dear," he said. "Our most important job is to protect America. And the initiative ... will guarantee our Constitution. And that's important for the citizens to know." RETURN TO COINTELPRO? The attorney general's guidelines on surveillance were first imposed on the FBI in 1976 following disclosures that the bureau under the late J. Edgar Hoover had run a widespread domestic surveillance program called Cointelpro. Critics said the FBI under Hoover had overstepped its authority by using Cointelpro to spy on civil rights activists including Martin Luther King and the Black Panthers, opponents of the Vietnam War and others. "Apparently Attorney General Ashcroft wants to get the FBI back in the business of spying on religious and political organizations," said Margaret Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights. "That alone would be unconstitutional but history suggests the FBI won't stop at passive information gathering. We fear a return to the days of Cointelpro." U.S. officials denied the moves would just give the government more authority to restrict personal freedoms. "What these guidelines do is allow them to do what any other law enforcement organization, or in fact any public citizen can do -- go on line, go to public places or events and see what's going on," a Justice Department official said. "They are strictly focused on counterterrorism activities. If an agent has reason to believe that there may be a terrorism enterprise in his area, he no longer has to wait for the terrorist to act to begin gathering information," he said. The new guidelines come a day after Mueller announced a changes to focus on fighting terrorism. Mueller has admitted that the FBI could have done a better job of putting together the clues leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks by hijacked airliners but said he doubts they could have been prevented. The change in the guidelines are in part a response to a memo written by Coleen Rowley, an FBI agent in Minneapolis, who complained that tough rules and bureaucracy hampered the initial investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui, who was later charged with conspiring in the attacks. * Boston Globe - May 30, 2002 Recent FBI rules seen as imperiled Lessons learned in Connolly case may be undone By Ralph Ranalli Ex-FBI agent John Connolly's conviction on racketeering charges Tuesday underscores the importance of maintaining strict new rules for the handling of informants adopted by the Department of Justice just over a year ago, lawmakers and law enforcement policy specialists say. But even as Connolly is preparing to be sentenced on his conviction for racketeering in one of the FBI's most sweeping scandals, top Justice Department and FBI officials are seeking to overturn key provisions of the new rules and give agents the same latitude that Connolly had in the 1970s and '80s. Adopted by Attorney General Janet Reno after federal court cases in Boston exposed corruption in the FBI's informant programs by Connolly and others, the reforms limited fraternization between agents and criminals; required the FBI to share information with prosecutors; and established an FBI-Justice Department tribunal to supervise relations with "high-level" informants, such as organized crime figures and terrorists. On Tuesday, Connolly was convicted of delivering a bribe to a fellow agent, and of tipping off his most valuable informants, crime bosses James [Whitey] Bulger and Stephen Flemmi, to an impending 1995 indictment. Bulger and Flemmi, meanwhile, have been charged with 20 murders, most committed during the time they were informants. That sort of activity, supporters of the Reno guidelines said, is exactly what the new rules were made to prevent. "The goal of the new guidelines is to increase accountability and checks and balances, and reduce the likelihood that individual agents will take things into their own hands," said former US Attorney Donald K. Stern, who worked closely with Reno in formulating the new rules. House Government Reform Committee chairman Dan Burton, the Indiana Republican who is heading a congressional probe into the FBI's informant programs, recently called it "inconceivable" that the agency would go back to the days when "informants were permitted to get away with murder." "There must be protections, and I hope the Justice Department does not permit itself to repeat the mistakes of the past," Burton said. FBI Director Robert Mueller III, asked by the Globe about the significance of Connolly's case, insisted that the bureau has learned its lesson. "Even before Agent Connolly's conviction, we at the bureau understood its need to reform its handling of confidential informants to make sure that this doesn't happen again," Mueller said. Yet some FBI critics said that urgent proposals unveiled yesterday by Mueller and Attorney General John Ashcroft - which Ashcroft called a complete overhaul of the agency's "structure, culture and mission" - appeared to be at odds with the Reno reforms. Ashcroft and Mueller announced that 1,500 agents would be moved to counter-terrorism squads, that the agency's computer systems would be overhauled, and that the bureau would work more closely with the CIA. They also pledged that the newly restructured FBI would do a better job of sharing information. Ashcroft also said that the reorganization would eliminate the kind of micromanagement by FBI headquarters officials blamed for the bureau's mishandling of terror warnings received before Sept. 11. Yet some critics charge that the Connolly case, if anything, shows that headquarters put too much power in the hands of individual agents and that rolling back Reno reforms would be a mistake. The Globe reported earlier this month that top aides to Ashcroft have suggested dismantling one of the key elements of the Reno guidelines - the involvement of federal prosecutors in the FBI's handling of sensitive informants - in order to give the FBI a freer hand in recruiting members of terrorist groups. "The US attorney's offices have to be intimately involved in these matters ... because they are government by greater ethical standards," said Robert Bloom, a Boston College Law School professor and author of the book "Ratting: The Use and Abuse of Informants in the American Criminal Justice System." This story ran on page A11 of the Boston Globe on 5/30/2002. 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