Legal Commentary

New FBI Rules Make It Easier to Spy on Innocent Americans

By TChris

New operating procedures at the FBI will encourage rogue agents to spy on anyone they want, for whatever reason they want, without obtaining a supervisor's approval.

The changes would give the FBI's more than 12,000 agents the ability at a much earlier stage to conduct physical surveillance, solicit informants and interview friends of people they are investigating without the approval of a bureau supervisor. Such techniques are currently available only after FBI agents have opened an investigation and developed a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed or that a threat to national security is developing.

Post-Nixon-era reforms will be undone. Infiltrating groups that lawfully assemble to urge policies of peace and social justice will no longer be seen as off-limits. [more ...]

Policy guidance for FBI agents and informants who work as "undisclosed participants" in organizations is still being written, the officials said yesterday.

Will the FBI infiltrate groups of Muslims or Arab-Americans on the theory that they are likely to support terrorism?

[T]op Justice Department leaders, including the attorney general, noted the illegality of racial profiling and said investigations will not be opened based "solely" or "simply" on a person's race or religion.

Not particularly reassuring, given the decision to let agents decide for themselves whether to conduct an investigation without needing a supervisor's approval. The new standards will let an infiltrating informant wear a wire to record conversations at an agent's sole discretion.

Monitoring conversations between informants who agree to wear recording devices and subjects of investigations, which now requires the permission of an assistant U.S. attorney, could occur without a prosecutor's approval, except in sensitive cases involving state and federal officials and judges, as well as federal prisoners.

The power wielded by judges and politicians is the only reason they are regarded as "sensitive cases." Shouldn't the same sensitivity be shown to the religious and ethnic groups and to the political dissenters who are the most likely targets of the new policy?

Full post as published by TalkLeft on September 12, 2008 (boomark / email).