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FBI "Quiet Revolution" On Terror--Intelligence Over Court Cases

By David Badertscher, PLL

Source: Crime & Justice News

"Since Sept. 11, the number of spying warrants

approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance

Court has more than doubled; at the same time, the

number of criminal indictments against people

associated with Islamist extremist groups has

dropped by more than half, according to the group

Human Rights First. National Public Radio says

current and former Justice Department officials say

those two statistics demonstrate a shift in the way the

government is addressing terrorism: The pendulum is

swinging from a model that favors criminal

prosecutions to one that favors more intelligence

gathering.

David Laufman, a former federal prosecutor in

Virginia, says the number of terrorism cases the FBI

was referring to the U.S. attorney's office had dropped

significantly. He does not belie e that reflects fewer

would-be terrorists operating in the country, rather "a

quiet revolution at the FBI.' As the FBI has transformed

itself into an intelligence agency since Sept. 11,

decision makers have chosen to continue spying on

terrorism suspects 'at the expense of preparing

cases for potential criminal prosecution down the

road.' A former FBI official describes criminal

prosecutions as 'the last tool.' He says when

prosecutors indict someone, 'you start rolling a public

process that after a point you can no longer really

control.'"

National Public Radio - http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001OezDVQDJ2aDP-2ZMKIVGXotYssUzNURWy0kXpkVnShpOud2LP8vMkwlaJuimTryHuH2FlbWUUgUYqqyGQnuk7PuIg6A-pE0M3IGNBH89xjX0thgJtf7jQwNaaeHYstbuam1rFNv3pa23pApBgH59jsJgo_hVK38J9r2BzgcbDOs=

Full post as published by New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library on July 11, 2008 (boomark / email).