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She is being precise, and to a fault. She is there to defend the Minneapolis field agents. She likely is not going to be what the RATS were hoping she would be. I KNOW Wellstone will be disappointed, since her testimony appears to be pointing to a system broken during the Clinton administration, and in fact, partly blaming congressional histrionics for the 'chilling effect' on warrant applications. Schumer did not look at ALL happy with her on that.

Back in 1999, Ms. Rowley cites potential civil rights abuses for her department's inability to catch ALF (Animal Liberation Front) re. various domestic terrorist activities:

Constitutional rights

Why is catching ALF members so hard?

"We walk a tightrope between possibly infringing on somebody's First Amendment rights to assemble or express opinions, and effectively investigating the crimes," said Coleen Rowley, an agent and attorney for the FBI in Minneapolis.

She said the FBI is further restricted by guidelines issued by the U.S. attorney general's office. The guidelines, some dating to the 1960s, are meant to protect the civil rights of protesters. She said police aren't bound by the guidelines and are freer to gather background data on groups such as ALF.

ALF's loosely knit structure - it has no formal membership - also makes it difficult to investigate, Rowley said. And unless a group spokesman can be directly linked to an illegal activity, she added, that person can say anything short of inciting a riot and not be charged.

The FBI in Portland, Ore., says it has investigated 12 ALF arsons in the past five years. All are unsolved. "We can't approach them like a normal criminal investigation," said Gordon Compdon, spokesman for the FBI in Portland. "This is very sticky stuff. The attorney general's guidelines are very stringent."
Link June, 1999.