FBI agents rebel over new powers

London Observer ^ | Sunday December 2, 2001 | Ed Vulliamy in New York

[OKCSubmariner]

The US Attorney General, John Ashcroft, was yesterday reported to be ready to relax restrictions on the FBI's powers to spy on religious and church-based political organisations.

His proposal, leaked to the New York Times, would loosen limits on the FBI's surveillance powers, imposed in the 1970s after the death of its founder J. Edgar Hoover.

The plan has caused outrage within the FBI itself with agents expected to act upon new surveillance powers describing themselves as 'very, very angry'.

The spying, wiretapping and surveillance campaign unleashed by Hoover against church and political groups was called 'Cointelpro', and was aimed mainly at the movement behind civil rights activist Martin Luther King, the Black Panthers, the anti-Vietnam war movement and, on the other wing, the Ku Klux Klan.

When the system was revealed, upon Hoover's death, restrictions were put on the security bureau, in the form of two sets of regulations pertaining to foreign-based and domestic groups. The rules forbade FBI agents from sending undercover agents into churches, synagogues or mosques unless they found 'probable cause or evidence' that someone in them had broken the law.

A Justice Department spokeswoman, Susan Dryden, said no final decision had been made on their reintroduction.

According to sources, the plan has caused a sharp rift within the department and the FBI. Ashcroft and the new FBI director, Robert Mueller, are pushing the plan eagerly, but there is strong opposition among officials inside both the bureau and the Justice Department.

Internal opposition to the plan will exacerbate an already fractious atmosphere in the FBI since President Bush took office.

Some agents told the New York Times that they considered any weakening of the guidelines 'a serious mistake', and that the Justice Department had 'not clearly described' the proposed changes. 'People are furious right now,' said one agent.

The changes would become part of what civil liberties groups regard as a dangerously changing legal landscape in the US: 1,200 people with connections to Islamic groups have been taken into custody, and Draconian security measures, such as wiretapping of lawyers, pushed through Congress.

Further plans are now afoot to seek out and interview some 5,000 immigrants, mostly Muslims, who have entered the US since January.

[Nick Danger]

Then why hasn't the "Administration" taken steps to close the borders to prevent additional terrorist from invading while the seek those already here?

Well, here are the steps the Administration is trying to take. This is from the Attorney General's testimony before Congress on April 26, 2001:

"The FY 2002 budget also includes $75 million for the INS to add 570 new Border Patrol agents in 2002, with plans to add another 570 in 2003. With these 1,140 additional agents, the total increase of 5,000 Border Patrol agents authorized by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA) will be achieved.

Approximately 11,000 agents will be deployed along the nation's northern and southern borders by the end of 2003, 11 percent more than the 2001 level of 9,800."

I just love that phrase, "close the borders." Why, with a mere flap of our gums we can solve the problem instantly. The 11,340 miles of fencing, the 119,000 guard towers, and the 400,000 guards at an annual cost of about $18 billion, will simply come into existence as we speak. "Let there be light!" It couldn't be easier. Then we'll have high fences with barbed wire all around the perimeter, with guard shacks every 500 feet, with machine guns mounted in them. It'll be just like East Germany.

[F16Fighter]

"I can tell you from experience that Scientology cannot be touched by the FBI."

I will assume you know from first or second-hand sources; One can surmise the Clinton Administration and Freeh gave the word to lay-off Scientology, however, might Bush and Ashcroft regard Scientology differently? Or is THAT situation in your opinion or of your knowledge THE SAME?

[Nick Danger]

try to think what you're trying to do here, you're trying to excuse sacrificing our freedom in order to save it.

There's a lot of hyperbole going on here. "You've lost your freedom! The terrorists have won!"

Well, not exactly. Nobody is stopping me on the way to work each morning to check my papers. I don't have to file forms with the state in order to drive outside the county. Nobody pats me down when I walk into the grocery store. There's no dawn-to-dusk curfew in which I'll get shot if I step outside.

Now think about what's going to change if a cell of four or five people pulls some stunt that kills 600,000 Americans. Will there suddenly be troops checking our papers at roadside check points? You bet. Will long-distance travel require advance notice to the state? Probably. Guys with wands patting you down at Costco? Yep, that too.

I'm not ignoring your rhetoric about preferring to die of inhalation anthrax before you'll agree that we probably need to sneak some FBI agents into the mosques. That's your preference, and you're sticking to it. I think it's principled, but I also think it abandons the future of the country in return for principled martyrdom today.

What I think I'm doing is taking a longer view. I want the Constitution to still be here when I'm gone. I know, from many years' experience, that I'm living in a country where I get outvoted at least half the time. It stuns me that something like Al Gore could come within a hair's breadth of being elected president. But it's reality, and I have to live with it.

I see the challenge here as navigating through a very narrow passage, so as to get to the other side without sinking. You think we're already sunk, but I'm not ready to give up yet. I think we will probably take a few more Constitutional hits, and get some more scrapes and some more dents. We will not get to the other side intact; that's already clear. But we can always hammer out the dents, if we get to the other side. The question for me is whether we'll get there at all, and I don't see that happening if the Atta Boys manage to pull off an attack with WMDs. My fellow citizens, the ones who voted for Gore, will happily vote in Vlad the Impaler if that happens.

This is glib, but there's a lot of wisdom in it:

The foreign policy of the American people is simple.

1. The American people do not want to be blown up.
2. The American people do not want to send their sons overseas where they might get killed, unless it is the only possible way to keep from being blown up.

Note that not being blown up is sufficiently high on that scale that people will sacrifice their children to keep it from happening. You think your plea is going to score higher with these people than their own kids? It's not. That's the reality we have to deal with as we try to figure a way out of this mess.

[MizSterious]

Fred Mertz, I have been feeling the same way for some time now--it's almost as though we're not only being attacked by foreign terrorists, but also from within. I pray that these new "powers" are not permanent, but if they work anything like "temporary" taxes, we've lost a great deal since September 11th.

[Nick Danger]

we patrolled the East German and Czechoslovakia border for decades with two regiments of cavalry

So what? So far as I know, the Atta Boys flew right into our airports, right under our noses. There were no alligator-crawls through the mud at the Canadian border.

How exactly would you have identified Mohammed Atta as a 'bad guy' when he first showed up at the Customs window? Here's an Egyptian with a Saudi passport. What besides hindsight alerts you that Here Comes Trouble?

[timestax]

bttt

[LiberteeBell]

So what? So far as I know, the Atta Boys flew right into our airports, right under our noses. There were no alligator-crawls through the mud at the Canadian border.

That's the problem with our totally open borders, we just let ladee-dadee and everybody in the country with nary a glance much less a background investigation. I have a problem with that. And we don't need to become East Germany to correct the problem.

BTW, Atta was on some sort of "watch list" prior to 9-11.

[texlok]

What I think I'm doing is taking a longer view. I want the Constitution to still be here when I'm gone. I know, from many years' experience, that I'm living in a country where I get outvoted at least half the time. It stuns me that something like Al Gore could come within a hair's breadth of being elected president. But it's reality, and I have to live with it.

The problem with that thought, is if you don't put the brakes on now, when an Al Gore or Bill Clinton or anybody else that's a statist/left-leaning type gets in office, the tools are going to be there for their use.

It's much easier to not do something now, than it is in the future to reverse it.

I've got to side with the ACLU, Ron Paul Supporters, ultra-conservatives, etc. Things are going to far too fast. sure, it's only the mosques today, but tomorrow it will be the churches, etc.

My chances of dying from anthrax/terrorists/etc. are much less than when I step off of a curb to cross the street or drive down to the grocery store. I don't need the government giving itself more power than it already has. I don't want to reach the point where I am questioned about where I'm going, etc.

[Sueann]

I am also confident our new President will seek policy changes during his last year of his second term. He can by executive order return some of those things to where they were before he began the terrorist hunt.

[texlok]

I am also confident our new President will seek policy changes during his last year of his second term. He can by executive order return some of those things to where they were before he began the terrorist hunt.

Your assuming he get's re-elected. What happens if he doesn't?

What would be the incentive for him to return some of those things?

[getsoutalive]

bump for later reading

[Nick Danger]

With all due respect, buddy, I suggest you grow a pair.

With all due respect, buddy, I suggest you really think about the domestic political consequences of an attack with WMDs. If the Abduls set off a suitcase nuke in New York or Washington, or kill a million people with Sarin gas in Atlanta, you are not going to be able to stop a sudden and serious decline in your freedoms. Big talk is going to stop nothing. Neither is your Glock.

Really, seriously, imagine your reaction if you log in here one morning and the first hints of something big start popping up. "Something weird is going on. I'm in a high rise in Atlanta, and the streets are full of people twitching on the sidewalks. And the cars are crashing into poles. Anybody know what's going on?" By the end of the morning they've identifed the agent as Sarin and tell everybody to 'get the Hell out of Dodge'. By noon there are an estimated 300,000 dead. By the end of the week they've put the death toll at a little over a million people.

All life is tradeoffs. The tradeoff here is to accept that there's going to be a little rough racial profiling for a while, or to bravely stop that and then watch the whole thing come down on your head when a million of your fellow citizens die in an attack. You know there is not going to be a second such attack. We'll have martial law first. You can stand there and scream "grow a pair!" all you want, but no one serious is going to listen to you while crazy people are annihilating entire cities. We really are up against that here... capice? Pakistan really does have nuclear weapons. We've seen the tests. Their intelligence service is full of guys who make Mullah Omar sound like Billy Graham. We've heard the speeches.

There is a real threat to the Constitution here, but it's not from trying to catch the perps. The threat is from our own people, should the perps succeed.

[AMMON-CENTRIST]

His proposal, leaked to the New York Times, would loosen limits on the FBI's surveillance powers, imposed in the 1970s after the death of its founder J. Edgar Hoover.

The plan has caused outrage within the FBI itself with agents expected to act upon new surveillance powers describing themselves as 'very, very angry'.

AMMON-I don't need this government spying on me when I'm worshiping God. We don't need a Hoover style FBI! Time to vote in a pro government abolitionist anarchist!!!!

[Nick Danger]

Atta was on some sort of "watch list" prior to 9-11.

That came after he was already here. The CIA got the tip in August of this year. Atta arrived Florida in May, 2000.

[Sueann]

Excuse me - why?? Because he knows another Clinton could be on the horizon. But as for reelection, I don't think the dems are holding their breath about winning.

[Maelstrom]

With all due respect, buddy, I suggest you really think about the domestic political consequences of an attack with WMDs. If the Abduls set off a suitcase nuke in New York or Washington, or kill a million people with Sarin gas in Atlanta, you are not going to be able to stop a sudden and serious decline in your freedoms. Big talk is going to stop nothing. Neither is your Glock.

That's the other problem with sacrificing the freedoms Bush wants...it DOESN'T protect us against this sort of attack in the future. That's just wishful thinking.

[Khepera]

Ping..)))))))

[Twodees]

Sure, Nick. The feds did such a mervelous job in preventing what the enemy did on 9/11, that we need to scrap who we are as a nation to give them another shot at defense. Sorry, but I'm just not that scared.