Posted on 12/01/2001 8:12:17 PM PST by 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.
And Frederick Whitehurst's attorney Stephen Kohn is representing FBI agent Joseph Rogoskey in a lawsuit against the FBI and DOJ for FBI criminal behavior in national security operations.
Ashcroft blocked FBI agent Dan Vogel from testifying about the FBI and DOJ coverup of the ME connections to the OKC bombing.
Ashcroft also covered up direct evidence of three domestic John Does identified with McVeigh in OKC who are being protected by the FBI. The evidence was given to Ashcroft in person six months ago by General Benton Partin and it included color photos and eyewitness statements and testimony of FBI threatening of four witnesses in the OKC case. These John Does appear to also have been government informants.
Ashcroft also has blocked release of 22 surveillance tapes in the OKC bombing which show the actual explosion and McVeigh in the accompaniment of ME John Does as well as Federal informants at the bombing scene.
AShcroft and the FB are still protecting the Hamas cell and members in OKC who planned the 1993 and 9/11/01 attacks on the WTC and also helped ME men and the Iraqis do the OKC bombing with McVeigh.
Ashcroft also instituted a new Federal rule allowing secret monitoring of conversations of clients with their attorneys including clients who are US citizens.
Ashcroft and FBI Director Muller sneaked through unconstitutional provisons in the "Patriot Act" stripping US citizens of many fundamental rights and civil liberties without any proper safeguards or reviews. These provisions also permit the CIA to monitor US citzens in the US and to gain access to secret Federal grand jury testimony.
Now AShcroft wants to permit the FBI to spy on US citizens belonging to religious and political organizations without proper safeguards and oversight. What if a conservative Christian Republican publicly dissents and embarrasses AShcroft, Mueller, Bush or someone else in government by legal and peaceful means without any threats of violence-will the FBI be sicked on them to destroy their reputation?
An example would be Christains complaining that the FBI and CIA and DOJ are actively promoting abortion and homosexuality that Christians find immoral. Would the FBI and DOJ spy on Christians because Christians say the FBI and DOJ conduct in these areas is evil and immoral? Most Christians who complain about abortion would not do anything to an abortion clinic but the FBI and DOJ would still spy on them anyway.
And now we know that the FBI terror task forces with Ashcroft and Mueller knowledge and blessing are targeting "Patriots" who defend the US constituion (in words only with no illegal acts) against world government and Federal officials who DO NOT uphold the Constitution.
Will the FBI now target Hal Lindsey and Joseph Farah and their organizations for their complaints and articles about Bush ties to the Third Way and Communitarianism (world government)???
Police chiefs and officers around the country including in OKC have expressed outrage at Ashcroft and Muellers' excluding them from info they need to do terror investigations locally. This was especially true in OKC where the FBI still protects Hamas.
Bush and Powell are still blocking movement against Hamas and Hezbollah and AlQaeda and Abu Nidal cells and members ALREADY in the US to appease the PLO in an attempt to get a phony peace agreement in the ME.
These people are Clinton hold-overs. They should either do their job or resign. As for the comments about the bombing in Oklahoma and the subsequent investigation..who was President then...??
Who's to say the FBI might not take a peek into Travolta's Scientologists, the Brotherhood of Satan, and Moonies?
Islam?? Naaah, nothin' there at all.....
Get OUT the tin foil the THIRD WAY is en route ...
I was dumbstruck by the callers' comments: Whatever it takes to make us safer, etc.
I'd say 90% of the callers didn't see a problem with the feds spying on churches.
I felt doomed.
Please help out a slow freeper here....
Why would the FBI "spy on churches"?
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