(No Ratings Yet)
I wouldn’t call myself a Libertarian (mainly because socialized health care doesn’t seem like such a bad idea to me), but when we start hearing about certain powers being granted to Federal agencies that directly opposes an individuals personal rights…. I get a little worried:
The Justice Department is finalizing rules that would allow FBI agents to solicit informants and use other new techniques to bolster the agency’s intelligence-gathering operation in the United States, officials said Friday.
The changes would expand rules the department enacted after the Sept. 11 attacks that permitted the FBI to conduct “assessments” of threats of terrorism and espionage even in instances where little or no proof existed of criminal activity.
Such assessments are separate from formal investigations, which can involve more invasive investigative methods but which require harder evidence.
Justice officials said the FBI had been hamstrung in carrying out the earlier mandate because the agency had been limited to “overt” intelligence-gathering techniques, such as permitting agents to conduct interviews only when they identified themselves.
But the proposed revisions have raised concerns among civil liberties groups that the FBI would have too much latitude to collect information on U.S. residents and would be allowed to track people based on their race or ethnicity.
But the most concerning change is this:
In assessing possible terrorist threats, agents now are limited to conducting interviews and gathering data through public sources, such as the Internet. The changes would allow them to conduct physical surveillance in a public location, recruit and deploy informants, and conduct interviews without identifying themselves.
Here’s an example:
The official cited a hypothetical example in which the FBI receives a tip about illegal activity in a bar.
If a tipster claims that a patron is dealing drugs, the guidelines for criminal investigations allow agents to conduct more intrusive preliminary interviews and take other action.
If the tipster claims the patron is raising money for a suspected terrorist group, an obvious national security concern, the alternative guidelines limit investigators to the more public methods, absent more evidence.
In the second example, the FBI could conduct interviews (uhh.. interrogations?) without identifying themselves.
See also, the Bush Doctrine.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Sphere: Related Content
Fiction Fan on 
September 13th, 2008 at 6:25 am
Hmmm. I respect the need to keep an eye out and check out trouble and possible threats… but isn't it important to have probable cause or identify one's self. People who say, "If you have nothing to hide you shouldn't worry" obviously have never worried about their slowly eroding freedoms, or have never been someone who might be in a profilable group. At the same time… oh well, they probably already did it anyways.