"The FBI and the people who work in the FBI are very cognizant of the fact that people are watching us to make sure we're doing the right thing," the senior FBI official said. "We also want to do the right thing. We have set up procedures to do the right thing." But in a letter to be sent today to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sobel and other EPIC officials argue that the documents show how little Congress and the public know about the use of clandestine surveillance by the FBI and other agencies. The group advocates legislation requiring the attorney general to report violations to the Senate.

Denver city policy, like Oregon state law, prohibits political surveillance in the absence of reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. In 2003, the City of Denver settled a class action lawsuit brought by the ACLU against the City on behalf of "as many as 3200 individuals and 208 organizations" believed to have been targeted for police surveillance in violation of the city policy. Among the plaintiffs in the case were the American Friends Service Committee and a 73 year old Franciscan nun, both labeled "criminal extremist[s]" in their police files. Conditions for the settlement of the lawsuit in 2003 included the review and subsequent purging of existing police files, the development of more stringent guidelines for Denver police, including specific provisions against videotaping and photographing activists engaged in legal protests, and mandated audits of police files to ensure compliance. Portland Versus the FBI