New FBI Rules Make It Easier to Spy on Innocent Americans

By TChris, Section Crime Policy
Posted on Fri Sep 12, 2008 at 11:44:47 AM EST
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New operating procedures at the FBI will encourage rogue agents to spy on anyone they want, for whatever reason they want, without obtaining a supervisor's approval.

The changes would give the FBI's more than 12,000 agents the ability at a much earlier stage to conduct physical surveillance, solicit informants and interview friends of people they are investigating without the approval of a bureau supervisor. Such techniques are currently available only after FBI agents have opened an investigation and developed a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed or that a threat to national security is developing.

Post-Nixon-era reforms will be undone. Infiltrating groups that lawfully assemble to urge policies of peace and social justice will no longer be seen as off-limits. [more ...]

Policy guidance for FBI agents and informants who work as "undisclosed participants" in organizations is still being written, the officials said yesterday.

Will the FBI infiltrate groups of Muslims or Arab-Americans on the theory that they are likely to support terrorism?

[T]op Justice Department leaders, including the attorney general, noted the illegality of racial profiling and said investigations will not be opened based "solely" or "simply" on a person's race or religion.

Not particularly reassuring, given the decision to let agents decide for themselves whether to conduct an investigation without needing a supervisor's approval. The new standards will let an infiltrating informant wear a wire to record conversations at an agent's sole discretion.

Monitoring conversations between informants who agree to wear recording devices and subjects of investigations, which now requires the permission of an assistant U.S. attorney, could occur without a prosecutor's approval, except in sensitive cases involving state and federal officials and judges, as well as federal prisoners.

The power wielded by judges and politicians is the only reason they are regarded as "sensitive cases." Shouldn't the same sensitivity be shown to the religious and ethnic groups and to the political dissenters who are the most likely targets of the new policy?

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New FBI Rules Make It Easier to Spy on Innocent Americans | 19 comments (19 topical)

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J. Edgar Hoover is dancing on (5.00 / 1) (#2)
by oculus on Fri Sep 12, 2008 at 12:04:36 PM EST

his grave.

J. Edgar is a zombie? OMG!!11! (none / 0) (#4)
by MileHi Hawkeye on Fri Sep 12, 2008 at 12:22:37 PM EST

Do you mean dancing in his grave?

And, is he wearing a dress?


Semantics. (none / 0) (#6)
by oculus on Fri Sep 12, 2008 at 12:29:28 PM EST

Let me check my 1959 style manual!


In my defense: (none / 0) (#8)
by oculus on Fri Sep 12, 2008 at 12:39:07 PM EST

The video depicts Electric Six frontman, Dick Valentine, as the ghost of Freddie Mercury dancing near his own grave. It was widely misinterpreted that Valentine (as Mercury) was dancing on his grave. He explains on his website's video section "Though some have claimed this video portrays me dancing on Freddie Mercury's grave, actually it's more like we are resurrecting Mr. Mercury for the duration of the song and his grave is the logical starting point."

[Excerpt from Wiki, italics added.]


I must admit... (none / 0) (#14)
by MileHi Hawkeye on Fri Sep 12, 2008 at 01:00:46 PM EST

...I'm impressed you know who Freddie Mercury and the Electric Six are. Didn't think that kind of music was your cup o' tea...


: Google. (none / 0) (#15)
by oculus on Fri Sep 12, 2008 at 01:01:56 PM EST

Can't say I've ever heard any of this group's music.

ya (5.00 / 1) (#5)
by connecticut yankee on Fri Sep 12, 2008 at 12:23:08 PM EST

A small step for the FBI, a large step backwards for Democracy.

Is this the consequence of FISA? (none / 0) (#1)
by hairspray on Fri Sep 12, 2008 at 12:01:03 PM EST

: No (5.00 / 2) (#3)
by TChris on Fri Sep 12, 2008 at 12:20:25 PM EST

This is the consequence of the Bush administration. The internal rules of the FBI have nothing to do with FISA.

I know that the Bush administration (none / 0) (#7)
by litigatormom on Fri Sep 12, 2008 at 12:34:30 PM EST

has already decided to reject the "law enforcement paradigm" for terrorism cases -- i.e., it doesn't matter if we violate the constitution because we don't need to prosecute them, we just need to render them to another country.

But are they now going to take that approach to ALL domestic law enforcement? I doubt it. There are still some people the feds will want to convict. What this says to me is that the FBI is about to morph into a domestic espionage agency -- that is, if it isn't one already. No crime necessary, just a reasonable suspicion of political benefits to the Administration.

: The law enforcement officer in charge (none / 0) (#9)
by oculus on Fri Sep 12, 2008 at 12:41:15 PM EST

in Minnesota during the RNC was interviewed on NPR. He sd. they relied on informants to provide inside info about protest groups at the RNC. Followed by searching the office of "Anarchy Now."

It must stink.... (none / 0) (#10)
by kdog on Fri Sep 12, 2008 at 12:50:31 PM EST

to live next door to an FBI agent...now more than ever.

Imagine your dog getting into the G-man's yard and leaving a present, and the next thing you know you've got an FBI file. Guaranteed its gonna happen.

Sounds like... (none / 0) (#12)
by MileHi Hawkeye on Fri Sep 12, 2008 at 12:54:21 PM EST

...that new Samuel L. Jackson movie--Lakeview Terrace.

I don't like any member of the national or local police force around me.


: Amen...That's why I love my "bad".... (none / 0) (#13)
by kdog on Fri Sep 12, 2008 at 01:00:42 PM EST

neighborhood, the only cops are in squad cars on duty. I feel so much safer at home than out at my sister's McMansion in a "good" neighborhood, where there are 3 cops inside her little development. They make me nervous:)
When no one is watching the watchers, you've got yourself a recipe for disaster.

Look out (none / 0) (#16)
by Xclusionary Rule 4ever on Fri Sep 12, 2008 at 02:19:23 PM EST

Look out unions
Look out hippies
Look out "uppity" people

When has police power ever been expanded and NOT abused?? It is an immutable law of nature.

Are these rules which the next prez can nullify? (none / 0) (#17)
by jawbone on Fri Sep 12, 2008 at 04:34:28 PM EST

Can a Pres. Obama change these rules? More to the point, will a Pres. Obama nullify these rules, given his FISA vote.

: "Yes" he can, and I believe he will. (none / 0) (#20)
by Christy1947 on Fri Sep 12, 2008 at 05:02:03 PM EST

rewrite 1976 guidelines... infiltrate opposition (none / 0) (#18)
by Ben Masel on Fri Sep 12, 2008 at 04:54:29 PM EST

these were the Levi Guidelines, named for Gerald Ford's Attorney general, who imposed them.

At the early January press Conference when then were announced, then FBI Director Clarence Kelly referenced a burglary recently committed by the Kansas City Field Office "We thought everyone had gotten the message," but apparently not, so we're putting it in writing.

The target of the burglary was the house I'd rented as HQ for protests at the upcominhg Republican Convention. The Field office had approached my landlord for a key 2 weeks before Levi and Kelly's announcement, he'd refused.

2nd try. This is just the logical outcome of the (none / 0) (#19)
by Christy1947 on Fri Sep 12, 2008 at 05:01:09 PM EST

Bush emergency powers in time of war, which he has used to upend the constitution as to any matters which he in his sole discretion considers part of the war on teror. What those rules did and these rules of more general application do is eliminate what is called "probable cause," that belief that an actual crime may have been or isbeing committed and the searchee had something or another to do with it. Now, even Judge Mukasey admits these rules intend allowing searches and taps without any notion that the person searched or tapped has done anything wrong at all or knows anything about a crime the FBI knows about.

What is worse, these rules now provide that such searches and taps and interrogations may be done without notice to or approval of a supervisor, which means that the Bureau better have a lot of trust in all its agents, because it will not know what they are doing until after they do it. And there is under these rules no need to notify the United States attorney or to apply to a judge for and get a warrant. All that is history.

I can see easily here many cases like the anthrax scientist, where the man's life was destroyed, all his relatives and friends pulled in and told he was guilty and they should help the FBI get him, and that sort of thing. What a judge would do with that kind of behavior I have no problem imagining, watching cases bounce down the courthouse steps, but by then the investigated person's life may have been destroyed.

What's worse is that this has been done for some time by the FBI, the scientist being a publicized example, for some time. And they have also been sharing with regular criminal authorities not involved in terror, whatever they got by use of emergency powers invoked supposedly for the war on terror. The purpose of promulgating these rules is to have Congress bless them and the illegalities committed already and to be committed in future in reliance on them.

Judge Mukasey was supposedly brought in to clean the disgustingly filthy Gonzalez house, but all he's doing is legalizing the lot of it, and making sure that there is no J in DOJ, Goodbye Constitution. Hello police state.