![]() Nonetheless, in the ensuing years there was a sharp increase in the FBI's controversial use of informants as agents provocateur in religious settings, including in Miami, New York, and northern and southern California. The Ashcroft guidelines also allowed FBI agents to "visit any place and attend any event that is open to the public, on the same terms and conditions as members of the public generally." The FBI later claimed this authority did not require the FBI agents attending public meetings to identify themselves as government officials.Īttempting to assuage concerns that the FBI would misuse this expanded authority by targeting First Amendment-protected activity, FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress in 2002 that the FBI did not have plans to infiltrate mosques. Attorney General John Ashcroft first amended the guidelines in 2002 to expand the investigative techniques the FBI could use during preliminary inquiries (which require less evidence of wrongdoing to initiate than a full investigation), and to increase the time limits to 180 days with the possibility of two or more 90-day extensions. The AG Guidelines underwent four separate changes under the Bush administration, all of which gave the FBI increased surveillance authorities with reduced oversight. For more on the Patriot Act, see the ACLU's extensive page on that issue.Īttorney General Guidelines. Not surprisingly, a series of five audits by the Department of Justice Inspector General confirmed widespread FBI mismanagement, misuse and abuse of this unchecked authority, which is now used, more often than not, to target Americans. With the enactment of the USA Patriot Act Congress expanded the FBI's authority to make secret demands for personal information and records about not just suspected terrorists or spies but about anyone the FBI deemed merely "relevant" to an FBI investigation. These reasonable limits have been either abandoned or ignored since 9/11, however, through legislation like the USA Patriot Act, through amendments to the AG Guidelines, and through an expansion of powerful Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF) that operate with virtually no public accountability. The Church Committee's exposure of the FBI's COINTELPRO abuses led to a series of reforms, including laws designed to regulate government surveillance and internal guidelines (Attorney General's Guidelines) which limited the FBI's investigative authority and spelled out the rules that govern law enforcement operations. Another was their easy access to damaging personal information as a result of "the unrestrained collection of domestic intelligence." Unfortunately, these factors are all present again today as the FBI seeks to transform itself into an internal intelligence agency dedicated to preventing future acts of terrorism. ![]() One factor was their perception that traditional law enforcement methods were ineffective in addressing the security threats they faced. The FBI used the information it gleaned from these improper investigations not for law enforcement purposes, but to "break up marriages, disrupt meetings, ostracize persons from their professions and provoke target groups into rivalries that might result in deaths." The Church Committee, a Senate Select Committee that investigated COINTELPRO in the 1970s, found that a combination of factors led law enforcers to become law breakers. COINTELPRO targeted numerous non-violent protest groups and political dissidents with illegal wiretaps, warrantless physical searches and an array of other dirty tricks. During the Cold War, the FBI ran a domestic intelligence/counterintelligence program called COINTELPRO that quickly evolved from a legitimate effort to protect the national security from hostile foreign threats into an effort to suppress domestic political dissent through an array of illegal activities. As a result, intrusive surveillance tools originally developed to target Soviet spies are increasingly being used against Americans.ĬOINTELPRO. ![]() ![]() ![]() The potential for abuse is once again great, particularly given that the lines between criminal investigations and foreign intelligence operations have been blurred or erased since 9/11. The FBI has a long history of abusing its national security surveillance powers. ![]()
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