The Police state marches on...
Report: New FBI rules permit agents to snoop without firm evidence | The Raw Story
WASHINGTON – The Federal Bureau of Investigation intends to start allow agents to track subjects without firm evidence of wrongdoing, several keyed-in officials tell the New York Times.
Existing rules say the FBI's roughly 14,000 agents need to formally open an inquiry in order to tap the agency's comprehensive database and surveillance methods. The new rules reportedly say that agents can utilize these resources without having to show evidence of criminal or terrorist activity, even for low-level investigations called "assessments." The updated manual also eases up a restriction on administering a lie-detector tests as well as searching a person's trash.
The Times reports that the more lenient rules entail greater oversight for tracking "public officials, members of the news media or academic scholars" -- the manual states that legitimate members of the new media include prominent but not low-profile bloggers.
The easing up of regulations has rubbed privacy and civil liberties advocates the wrong way.
"Claiming additional authorities to investigate people only further raises the potential for abuse," former FBI agent Michael German, who now works for the American Civil Liberties Union, told the Times.
Privacy concerns mount as FBI agents get more leeway
The FBI is granting new powers to its 14,000 agents that some civil rights activists say could lead to constitutional abuses. Newsroom America
http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/184514.html
HIGHLIGHTS
The new changes, contained in a forthcoming new edition of the agency's manual, the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, add to numerous other expansions of investigative authority granted to agents over the past decade. Newsroom America
The F.B.I. recently briefed several privacy advocates about the coming changes. Among them, Michael German, a former F.B.I. agent who is now a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that it was unwise to further ease restrictions on agents' power to use potentially intrusive techniques, especially if they lacked a firm reason to suspect someone of wrongdoing. NY Times
"Claiming additional authorities to investigate people only further raises the potential for abuse," Mr. German said, pointing to complaints about the bureau's surveillance of domestic political advocacy groups and mosques and to an inspector general's findings in 2007 that the F.B.I. had frequently misused "national security letters," which allow agents to obtain information like phone records without a court order. NY Times
FACTS & FIGURES
Currently under the assessment category, which was created in December 2008, agents must open an inquiry before being able to search for information about someone in a commercial or law enforcement database. The new rules will allow agents to search those databases without making a record about their decision. Newsroom America
Under the current rulebook, agents can't administer a lie-detector test until they open a "preliminary investigation," which requires a factual basis for suspected wrongdoing (unlike the assessment). The new rules will allow agents to use lie-detector tests not just on suspects, but on potential informants, in an investigation considered an assessment. Theatlanticwire.com
Similar to the relaxed restriction on lie-detector tests, agents will be able to search the trash of a potential informant as part of an assessment. Theatlanticwire.com
The special rules governing agents' and informants' attendance of meetings and surreptitious participation in organizations on which they are gathering information haven't been made public. But the new rules clearly state that agents or informants can freely attend five meetings of an organization before those rules apply.
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