ASHINGTON, Nov. 30 ?Attorney General John Ashcroft is
considering a plan to relax restrictions on the F.B.I.'s spying on
religious and political organizations in the United States, senior
government officials said today.
The proposal would loosen one of the most fundamental
restrictions on the conduct of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
and would be another step by the Bush administration to modify
civil-liberties protections as a means of defending the country
against terrorists, the senior officials said.
The attorney general's surveillance guidelines were imposed on
the F.B.I. in the 1970's after the death of J. Edgar Hoover and the
disclosures that the F.B.I. had run a widespread domestic
surveillance program, called Cointelpro, to monitor antiwar
militants, the Ku Klux Klan, the Black Panthers and the Rev. Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr., among others, while Mr. Hoover was
director.
Since then, the guidelines have defined the F.B.I.'s operational
conduct in investigations of domestic and overseas groups that
operate in the United States.
Some officials who oppose the change said the rules had largely
kept the F.B.I. out of politically motivated investigations,
protecting the bureau from embarrassment and lawsuits. But others,
including senior Justice Department officials, said the rules were
outmoded and geared to obsolete investigative methods and had at
times hobbled F.B.I. counterterrorism efforts.
Mr. Ashcroft and the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III,
favor the change, the officials said. Most of the opposition comes
from career officials at the F.B.I. and the Justice Department.
A Justice Department spokeswoman said today that no final
decision had been reached on the revised guidelines.
"As part of the attorney general's reorganization," said Susan
Dryden, the spokeswoman, "we are conducting a comprehensive review
of all guidelines, policies and procedures. All of these are still
under review."
An F.B.I. spokesman said the bureau's approach to terrorism was
also under review.
"Director Mueller's view is that everything should be on the
table for review," the spokesman, John Collingwood, said. "He is
more than willing to embrace change when doing so makes us a more
effective component. A healthy review process doesn't come at the
expense of the historic protections inherent in our system."
The attorney general is free to revise the guidelines, but
Justice Department officials said it was unclear how heavily they
would be revised. There are two sets of guidelines, for domestic and
foreign groups, and most of the discussion has centered on the
largely classified rules for investigations of foreign groups.
The relaxation of the guidelines would follow administration
measures to establish military tribunals to try foreigners accused
of terrorism; to seek out and question 5,000 immigrants, most of
them Muslims, who have entered the United States since January 2000;
and to arrest more than 1,200 people, nearly all of whom are
unconnected to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, and hold hundreds
of them in jail.
Today, Mr. Ashcroft defended his initiatives in an impassioned
speech to United States attorneys.
"Our efforts have been deliberate, they've been coordinated,
they've been carefully crafted to not only protect America but to
respect the Constitution and the rights enshrined therein," Mr.
Ashcroft said.
"Still," he added, "there have been a few voices who have
criticized. Some have sought to condemn us with faulty facts or
without facts at all. Others have simply rushed to judgment, almost
eagerly assuming the worst of their government before they've had a
chance to understand it at its best."
Under the current surveillance guidelines, the F.B.I. cannot send
undercover agents to investigate groups that gather at places like
mosques or churches unless investigators first find probable cause,
or evidence leading them to believe that someone in the group may
have broken the law. Full investigations of this sort cannot take
place without the attorney general's consent.
Since Sept. 11, investigators have said, Islamic militants have
sometimes met at mosques ?apparently knowing that the religious
institutions are usually off limits to F.B.I. surveillance squads.
Some officials are now saying they need broader authority to conduct
surveillance of potential terrorists, no matter where they are.
Senior career F.B.I. officials complained that they had not been
consulted about the proposed change ?a criticism they have expressed
about other Bush administration counterterrorism measures. When the
Justice Department decided to use military tribunals to try accused
terrorists, and to interview thousands of Muslim men in the United
States, the officials said they were not consulted.
Justice Department officials noted that Mr. Mueller had endorsed
the administration's proposals, adding that the complaints were
largely from older F.B.I. officials who were resistant to change and
unwilling to take the aggressive steps needed to root out terror in
the United States. Other officials said the Justice Department had
consulted with F.B.I. lawyers and some operational managers about
the change.
But in a series of recent interviews, several senior career
officials at the F.B.I. said it would be a serious mistake to weaken
the guidelines, and they were upset that the department had not
clearly described the proposed changes.
"People are furious right now ?very, very angry," one of them
said. "They just assume they know everything. When you don't consult
with anybody, it sends the message that you assume you know
everything. And they don't know everything."
Still, some complaints seem to stem from the F.B.I.'s shifting
status under Mr. Ashcroft. Weakened by a series of problems that
predated the Sept. 11 attacks, the F.B.I. has been forced to follow
orders from the Justice Department ?a change that many law
enforcement experts thought was long overdue. In the past, the
bureau leadership had far more independence and authority to make
its own decisions.
Several senior officials are leaving the F.B.I., including Thomas
J. Pickard, the deputy director. He was the senior official in
charge of the investigation of the attacks and was among top F.B.I.
officials who were opposed to another decision of the Bush
administration, the public announcements of Oct. 12 and Oct. 29 that
placed the country on the highest state of alert in response to
vague but credible threats of a possible second terrorist attack.
Mr. Pickard is said to have been opposed to publicizing threats that
were too vague to provide any precautionary advice.
Many F.B.I. officials regard the administration's plan to
establish military tribunals as an extreme step that diminishes the
F.B.I.'s role because it creates a separate prosecutorial system run
by the military.
"The only thing I have seen about the tribunals is what I have
seen in the newspapers," a senior official complained.
Another official said many senior law enforcement officials
shared his concern about the tribunals. "I believe in the rule of
law, and I believe if we have a case to make against someone, we
should make it in a federal courtroom in the United States," he
said.
Several senior F.B.I. officials said the tribunal system should
be reserved for senior Al Qaeda members apprehended by the military
in Afghanistan or other foreign countries.
Few were involved in deliberations that led to the directive Mr.
Ashcroft issued this month to interview immigrant men living legally
in the United States. F.B.I. officials have complained that the
interview plan was begun before its ramifications were fully
understood.
"None of this was thought through, a senior official said. "They
just announced it, and left it to others to figure out how to do
it."
The arrests and detentions of more than 1,200 people since Sept.
11 have also aroused concerns at the F.B.I. Officials noted that the
investigations had found no conspirators in the United States who
aided the hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks and only a handful of
people who were considered Al Qaeda members.
"This came out of the White House, and Ashcroft's office," a
senior official said. "There are tons of things coming out of there
these days where there is absolutely no consultation with the
bureau."
Some at the F.B.I. have been openly skeptical about claims that
some of the 1,200 people arrested were Al Qaeda members and that the
strategy of making widespread arrests had disrupted or thwarted
planned attacks.
"It's just not the case," an official said. "We have 10 or 12
people we think are Al Qaeda people, and that's it. And for some of
them, it's based only on conjecture and
suspicion."
