FBI
FBI Applies New Rules to Surveillance (washingtonpost.com): "the FBI, unhindered by the restrictions of the past, will conduct many more searches and wiretaps that are subject to oversight by a secret intelligence court rather than regular criminal courts, officials said. Civil liberties groups and defense lawyers predict that more innocent people will be the targets of clandestine surveillance. "
FBI Publicly Denies Spying on Protesters: "WASHINGTON - Senior FBI officials took the unusual step Tuesday of publicly declaring that agents are not using the war against terrorism as a cover to collect information on people who demonstrate against the government."
Wired News: Congress Expands FBI Spying Power: "Congress approved a bill on Friday that expands the reach of the Patriot Act, reduces oversight of the FBI and intelligence agencies and, according to critics, shifts the balance of power away from the legislature and the courts.
A provision of an intelligence spending bill will expand the power of the FBI to subpoena business documents and transactions from a broader range of businesses -- everything from libraries to travel agencies to eBay -- without first seeking approval from a judge."
FBI scrutinizing anti-war protesters / Bureau wants anti-terror units to review suspicious activities: "Washington -- The FBI has collected extensive information on the tactics, training and organization of antiwar demonstrators and has advised local law enforcement officials to report any suspicious activity at protests to its counterterrorism squads, according to interviews and a confidential bureau memorandum.
The memorandum, which the bureau sent to local law enforcement agencies last month in advance of antiwar demonstrations in Washington and San Francisco, detailed how protesters have sometimes used 'training camps' to rehearse for demonstrations, the Internet to raise money, and gas masks to defend against tear gas. The memorandum analyzed lawful activities such as recruiting demonstrators, as well as illegal activities such as using fake documentation to get into a secured site. "
News from The Associated Press<: "WASHINGTON (AP) -- The National Academy of Sciences has concluded that a technique the FBI has used for decades to match bullets to crimes is flawed, a position that could hand defense lawyers a new avenue of attack against the world's most famous crime lab."
FBI Let Innocents Get Death Sentences - Report: "The FBI used murderers as informants in Boston for three decades, even allowing innocent men to be sentenced to death to protect the secret operation, a government report has found."
New York City - Group to Release FBI Records of Spying on Puerto Rican Activists: "The files cover half a century of surveillance and other covert actions by FBI agents and Puerto Rican police against suspected leftists on the island and in New York. The Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College now has 120,000 pages of those documents, a scholar at the center told Newsday"
FBI Visits Cryptome: "Cryptome received a visit today from FBI Special Agents Todd Renner and Christopher Kelly from the FBI Counterterrorism Office in New York, 26 Federal Plaza, telephone (212) 384-1000. Both agents presented official ID and business cards. "
Boy investigated by FBI for researching school paper on Chesapeake Bay Bridge - Baltimore Sun
WELL, WE live in nervous times. The terrorists arrive that awful Sept. 11 morning, and the nation spends the past two years trying to cope. The government investigates shadowy places where it never previously stuck its nose, and the civil libertarians shudder. Is Big Brother getting too snoopy? A 12-year-old kid at Boys' Latin researches a paper on the Bay Bridge, and suddenly the FBI's Joint Terrorist Task Force shows up in the headmaster's office. You could laugh if you didn't know the jangled nerves that set off such a reaction.
