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Congress Eases Scrutiny of FBI Abuses
Josey1
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Congress Eases Scrutiny of FBI Abuses
Sun Sep 8,11:36 AM ET
By Alan Elsner, National Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Since the attacks of last Sept. 11, congressional oversight of the FBI ( news - web sites) has slackened considerably, allowing the agency to use aggressive tactics that may skirt the rights of suspects, liberal and conservative civil liberties activists say.
AP Photo
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"Pressure on the FBI from oversight bodies has relaxed since the attacks. A lot of people on Capitol Hill have concluded this is not a good time to put pressure on the FBI to behave itself," said Timothy Lynch, director of a project on criminal justice at the conservative Cato Institute.
Elisa Massimino, Washington director of Lawyers for Human Rights, said the lack of congressional scrutiny of FBI activities came at precisely the wrong time. Law enforcement agencies, she said, would always be tempted to trample individual rights in the name of national security when the country seemed threatened and people felt unsafe.
"Before 9/11, there was a growing consensus in Congress that the FBI needed more oversight and needed reform. All of that went away after 9/11 when arguably it ought to have increased," she said.
One victim of the FBI's newfound freedom may be Steven Hatfill, a former researcher at an infectious disease laboratory, suspected of sending letters laced with anthrax through the mail last year and killing five people.
Attorney General John Ashcroft ( news - web sites) coined a new quasi-legalistic phrase to define Hatfill's status in the anthrax investigation, calling him a "person of interest."
Although he has not been charged and Americans are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, Hatfill's life has been effectively ruined, he said, since he was identified in leaks to The New York Times and then to other media.
Television crews were tipped off in advance when the FBI searched his home. Agents also searched and allegedly "trashed" his girlfriend's apartment, confiscated his passport and personal documents.
Last week, Hatfill lost his job at Louisiana State University after the Justice Department ( news - web sites) told the school it could not use him on projects funded by government grants.
"My life has been completely and utterly destroyed by John Ashcroft and the FBI," Hatfill said. "My professional reputation is in tatters. All I have left are my savings and they will be exhausted soon because of my legal bills."
The FBI has declined to comment about the Hatfill case other than to say he is one of several scientists they are looking at in connection with the anthrax investigation.
Gene Guerroro, an analyst with the Open Society Institute which monitors human rights, said such behavior by the FBI was not unusual and could be expected more often after Sept. 11.
'STANDARD TECHNIQUE'
"There's a real problem with the misuse of federal law enforcement authority. Things like trashing the girlfriend's apartment is a standard technique when you want to put pressure on a witness. It happens with great regularity," he said.
An FBI official would not discuss the agency's investigative methods and said it stays within the law.
In a rare public rebuke, the secret court that supervises the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act recently criticized the Justice Department and FBI officials for supplying what it said was erroneous information to the court in more than 75 applications from search warrants and wiretaps.
Kris Kolesnik, who served as an aide to Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley for 18 years and is now with the National Whistleblowers Center, said the FBI used the media as a tool to blacken the reputations of suspects when the agency had insufficient evidence to bring charges.
"Rumor and innuendo is second nature to the FBI. If they think you are a suspect, they try to break you any way they can and they definitely feel they have more freedom since 9/11 to behave in this kind of way," he said.
"It's a simple abuse of authority. They do it all the time and they do it with impunity," he said.
Hatfill is not the first victim of such tactics. His case recalls that of Richard Jewell, the security guard who was branded as the chief suspect of an investigation into a deadly bombing during the 1996 Olympic Games ( news - web sites) in Atlanta.
Jewell was ultimately cleared but not before he endured months of media persecution and FBI surveillance. He later won substantial monetary settlements from two TV networks.
"In their mad rush to fulfill their own personal agendas, the FBI and the media almost destroyed me," Jewell said after being formally cleared.
Then there was the case of former Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee ( news - web sites) who spent nine months in solitary confinement under suspicion of passing secrets to China before being released with an apology from the presiding judge in 2000.
One of the few lawmakers keeping up the pressure on the FBI has been Indiana Republican Rep. Dan Burton who chairs the House Government Reform Committee ( news - web sites).
Burton held hearings this year into how the FBI knowingly used false testimony from Mafia informants in Boston to jail four men for a 1968 murder it knew they did not commit.
Anxious to protect itself and its sources, the FBI maintained its cover-up for decades. Two of the four died in prison. The other two were released after spending over 30 years behind bars.
At a hearing in February, Burton said: "A lot of people in this country, myself included, grew up revering the FBI ... It's been very sobering to hear about some of these terrible abuses going on in an agency I've always revered.
"It shows what happens when the government uses an ends justifies the means approach to law enforcement," he said.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=584&ncid=584&e=4&u=/nm/20020908/pl_nm/attack_anniversary_fbi_dc
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Sun Sep 8,11:36 AM ET
By Alan Elsner, National Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Since the attacks of last Sept. 11, congressional oversight of the FBI ( news - web sites) has slackened considerably, allowing the agency to use aggressive tactics that may skirt the rights of suspects, liberal and conservative civil liberties activists say.
AP Photo
Slideshow: Sept. 11 Attacks & Terrorism
9/11
Special Coverage
News, features,
photos and more.
Go there now.
"Pressure on the FBI from oversight bodies has relaxed since the attacks. A lot of people on Capitol Hill have concluded this is not a good time to put pressure on the FBI to behave itself," said Timothy Lynch, director of a project on criminal justice at the conservative Cato Institute.
Elisa Massimino, Washington director of Lawyers for Human Rights, said the lack of congressional scrutiny of FBI activities came at precisely the wrong time. Law enforcement agencies, she said, would always be tempted to trample individual rights in the name of national security when the country seemed threatened and people felt unsafe.
"Before 9/11, there was a growing consensus in Congress that the FBI needed more oversight and needed reform. All of that went away after 9/11 when arguably it ought to have increased," she said.
One victim of the FBI's newfound freedom may be Steven Hatfill, a former researcher at an infectious disease laboratory, suspected of sending letters laced with anthrax through the mail last year and killing five people.
Attorney General John Ashcroft ( news - web sites) coined a new quasi-legalistic phrase to define Hatfill's status in the anthrax investigation, calling him a "person of interest."
Although he has not been charged and Americans are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, Hatfill's life has been effectively ruined, he said, since he was identified in leaks to The New York Times and then to other media.
Television crews were tipped off in advance when the FBI searched his home. Agents also searched and allegedly "trashed" his girlfriend's apartment, confiscated his passport and personal documents.
Last week, Hatfill lost his job at Louisiana State University after the Justice Department ( news - web sites) told the school it could not use him on projects funded by government grants.
"My life has been completely and utterly destroyed by John Ashcroft and the FBI," Hatfill said. "My professional reputation is in tatters. All I have left are my savings and they will be exhausted soon because of my legal bills."
The FBI has declined to comment about the Hatfill case other than to say he is one of several scientists they are looking at in connection with the anthrax investigation.
Gene Guerroro, an analyst with the Open Society Institute which monitors human rights, said such behavior by the FBI was not unusual and could be expected more often after Sept. 11.
'STANDARD TECHNIQUE'
"There's a real problem with the misuse of federal law enforcement authority. Things like trashing the girlfriend's apartment is a standard technique when you want to put pressure on a witness. It happens with great regularity," he said.
An FBI official would not discuss the agency's investigative methods and said it stays within the law.
In a rare public rebuke, the secret court that supervises the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act recently criticized the Justice Department and FBI officials for supplying what it said was erroneous information to the court in more than 75 applications from search warrants and wiretaps.
Kris Kolesnik, who served as an aide to Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley for 18 years and is now with the National Whistleblowers Center, said the FBI used the media as a tool to blacken the reputations of suspects when the agency had insufficient evidence to bring charges.
"Rumor and innuendo is second nature to the FBI. If they think you are a suspect, they try to break you any way they can and they definitely feel they have more freedom since 9/11 to behave in this kind of way," he said.
"It's a simple abuse of authority. They do it all the time and they do it with impunity," he said.
Hatfill is not the first victim of such tactics. His case recalls that of Richard Jewell, the security guard who was branded as the chief suspect of an investigation into a deadly bombing during the 1996 Olympic Games ( news - web sites) in Atlanta.
Jewell was ultimately cleared but not before he endured months of media persecution and FBI surveillance. He later won substantial monetary settlements from two TV networks.
"In their mad rush to fulfill their own personal agendas, the FBI and the media almost destroyed me," Jewell said after being formally cleared.
Then there was the case of former Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee ( news - web sites) who spent nine months in solitary confinement under suspicion of passing secrets to China before being released with an apology from the presiding judge in 2000.
One of the few lawmakers keeping up the pressure on the FBI has been Indiana Republican Rep. Dan Burton who chairs the House Government Reform Committee ( news - web sites).
Burton held hearings this year into how the FBI knowingly used false testimony from Mafia informants in Boston to jail four men for a 1968 murder it knew they did not commit.
Anxious to protect itself and its sources, the FBI maintained its cover-up for decades. Two of the four died in prison. The other two were released after spending over 30 years behind bars.
At a hearing in February, Burton said: "A lot of people in this country, myself included, grew up revering the FBI ... It's been very sobering to hear about some of these terrible abuses going on in an agency I've always revered.
"It shows what happens when the government uses an ends justifies the means approach to law enforcement," he said.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=584&ncid=584&e=4&u=/nm/20020908/pl_nm/attack_anniversary_fbi_dc
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878