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FBI Given More Latitude
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
FBI Given More Latitude
New Surveillance Rules Remove Evidence Hurdle
By Susan Schmidt and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, May 30, 2002; Page A01
New Justice Department guidelines to be unveiled today will give FBI agents latitude to monitor Internet sites, libraries and religious institutions without first having to offer evidence of potential criminal activity, officials said yesterday.
The changes, part of the Justice Department's effort to mount a proactive war on terror, will mark a significant change for the FBI. While agents have been permitted in the past to conduct such surveillance if they had specific information, they have been loath to do so because of confusion about what was actually permitted, law enforcement officials said.
Justice Department and FBI officials said the guidelines will remove serious barriers to the prevention of terrorism.
"The concern is when we're confronted with people like [Zacarias] Moussaoui, or even some of the hijackers, who are known to spend substantial periods of time in mosques or other similar situations, it is very difficult to find out what they're up to," said one senior law enforcement official.
Terrorist organizations operating in this country have sometimes used mosques as recruiting grounds and gathering places. Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric now imprisoned for his role in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, built a radical following with links to al Qaeda while preaching at mosques in Brooklyn and Jersey City, for example.
But as word of the new guidelines circulated yesterday, some civil liberties groups expressed fears of a Big Brother government monitoring its citizens.
"The FBI is now telling the American people, 'You no longer have to do anything unlawful in order to get that knock on the door,' " said Laura Murphy, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington office. "You can be doing a prefectly legal activity like worshiping or talking in a chat room, they can spy on you anyway."
The new guidelines state simply that FBI agents may enter public places and forums, including publicly accessible Internet sites, to observe, develop leads and investigate. The guidelines do not specifically mention religious institutions, but a senior Justice Department official said last night that the impact of the changes will be dramatic in allowing the FBI to open a window on extremist activity in mosques.
"These are open places," he said. Now, "just because they are FBI agents, they don't have to turn a blind eye to activities visible to other people."
Under guidelines that have been in place for several decades, the FBI has not been permitted to send investigators into religious settings unless the agents can establish they are following a lead, or conducting an investigation or preliminary inquiry. As a practical matter, the Justice Department official said, "agents mistakenly think they have to stop at the church door."
In a written description of the guideline changes made available yesterday, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft stated that the department needs to be able to "proactively draw on available sources of information to identify terrorist threats and activities." In the past, he said, the FBI has been a reactive body, and the guidelines "generally barred the FBI from taking the initiative unless leads as to possible criminal activity or even more substantial evidence of crimes happened to come to the FBI from external sources."
The new rules will allow agents to surf the Internet for Web sites that might give hints to terrorist activity, according to the description. The new guidelines will allow investigators to seek out and "identify sites and forums in which bomb-making instructions, preparations for cyberterrorism, child pornography, and stolen credit card information are openly traded and disseminated."
Under the existing policy, agents could pursue online searches only when they could characterize them as checking leads or otherwise furthering an ongoing investigation.
"Pure surfing or searching for the purpose of initially developing leads was not allowed, even in relation to publicly available information that anyone else is free to access and observe," according to the new policy statement.
Agents will also be permitted to do topical research not directly related to a specific crime under the new guidelines, such as research on a biological agent.
The ACLU's Murphy said, however, that the new guidelines could open the door to the same kind of problems evident in the FBI's aggressive surveillance and harassment of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Several other aspects of the new guidelines, disclosed earlier this week, will move some decision-making authority from FBI headquarters to field offices around the country. FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III acknowledged yesterday that changes must be made to counter bureaucratic inertia at headquarters that led to missed clues in the Sept. 11 attacks.
Under the new guidelines, field office directors will be allowed to launch terrorism investigations and undercover probes without clearance from headquarters.
The guidelines are an outgrowth of privacy laws that prohibit the government from collecting information except for law enforcement purposes. In the past, the government developed information on specific cases but now needs broader intelligence to prevent terrorist acts.
c 2002 The Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30427-2002May29.html
"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
Edited by - Josey1 on 05/31/2002 05:57:39
New Surveillance Rules Remove Evidence Hurdle
By Susan Schmidt and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, May 30, 2002; Page A01
New Justice Department guidelines to be unveiled today will give FBI agents latitude to monitor Internet sites, libraries and religious institutions without first having to offer evidence of potential criminal activity, officials said yesterday.
The changes, part of the Justice Department's effort to mount a proactive war on terror, will mark a significant change for the FBI. While agents have been permitted in the past to conduct such surveillance if they had specific information, they have been loath to do so because of confusion about what was actually permitted, law enforcement officials said.
Justice Department and FBI officials said the guidelines will remove serious barriers to the prevention of terrorism.
"The concern is when we're confronted with people like [Zacarias] Moussaoui, or even some of the hijackers, who are known to spend substantial periods of time in mosques or other similar situations, it is very difficult to find out what they're up to," said one senior law enforcement official.
Terrorist organizations operating in this country have sometimes used mosques as recruiting grounds and gathering places. Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric now imprisoned for his role in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, built a radical following with links to al Qaeda while preaching at mosques in Brooklyn and Jersey City, for example.
But as word of the new guidelines circulated yesterday, some civil liberties groups expressed fears of a Big Brother government monitoring its citizens.
"The FBI is now telling the American people, 'You no longer have to do anything unlawful in order to get that knock on the door,' " said Laura Murphy, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington office. "You can be doing a prefectly legal activity like worshiping or talking in a chat room, they can spy on you anyway."
The new guidelines state simply that FBI agents may enter public places and forums, including publicly accessible Internet sites, to observe, develop leads and investigate. The guidelines do not specifically mention religious institutions, but a senior Justice Department official said last night that the impact of the changes will be dramatic in allowing the FBI to open a window on extremist activity in mosques.
"These are open places," he said. Now, "just because they are FBI agents, they don't have to turn a blind eye to activities visible to other people."
Under guidelines that have been in place for several decades, the FBI has not been permitted to send investigators into religious settings unless the agents can establish they are following a lead, or conducting an investigation or preliminary inquiry. As a practical matter, the Justice Department official said, "agents mistakenly think they have to stop at the church door."
In a written description of the guideline changes made available yesterday, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft stated that the department needs to be able to "proactively draw on available sources of information to identify terrorist threats and activities." In the past, he said, the FBI has been a reactive body, and the guidelines "generally barred the FBI from taking the initiative unless leads as to possible criminal activity or even more substantial evidence of crimes happened to come to the FBI from external sources."
The new rules will allow agents to surf the Internet for Web sites that might give hints to terrorist activity, according to the description. The new guidelines will allow investigators to seek out and "identify sites and forums in which bomb-making instructions, preparations for cyberterrorism, child pornography, and stolen credit card information are openly traded and disseminated."
Under the existing policy, agents could pursue online searches only when they could characterize them as checking leads or otherwise furthering an ongoing investigation.
"Pure surfing or searching for the purpose of initially developing leads was not allowed, even in relation to publicly available information that anyone else is free to access and observe," according to the new policy statement.
Agents will also be permitted to do topical research not directly related to a specific crime under the new guidelines, such as research on a biological agent.
The ACLU's Murphy said, however, that the new guidelines could open the door to the same kind of problems evident in the FBI's aggressive surveillance and harassment of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Several other aspects of the new guidelines, disclosed earlier this week, will move some decision-making authority from FBI headquarters to field offices around the country. FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III acknowledged yesterday that changes must be made to counter bureaucratic inertia at headquarters that led to missed clues in the Sept. 11 attacks.
Under the new guidelines, field office directors will be allowed to launch terrorism investigations and undercover probes without clearance from headquarters.
The guidelines are an outgrowth of privacy laws that prohibit the government from collecting information except for law enforcement purposes. In the past, the government developed information on specific cases but now needs broader intelligence to prevent terrorist acts.
c 2002 The Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30427-2002May29.html
"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
Edited by - Josey1 on 05/31/2002 05:57:39
Comments
Anti-snooping operating system close to launch
16:28 28 May 02
NewScientist.com news service
Computer activists in Britain are close to completing an operating system that could undermine government efforts to the wiretap the internet. The UK Home Office has condemned the project as potentially providing a new tool for criminals.
Electronic communications can be kept private using encryption. But new UK legislation will soon give law enforcers the right to demand encryption keys from anyone suspected of illegal activity.
The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) was introduced to update UK surveillance laws to include electronic communications. But privacy campaigners say it gives too much power to law enforcers and permits intrusive eavesdropping.
Peter Fairbrother, a mathematician and computer enthusiast, is programming the new operating system, called M-o-o-t. "It is aimed at anybody who's concerned about the government being nosey," he says.
Remote storage
M-o-o-t aims to beat RIPA powers by storing encryption keys and other data overseas, beyond the reach of investigators. No data will be stored on the computer's hardware.
Documents and email messages will be kept on servers outside the UK government's jurisdiction. Communication with these servers will be secured by encryption.
It will be possible to store files on any server that allows encrypted File Transfer Protocol (secure FTP) access. It will even be possible to share files between different servers, meaning that if one server were compromised, this would still not provide a complete file.
M-o-o-t will be almost entirely contained on a CD that will run on most PCs and Macintosh computers. The CD must be placed in a computer at start up and will then load up a graphical user interface, as well as a number of applications including an email client and a word processor. Fairbrother says the system aims to make it easy for anyone to use the suite of tried and tested cryptographic protocols that M-o-o-t combines.
Criminal tool
A spokeswoman for the Home Office dismissed privacy concerns over RIPA and warned that the system could provide criminals with a new tool: "This particular technology could provide the criminally inclined with a tool to further their criminal intent."
She told New Scientist: "Such a device in the wrong hands will do far more to infringe the human rights of innumerable potential victims than a regulated and inspected process such as RIPA could ever allow."
Fairbrother admits that the M-o-o-t might be used by criminals but says there are already more complicated tools available for determined lawbreakers. "The benefits far outweigh the problems," he says.
Master keys
Communication will only be possible with other M-o-o-t users using keys that expire after a single use. "Master" encryption keys will be kept on the remote servers in a format that makes it impossible to distinguish them from random data without the correct password.
This is possible using the Steganographic File System developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge. It stores all data as apparently random information.
"M-o-o-t sounds like a great idea," says Bruce Schneier, security expert and head of US company Counterpane Security. But he adds that extensive testing will be needed to ensure there are no software bugs: "Like any security technology, if you rely on it and it has flaws then you don't have the security you rely on."
RIPA, introduced in July 2000, allows UK police to intercept electronic communications using equipment installed at ISPs. When part three of RIPA is brought into power later in 2002, police will also be able to demand access to message encryption keys. Those who fail to hand over their keys could face a prison sentence.
Fairbrother says a version of M-o-o-t should be ready for testing in the next two weeks. The final product ought to be ready for the introduction of part three of RIPA, he adds.
Will Knight
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992335
"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
FBI Special Agent Robert G. Wright Jr. will hold a news conference Thursday in Washington to reveal FBI negligence and obstruction of counterterrorism investigations targeting Hamas and al-Qaeda.
Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, said its co-counsel David Schippers would join Wright at the press conference.
"Special Agent Wright, of the FBI's Chicago Division, is the only agent in the history of the FBI to have used the civil forfeiture laws to seize over $1.4 million dollars in Hamas terrorist money in connection with a criminal investigation of terrorist money laundering operations here in the United States," Judicial Watch said.
Minneapolis FBI agent Coleen Rowley has corroborated Wright's experiences dealing with FBI headquarters and senior management, "who consistently delayed, down-played and soft-peddled the investigative efforts of counterterrorism agents in the field," the organization said.
Stay tuned.
http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2002/5/29/192954
"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
By DON VAN NATTA Jr.
ASHINGTON, May 29 - As part of a sweeping effort to transform the F.B.I. into a domestic terrorism prevention agency, Attorney General John Ashcroft has decided to relax restrictions on the bureau's ability to conduct domestic spying in counterterrorism operations, senior government officials said today.
Advertisement
Mr. Ashcroft and Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, plan to announce on Thursday a broad loosening of the guidelines that restrict the surveillance of religious and political organizations, the officials said. The guidelines were adopted after disclosures of domestic F.B.I. spying under the old Cointelpro program, and for 25 years they have been among the most fundamental limits on the bureau's conduct.
The revision will shift the power to initiate counterterrorism inquiries from headquarters to the special agents in charge of the 56 field offices, the officials said.
"We are turning the ship 180 degrees from prosecution of crimes as our main focus to the prevention of terrorist acts," a senior Justice Department official said tonight. "We want to make sure that we do everything possible to stop the terrorists before they can kill innocent Americans, everything within the bounds of the Constitution and federal law."
Officials at the American Civil Liberties Union criticized the new guidelines, saying they represent another step by the Bush administration to roll back civil-liberties protections in the name of improving counterterrorism measures.
"These new guidelines say to the American people that you no longer have to be doing something wrong in order to get that F.B.I. knock at your door," Laura W. Murphy, director of the national office of the A.C.L.U., said. "The government is rewarding failure. It seems when the F.B.I. fails, the response by the Bush administration is to give the bureau new powers, as opposed to seriously look at why the intelligence and law enforcement failures occurred."
Under the old guidelines, agents needed to show that they had probable cause or information from an informer that crimes were being committed to begin counterterrorism investigations. Under the new guidelines, agents will be free to search for leads or clues to terrorist activities in public databases or on the Internet.
Under the old guidelines, surfing the Internet for the sole purpose of developing leads was prohibited.
Among other changes, the new guidelines let agents search Web sites and online chat rooms for evidence of terrorists' planning or other criminal activities, the officials said.
The bureau will also use commercial "data-mining services" from companies that collect, organize and analyze marketing and demographic information from the Internet to help develop leads on potential crimes like threats to the security of computer networks. Businesses routinely use the information, but the bureau has been constrained from using those services.
The guidelines were imposed in the 1970's after the disclosures about Cointelpro, a widespread domestic surveillance program that monitored antiwar militants, the Ku Klux Klan and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., among others, while J. Edgar Hoover was bureau director.
Beyond the reports of the spying, a political firestorm arose over what many critics regarded as the abuse of power. The surveillance guidelines have since then defined the operational conduct of the bureau in inquiries of domestic and overseas groups that operate in the United States.
Since Sept. 11, the guidelines have been criticized by many law enforcement officials as an outmoded counterterrorism tool that hampered efforts.
A senior agent in the Minneapolis office, Coleen Rowley, complained on May 21 in a letter to Mr. Mueller that officials at headquarters had repeatedly held back agents in the field office who sought to investigate Zacarias Moussaoui aggressively in the four weeks before Sept. 11.
Senior officials said today that Mr. Ashcroft's new guidelines addressed some of Ms. Rowley's complaints. Ms. Rowley, general counsel in the Minneapolis office, also complained that agents there had no idea that an agent in Phoenix wrote in a memorandum to headquarters in July that Arab men, possibly connected to Osama bin Laden, had trained at a flight school in Arizona.
Under the new guidelines, field offices will no longer have to await approval for intelligence investigations from headquarters. Headquarters would often take weeks or even months before deciding whether an inquiry was warranted.
Instead, the field offices could begin counterterrorism inquiries themselves. Inquiries can last from 180 days to one year before being reviewed by senior officials.
"Agent Rowley's concerns are thoroughly addressed in the F.B.I. reorganization and the attorney general's guidelines," a senior official said tonight. "We are devolving power to begin and conduct investigations to the field offices and freeing their hands to do everything possible within the bounds of the Constitution and federal law to protect us from terrorists."
Under the current guidelines, the bureau cannot send undercover agents to investigate groups that gather at places like mosques or churches unless investigators first find probable cause or evidence that leads them to believe that someone in the group may have broken the law. Such full investigations cannot proceed without the attorney general's consent.
Many investigators have complained since Sept. 11 that Islamic militants have sometimes met at mosques, apparently knowing that religious institutions are usually off limits to F.B.I. surveillance squads.
A lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, Gregory T. Nojeim, predicted that the new guidelines would cause a flood of new information that the bureau will have trouble analyzing.
"The problem with the 9/11 investigation was a failure to analyze and act on relevant information," Mr. Nojeim said. "And their solution is to gather exponentially more information that they have no possible way to properly analyze."
A senior official at the Justice Department dismissed that criticism.
"Under the new rules," the official said, "we allow the field to conduct the investigations and we will give headquarters the ability to analyze the information. No longer will there be disparate pieces of information floating around in isolation in different parts of the country. Now you will have a much greater ability to connect those dots."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/30/politics/30SPY.html
"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
Wes Vernon, NewsMax.com
Friday, May 31, 2002
WASHINGTON - A veteran FBI agent Thursday charged that corruption inside the bureau derailed investigations that could have averted the terrorist attacks on America on Sept. 11. His lawyers said the FBI had evidence that the World Trade Center was a possible terrorist target.
In a memo written 91 days before Sept. 11, the man, Special Agent Robert G. Wright Jr., warned that Americans would die as a result of the FBI's failure to investigate terrorists living in this country.
Wright went public at a press conference even though FBI Director Robert Mueller ordered him to stay in Chicago and threatened him with criminal prosecution if he spoke publicly about the agency's wrongdoing.
"The FBI is not protecting the American people," declared Wright at a conference sponsored by his attorneys at the public interest law firm Judicial Watch.
Judicial Watch Chairman and General Counsel Larry Klayman termed Mueller's comments Wednesday, that open criticism of him and other top FBI brass was welcome, were nothing more than "politically convenient statements."
'They Got Caught'
"They said that because they got caught with their hands in the cookie jar," declared Klayman, referring to a memo written by FBI legal counsel Coleen Rowley. She alleged in a memo that the FBI could have prevented the 9-11 attacks and that Mueller, though new to the job, has covered up for senior FBI officials.
Klayman said Mueller's reorganization plan announced this week was noting more than "icing over a stale cake."
Wright produced a sworn statement relating to an FBI agent who refused to record a telephone conversation during the meeting with a suspect in an FBI criminal investigation related to terrorism.
Muslim Agent 'Does Not Record Another Muslim'!
The agent in question is quoted in two sworn statements, one by Wright and the other by retired agent Barry Carmody, as refusing to record the conversation because "a Muslim does not record another Muslim."
Carmody's statement said that refusal "may have negatively impacted the conduct of the FBI's investigation. I informed FBI headquarters twice about this incident in 1998 and again in 2000, but I am aware of no disciplinary action being taken against him in this matter."
Wright, whose whistle-blowing was first reported by NewsMax.com weeks ago, urged the Bush administration and Congress to "consider removing terrorism investigative matters from the hands of the FBI. For reasons of consistency, reliability and national security, these responsibilities should be assigned to a new federal Anti-Terrorism Agency."
The assets of the Drug Enforcement Agency could be used to fund an anti-terrorism agency, he said. "Simply switch the terrorism responsibilities of the FBI with the nation's illegal drug responsibilities.
FBI's Gross Incompetence
"Knowing what I know," Wright continued, "I can confidently say that until the investigative responsibilities for terrorism are transferred from the FBI, I will not feel safe."
The agent, stationed in Chicago and now demoted to "meaningless paper-pushing" work, according to Klayman, charged the FBI "cannot identify and prevent acts of terrorism against the United States and its citizens at home and abroad."
Even worse, he said, there is "virtually no effort on the part of the FBI's International Terrorism Unit to neutralize known and suspected terrorists residing in the United States. Unfortunately, more terrorist attacks against the American interests, coupled with the loss of American lives, will have to occur before those in power give this matter the urgent attention it deserves."
By phone from his law office in Chicago, Wright's lead attorney, David Schippers, who represented the House Judiciary Committee in its impeachment of Bill Clinton, chided the FBI for dropping the ball in dealing with domestic and international radical Islamic "charities" that were laundering money on American soil through U.S. financial institutions and other channels.
Stopping Muslim Terrorism Isn't P.C.
Had the bureau not been cowed by "political correctness," Schippers said, the money for much terrorist activity "would have been cut off."
In his opening statement, Judicial Watch's Klayman said the FBI had threatened Wright with his job if he were to go ahead and tell his story either in media statements or in a book he has been writing.
When Wright attempted to travel to Washington on his own time to meet with members of Congress about the FBI's incompetence and dereliction of duty regarding terrorism during the week after Sept. 11, his attorneys were threatened by the Justice Department, which oversees the bureau.
Klayman says Attorney General John Ashcroft should be required to answer for that interference. Moreover, the FBI informed Wright he could not travel outside of the Chicago division without the express permission of the bureau.
The Judicial Watch counsel said the FBI did have intelligence about terrorist activity planned against the World Trade Center and "other monuments."
Wright listed several major failures of the FBI. They included lack of high-quality managers and modern computer technology, failure to modernize investigative objectives to deal with the new terrorist threat, too many investigative violations, incompetent managers not held accountable for their mistakes, an internal affairs unit that was "bias[ed] and unfair" to whistle-blowers and others, criminal conflicts that have "contributed to the preventable deaths of American citizens," and FBI duplication of the investigative jurisdictions of other federal law enforcement agencies such as the DEA and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
"I love America, and likewise I love the FBI, particularly its purpose and mission" Wright told reporters at the National Press Club, "However, the mission has been seriously jeopardized to the point where American lives have been needlessly lost."
At the news conference, in answer to questions from NewsMax.com, Klayman said he hoped Congress would use its subpoena powers to require Wright and responsible officials to testify.
He also told NewsMax that if the FBI tries to drive Wright out of the bureau by isolating him and passing him up for promotions, "he will be a rich man," because Judicial Watch would take necessary legal action to see that the powers that be do not get away with this familiar bureaucratic tactic of retaliation. http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/5/30/161204.shtml
"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
By MURRAY WEISS
May 30, 2002 -- Frustrated cops in New York had to free a suspicious gang of illegal Mideast aliens because the INS "didn't want to be bothered" on the Memorial Day weekend, The Post has learned.
In the end, not knowing whether the men they had nabbed were the hard-working immigrants they claimed to be or a terror gang plotting to wreak havoc, the local authorities had to let them walk.
The mystery men - some with phony ID and all admitted illegal immigrants - could have been held if agents from the Immigration and Naturalization Service had bothered to show up.
"What's the point of stopping vans and risking your life when the one agency with power blows you off?" one angry lawman said. "And this is after Sept. 11."
"It's frightening and disheartening," said another. "The agency that handles immigration didn't want to come down" - although every other law-enforcement agency did
"They didn't even want to be bothered."
The INS didn't seem to have anybody on duty in the city. The agency's contact number for the weekend rang at an office in Burlington, Vt., more than 300 miles away.
"The f- - -ing INS has one phone working Memorial weekend and it's in Vermont?" said another incredulous law-enforcement official.
An INS spokesman said yesterday, "Since Sept. 11, our primary focus has been on terrorist-related investigations and, contrary to belief, we are not in the business of detaining people without cause. These men posed no terrorist threat or, for that matter, any threat to the community."
But the cops had no reason to think that when they confronted the men Friday.
The case began about 4 p.m., when MTA Bridges and Tunnels officers stopped a battered van from entering the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel from the Manhattan side. The red-and-white 1990 cargo van had four Mideastern men jammed in front - one more than is legal.
The commercial vehicle also bore only an address, 1006 Coney Island Ave., stenciled on its side, and not a business name, as required by law.
Officer Chris Lasalle opened the rear padlocked door and found three more men inside, a police report said.
The seven men, most from Pakistan, produced a variety of paperwork, including a phony government card obtained in Times Square, a bogus passport, an ID card from Virginia, and some New York nondriver IDs.
They were taken to the officers' headquarters on the Brooklyn side of the tunnel, where detectives from the NYPD Intelligence Division, the Joint Terrorist Task Force, the MTA, an assistant Brooklyn DA and interpreters had responded.
The suspects said they worked for a construction company, Gill Waterproofing and Roofing in Brooklyn, to which the van was registered.
At 6 p.m., the INS was called, but no agents responded. By 10 p.m. the District Attorney's Office, without INS intervention, had to release four men who had what appeared to be legitimate IDs.
At midnight, detectives again called, but were referred to a toll-free INS number that connected them with the Vermont office, where a concerned supervisor took information and said a Manhattan supervisor would be notified by morning.
At 1 p.m., INS supervisor Frank Ciringione called, promising to provide instruction later, sources said.
When asked if he wanted to talk to the prosecutor handling the case, he indicated he didn't - unless he had to.
"They had a horrible attitude," one cop said of the INS.
Three hours later, Ciringione called back and told ADA Jacqueline Kagan to free the other suspects, saying "INS would follow up at a future date in our own way."
Ciringione declined to speak to The Post yesterday.
Additional reporting by Brad Hunter and Eric Lenkowitz
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/49166.htm
"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
Reed Irvine
May 31, 2002
On the heels of the release of Accuracy in Media's award-winning documentary, "TWA 800: The Search for the Truth," FIRO, the TWA Flight 800 Independent Researchers Organization, has petitioned the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to reconsider its decision on what caused the plane to crash. The NTSB's rules provide for such petitions if new evidence has been found or it can be shown that the NTSB findings were erroneous.
FIRO's 19-page petition, supported by 71 pages of attachments, can be found on FIRO's Web site, www.flight800.org. It shows that the NTSB's finding that the crash was initiated by a spontaneous explosion in the center-wing fuel tank was erroneous, pointing out that the investigators were unable to find any source of ignition that could have caused the empty fuel tank to explode. The board's finding was based on an assumption, not evidence.
Attachment II of the FIRO petition discusses an analysis of radar data by an FBI consultant who concluded that a component of the plane was blown out of its right side as soon as electric power was lost. It was the first part of the plane to hit the water, a quarter of a mile closer to the shore than the next closest part. This cannot be explained by the NTSB's fuel-tank explosion theory.
FIRO charges that the NTSB withheld from the public and parties to the investigation the results of the analysis of a strange loud sound recorded on the cockpit voice recorder. The tape was sent to England to be analyzed by sound experts at the University of Southampton to determine if the explosion was high velocity from an explosive device or low velocity from a fuel-air mixture. The conclusion reached by the British experts has been withheld by the NTSB on the grounds that it "would create a safety hazard." Translation: it was high velocity.
Another important example of evidence that was classified secret and was withheld from the public was the discovery that metals of "unknown origin" were found in the bodies of many of the 230 who died in the crash on July 17, 1996. The FBI asked the Brookhaven National Laboratory to analyze one of 20 small pellets found in one of the bodies. They contained zirconium and barium, indicative of an incendiary device foreign to a Boeing 747 airliner. The FBI made no effort to determine the source of these pellets.
Retired Brig. Gen. Benton Partin, who helped design missiles for the Air Force, has said that the Brookhaven Laboratory's analysis of the composition of the mysterious pellets suggests to him that they came from a missile. The FBI never showed Gen. Partin or any other missile experts the Brookhaven analysis. They were content to describe the pellets as "origin unknown."
Throwing a secrecy blanket over this evidence and failing to determine its source indicates that they knew that sourcing it accurately would undermine their claim that a spontaneous fuel-tank explosion caused the crash.
The Suffolk County coroner, Dr. Wetli, found shrapnel in 89 of the bodies he examined. The FBI compiled an eight-page list describing the metal found in each body, classifying it secret. FIRO has sued under FOIA to obtain this list. The court ordered the FBI to release it, but the bureau is trying to get the order reversed on privacy grounds, claiming it invades the privacy of the dead.
That is a spurious argument because the dead have no privacy rights, but FIRO is not arguing that point. What it wants is the description of the metal found in each of those bodies. It is believed that a lot of it will be pellets. The names can be redacted.
The penchant of the FBI and NTSB for classifying, hiding and altering the TWA Flight 800 evidence shows that they knew the evidence did not support their findings. Last summer the NTSB, headed by a Bush appointee, secretly sold the TWA 800 wreckage, except for the mock-up of the fuselage and one engine, to a recycler. The buyer had to promise to keep it secret to get the contract.
The NTSB says the secrecy requirement was to keep away scavengers and souvenir hunters. Baloney! Why should they care about that once the wreckage was sold? Because what they were really destroying was evidence that could have been used to prove that their explanation of the cause of the crash was wrong. Some of it was so revealing that the FBI would not let even the NTSB investigators see it.
Reed Irvine is chairman of Accuracy in Media.
http://www.newsmax.com/commentarchive.shtml?a=2002/5/30/144706
"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
Posted: May 31, 2002
1:00 a.m. Eastern
c 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
Earlier this week, Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller announced a series of dramatic new changes in store for the nation's primary federal law enforcement agency.
To begin with, the bureau's new focus will be a "proactive" approach to "protect the United States from terrorist attacks," rather than continuing in its "reactive" role of investigating domestic crimes after the fact.
Fox News, which managed to get ahold of the specifics of the proposal in advance, described the initiative as "a massive change in structure, investigative techniques, culture, attitude, procedures and methodology, hiring and technology."
Many of the changes being implemented were resisted by the FBI itself, as well as its allies in Congress, for years. Supposedly, Sept. 11 changed all that as, indeed, Sept. 11 has changed a lot of things.
One thing that hasn't changed, however, is Washington's appetite for bigger, more intrusive (and less responsive) government.
By far, the most dramatic change in this new FBI "reorganization," as it is being called, is the bureau's size. The Justice Department is adding 900 new agents to FBI ranks and it is giving the bureau an additional 14 "sections" and "units" that will specialize in terrorism, technology, world cultures, languages and intelligence-gathering.
Also, the proposal calls for the establishment of a new Office of Intelligence within the existing National Joint Terrorism Task Force, and it creates a new Mobile National Terrorism Response Capability that features "flying squads" ? elite teams that will travel the world "collecting information."
What's more, the proposal includes provisions for the new intelligence section to have "sweeping investigative authority in the U.S. ? authority that has not existed recently, as the Central Intelligence Agency cannot spy in the United States and FBI undercover work has until now been limited to probing crimes that are assumed to have already occurred," Fox News reported.
Giving the world's most powerful police agency more power is not a good thing for a constitutional republic, by the way.
But barring that little concern, let's see if I have this right so far. Though much of the criticism of the FBI has been leveled at the bureau for being too big and cumbersome to decipher all the clues pointing to the Sept. 11 attacks, the answer is to make it bigger, more cumbersome and more bureaucratic? Only a bureaucrat could justify that idea.
But, wait, you say. Ashcroft says the FBI will now be primarily focused on protecting the U.S. from terrorism. Fine ? but then, why do we still need the CIA?
Oh, well, to spy on other nations who could be planning military or other actions against us, you say.
OK, then why do we still need the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, Army intelligence, the Secret Service, the Diplomatic Security Service, and about a half-dozen other mini-intelligence agencies and bureaus?
The point is, all of this FBI expansion, in terms of personnel, money and authority, has been created, even though not a single dollar, person, regulation or mandate has been stripped from other agencies doing the same kind of work.
Why is it anytime there is a crisis ? regardless of which major party is in power ? the solution always seems to center on expanding the size of government or its bureaucracies ? a solution that always means more cost to taxpayers and less freedom to our people?
Why do these expansions come without satisfactory explanations, other than some bureaucrat insisting that "more is better" and expecting Americans to automatically believe them?
I don't accept for a nanosecond that Bush, Ashcroft and Mueller really think all this new bureaucracy will help the FBI do a better job. Rather, I suspect they see Sept. 11 solely as an opportunity to expand the size, scope and power of the central government because that is an instinctive reaction inherent in authoritarians.
But American lives are at risk here. We don't need more bureaucracy ? we need to demand proficiency from the existing bureaucracy. And if we can't get it, then lawmakers need to make that bureaucracy go away.
In the case of expanding the FBI in this war against terror, quantity is no substitute for quality.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27806
"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
By Matt Born
(Filed: 30/05/2002)
The BBC was accused yesterday of Orwellian tactics after digital video machines in thousands of homes were switched on remotely to record Caroline Aherne's new sitcom Dossa and Joe. The move was described as the equivalent of junk mail.
Many of the 50,000 households that own TiVo machines awoke on Friday to discover that the 30-minute programme had been downloaded on to their recorders without having asked for it.
It is the first time a broadcaster has used the new technology to try to boost audiences for a show.
TiVo's selling point is its ability to "remember" to tape viewers' favourite programmes and similar shows, based on a list of preferences. However the BBC sent Dossa and Joe to all the machines regardless of preference.
Almost 1,000 messages have been posted on a web forum for TiVo users, many complaining that such "foul-mouthed rubbish" had been imposed on them.
Some were unhappy that they missed the start of the Ten O'Clock News last Thursday because the machine was still recording Dossa and Joe on BBC2. Others accused the BBC of breaching the 9pm watershed because children could watch the programme the next day.
TiVo is one of a new generation of digital video machines that record programmes on hard disk rather than tape. The BBC was able to send the episode because the machines are linked by telephone to a central database.
The BBC has high hopes for Dossa and Joe, about a retired Australian couple and starring the former Neighbours actress Anne Charleston. But the comedy, Aherne's first series since The Royle Family, has attracted fewer than 1.5 million viewers.
Granville Williams, of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, said: "This is an unwanted and unrequested intrusion into people's lives.
"Consumers were told that TiVo would give them greater control, yet exactly the opposite has happened here. Someone has decided, 'This is what you want to watch.' " http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$EZWLJVYAAAH1NQFIQMGCFFWAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2002/05/30/nbbc30.xml&_requestid=27426&_requestid=10384&_requestid=15466
"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
`Carnivore' tool picked up messages from non-suspects
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON, May 29 - Technicians threw out legitimate wiretap information from an investigation of Osama bin LadenOs terrorist network after flaws were discovered in the FBIOs e-mail surveillance system, bureau documents show.
The episode was described in documents made public through a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington advocacy group.
ACCORDING TO a March 2000 memo to FBI headquarters, the surveillance device, once known as Carnivore, not only picked up the e-mails of its target "but also picked up e-mails on non-covered targets.
"The FBI technical person was apparently so upset that he destroyed all the e-mail take, including the take on" the suspect, whose name is redacted.
The memo, from federal law enforcement agents in Denver to M.E. Bowman, the FBI's associate general counsel for national security, refers to the "UBL Unit," an FBI team that investigates bin Laden's agents in the United States. The specific target is not named.
NO COMMENT FROM FBI
FBI spokesman Paul Bresson refused to identify the case, citing national security concerns. He said the bureau has no comment on the documents, but said the Denver e-mail was not an official report.
The episode was described in documents made public through a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington advocacy group. The material was not included in an original release, but only became public after a federal judge ordered the bureau to give out more documents.
The memo surfaced as the FBI was addressing concerns it mishandled intelligence on terrorism groups before the Sept. 11 attacks. The agency is to form a new office of intelligence and strengthen its oversight of counterterror investigations. Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller were expected to outline high-profile changes Wednesday at the FBI's headquarters, including closer ties to the CIA and an overhaul of the FBI's outdated computer systems.
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Privacy groups and members of Congress have complained that the FBI's e-mail wiretap device has the potential to collect more information than allowed by a warrant.
"Here's confirmation of the fact that not only did it do that, but it resulted in a loss of legitimately acquired intelligence," said David Sobel, general counsel of EPIC, which sued to get the documents released.
`GET ITS ACT TOGETHER'
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, an FBI critic, said, "Whether it's a bungled software program or obstinate bureaucrats, the FBI needs to get its act together."
A Justice department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Tuesday night that the e-mails were not destroyed. The official did not elaborate or try to reconcile the statement with the memo.
The unintended targets of the FBI's snooping may have deserved notification that the mistake was made, the FBI memo said.
The unnamed author of the e-mail said Denver agents installed Carnivore on March 16, 2000, but the device did not work correctly. Agents got authorization to install Carnivore using the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, designed to battle espionage.
The technician had no supervision, the e-mail author says.
Henry H. Perritt, who led a team authorized by the FBI to review Carnivore, said he was surprised the technician deleted the e-mails.
"The collection is supposed to be retained for judicial review," Perritt said. "If an agent simply deleted a whole bunch of files without the court instructing, that's not the way it's supposed to work."
Another document released through the privacy group's request explains the bureau's policy for overcollection on a surveillance warrant. The memo, dated just a week after the Denver e-mail, says the e-mails should be kept under seal so that senior FBI officials can figure out how the wiretap went wrong.
Authorities have used Carnivore-type tools more than 25 times in all types of criminal cases, to catch fugitives, drug dealers, extortionists and suspected foreign intelligence agents. Carnivore is now called DCS-1000.
Perritt's review panel recommended that the FBI change Carnivore so that it is more difficult to accidentally collect too much information. They also said Carnivore needs a stronger audit mechanism so it could be traced back to individual FBI technicians.
The FBI has not announced any changes to the system.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/758700.asp
"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
If this proposal came from a Democrat, we'd all be screaming from the rooftops. Just because it comes from a "friendly" doesn't make it any more palatable. This expansion of police powers is wrong, plain and simple. We're moving toward the moronic French system of justice where one is guilty until proven innocent.