Brad Jansen, Deputy Director of the Center for Technology Policy of the Free Congress Foundation has this to say in the Washington Times:
When Attorney General John Ashcroft announced changes to the Guidelines on General Crimes, Racketeering Enterprise and Terrorism Enterprise Investigations ("Domestic Guidelines") for the Federal Bureau of Investigation on May 30, he lauded its 94-year-old history as "the tireless protector of civil rights and civil liberties for all Americans." That history may have come to an end.
The foreign intelligence guidelines, which cover investigations of international terrorist organizations such as Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda (operating here or abroad), are classified but reportedly have not changed. The Domestic Guidelines govern investigations of domestic groups operating entirely within the United States. Had the Domestic Guidelines changes been in place previously, they would have done nothing to prevent last year's airline highjackings.
Bingo. That's the deal, none of this is about catching terrorists, but it is about projecting the image of "doing something." The Administration is just continuing it's mad power grab from September 11. Anything and everything the FBI/CIA/NSA/DEA and other 3 letter agencies have wanted for any purpose is now being cloaked under the false name of anti-terrorism. Two birds with one stone. The FBI and crew look like they are "doing something" and they get to go around those pesky civil libertarians and their "slippery slopes."
Here's an idea, instead of spying on the Quakers, like the Denver Police did (and labelling them "criminally extremist"), we need to reevaluate all of our "entangling alliances." No more propping up of a ruthless murderer simply because he is the enemy of our enemy. The enemy of our enemy is not necessarily our friend. It's time we learned that folks. No more Noriega's, Hussein's, etc. We need to get out of the dictator protection racket and we need to stop sending American tax dollars overseas to protect our current "friends" who will likely be our "enemies" 10 years down the road. Read the rest of Jansen's commentary here: FBI targets protest groups.