New FBI Rules Would Make Domestic Surveillance Even Easier

Washington Post:

The Justice Department will unveil changes to FBI ground rules today that would put much more power into the hands of line agents pursuing leads on national security, foreign intelligence and even ordinary criminal cases.

The overhaul, the most substantial revision to FBI operating instructions in years, also would ease some reporting requirements between agents, their supervisors and federal prosecutors in what authorities call a critical effort to improve information gathering and detect terrorist threats.

The changes would give the FBI's more than 12,000 agents the ability at a much earlier stage to conduct physical surveillance, solicit informants and interview friends of people they are investigating without the approval of a bureau supervisor. Such techniques are currently available only after FBI agents have opened an investigation and developed a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed or that a threat to national security is developing.

Read the whole story: Washington Post

Comments

[darthdarcy]

Of course why not the 4th Amendment has been eviscerated and our corrupted government has chosen to make us all the enemy..!

NSPD-51 and HSPD-20 may not be far off...then we're officially a Dictatorsh­ip..!

[ronspri]

When we make it so easy that there is no privacy and no constitution left, will that be easy enough? Geez, how much are they going to take before they are satisfied?