The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is re-writing its manual, the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, to include loosened privacy restraints for surveilling domestic subjects. The new rules include permission to search databases and household trash with neither a warrant nor the requirement to open a record, according to Charlie Savage, writing for the New York Times.
The agency doesn’t need permission to change its manual, but the changes must fall within the attorney general’s guidelines.
The inspector general found in 2007 that the FBI had continuously abused national security letters since the agency began surveilling political advocacy groups. The new rules will do nothing to curtail the agency’s abuses. Savage reports the changes apply to agency “assessments,” a low-level proactive investigation created in 2008 to allow agents to surveil individuals and organizations without evidence. Agents are required to create a record of such surveillance; under the new rules, no such record will be required. The new rule will make it virtually impossible to detect abuse.
Agents have long been able to participate in organizations without disclosure, but the ground rules for such participation have never been made public. Under the new rules, agents—and informants—are allowed to attend up to five meetings before being subject to any rules at all.
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