LIBERTY VS. SECURITY
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TO JUSTIFY his broad expansion of the FBI's power to spy on Americans, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft has distorted the lessons of Sept. 11.

To hear Mr. Ashcroft tell it, the imperatives of fighting terrorism in the shadow of 9/11 forced him to make it easier for the FBI to snoop on people in churches, mosques, public meetings and internet chat rooms -- even when there is no hint of criminal activity.

Yet there is no evidence that any of the 19 al-Qaida hijackers said a word about their deadly plot in any meeting of Islamic fundamentalists, or at a mosque, or in a chat room. Nor is there a scintilla of evidence that the restrictions on FBI spying that Mr. Ashcroft tossed out had hindered the FBI in its pursuit of al-Qaida terrorists.

The guidelines that Mr. Ashcroft revised last week were written by President Gerald Ford's attorney general, Edward Levi, to counter the abuses of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Have we so soon forgotten that Mr. Hoover spied on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or that the FBI's Cointelpro program collected dossiers on thousands upon thousands of civil rights and anti-war leaders?

Mr. Ashcroft's fact sheet explaining the need for the change says that the Levi guidelines "generally barred the FBI from taking the initiative to deter and prevent future crimes." Hogwash. The whole point of the Levi guidelines was to set rules to enable the FBI to "anticipate or prevent crime...in advance of criminal conduct." And beginning with FBI Director William H. Webster, the Bureau prevented quite a few terrorist attacks, including the Millennium bomb plot aimed at the Los Angeles airport.

Mr. Ashcroft makes his new guidelines sound irresistibly sensible. The war against terrorism requires that agents have all of the legal tools possible, he says. Nothing in the new guidelines violates anyone's constitutional rights. Why shouldn't FBI agents be able to surf the net and attend public meetings and religious services like everyone else?

But Mr. Ashcroft exaggerates. Nothing keeps agents from running a web search on smallpox as a biological warfare agent, as the Justice Department claimed. The guidelines are written to protect the privacy of individuals and political dissenters. A web search for smallpox has nothing to do with anyone's privacy.

Nor did the Levi guidelines prevent agents from investigating the groups known to be terrorist threats, such as al-Qaida or Hamas. The FBI already has entire sections devoted to investigations of those groups and the Levi guidelines did not and do not cramp their style.

The guidelines relate to when the FBI can begin an inquiry where there is no proof of criminal activity. The Levi guidelines required some hint of possible criminal activity. The Ashcroft guidelines do not.

It may sound innocuous to let FBI agents attend mosques, or churches, or public meetings like anyone else. But would you want FBI agents infiltrating your church on the hunch that some of the outspoken anti-abortion members might be involved in clinic bombings? Would you want an agent listening in the shadows of an on-line chat room where you discussed the rights of Palestinians?

Mr. Ashcroft has been extraordinarily resourceful in turning the devastating critique of Special Agent Coleen Rowley into a justification for his new guidelines. A week ago, Ms. Rowley's memo was proof that the Justice Department had been misleading the country for months about what the FBI knew before the Sept. 11 attack. Now, the memo is part of the Ashcroft brief for revising the guidelines, even though Ms. Rowley's complaint had nothing to do with restrictions on when the FBI can initiate an investigation.

The truth is that Mr. Ashcroft has invented a fictional lesson from 9/11 to topple restrictions that were grounded in the very real lessons of Mr. Hoover's abuses. Cointelpro didn't lead to prosecutions or make the nation safer. It's doubtful that Mr. Ashcroft's more benign version will be any more successful. Chasing phantom dangers risks our liberty without securing our safety.

Copyright (C)2002, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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