FBI Brags About Good Vibes Coming from Them; ACLU Strongly Disagrees

Valerie Caponi, FBI General Counsel, and Elizabeth Collins Cook, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Policy, Department of Justice appeared before the Senate Select Intelligence Committee on Sept. 23 to testify about new FBI guidelines set to take effect on October 1.

The guidelines are titled: "Attorney General Guidelines for Domestic FBI Operations." Their joint statement statement asserted "these guidelines will protect privacy rights and civil liberties, will provide for meaningful oversight and compliance, and will be largely unclassified. Consequently, the public will have ready access in a single document to the basic body of operating rules for FBI activities in the United States. The guidelines will take the place of five existing sets of guidelines that separately address ...criminal investigations , national security investigations, and foreign intelligence collection."

Their statement said "the dialog between the Department of Justice and these...groups has been, in our view, both unprecedented and very constructive."

The groups they're referring to included the ACLU who released an email on Sept. 29, which asserted that "Bush and Mukasey are at it again. They've announced dangerous new FBI guidelines that will severely jeopardize the personal privacy of innocent Americans. These regulations need no Congressional approval and are terrifying."

This statement seems to contradict the statement offered in testimony at the hearing I mentioned above. ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero also asserts in a mass email titled "We're all suspects" that the new guidelines "would allow the FBI to interview you, your friends and your family under a false pretext."

He continues the FBI "could also search commercial databases for personal details about your life with no real reason." He further states that " this would be allowed without an ounce of evidence that you or anyone else has done anything wrong."

I have been the subject of an FBI investigation, which has violated many of the guidelines which haven't yet taken effect. In an effort to stop the guidelines from taking effect, the ACLU is gathering signatures on a petition to the Department of Justice Inspector General.

More information: http://intelligence.senate.gov/080923/cook-caproni.pdf