Fbi Needs Leeway And Restraint
The United States faces a dilemma as federal law enforcement investigates a possible domestic terrorist attack against an Amtrak train.
We need a strong FBI to infiltrate extremist groups. But the FBI has proven trigger-happy at Waco and Ruby Ridge and untrustworthy as top agents tried to cover up blunders after the Weaver shootout.
Also, the agency has a history of espionage abuse that caused Congress in the 1970s, prompted by civil libertarians, to demand that its intelligence division be reined in. Under the guise of fighting communism, the FBI harassed and spied on such disparate groups as the Ku Klux Klan and Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
FBI surveillance made liberals nervous then; a congressional try to expand the agency’s spy powers makes liberals and conservatives anxious now.
Still, something clearly needs to be done to give federal agencies the ability to fight domestic terrorism. We’re vulnerable to the cowardly attacks that killed and maimed at the World Trade Center in 1993, the Oklahoma City federal building this spring, and possibly along an Amtrak line in Arizona last week.
An anti-terrorism bill stalled in the U.S. House of Representatives offers a start - though it should be handled with care. It currently contains dangerous elements that would give an unscrupulous president power to stifle political enemies.
Passed by the Senate in early June, the bill would give federal officials more money and legal clout to investigate and prosecute terrorist crimes, make it easier to deport aliens linked to terrorism, ban fund-raising in the United States by terrorist groups, and allow the military to help by responding to incidents involving biological and chemical weapons.
The FBI has been hamstrung since March 1976 when Attorney General Edward Levi, reacting to congressional pressure, banned investigations unless an individual or group was believed to be involved in criminal activity. The action forced federal law enforcement into a reactionary mode. Levi’s move caused one jurist to comment: “It means every terrorist gets one free blast.”
At the time, the FBI had 4,868 internal security investigations going. Within six years, the number had dwindled to 38.
According to an article by Eugene H. Methvin in July’s National Review, the FBI was warned by a former Michigan Militia leader that Timothy McVeigh and the Nichols brothers might be planning to bomb a building. FBI officials ignored the warning because “there was nothing they felt they could do.”
As a result, 169 died.
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