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FBI Probe Widens as Civil Liberties Concerns Grow
WASHINGTON, Sept 28 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The wide net of the FBI's largest investigation ever is catching a lot of fish that don't belong in the net as authorities continue to push for tightening all the holes, according to a
Washington Post article Friday, while civil liberties groups continue to remind the Bureau of the American values at stake.
Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said that although he is concerned about individual rights, he sees the debate over his proposed Mobilization Against Terrorism Act - which civil liberties groups say endangers immigrant rights and certain citizen liberties - as not one of redefining civil liberties but of rearming in the digital age.
"Every day that passes with outdated statutes and the old rules of engagement... is a day that terrorists have a competitive advantage," Ashcroft testified.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation already is pursuing more than 200,000 leads in what has become the largest probe in U.S. history - uncovering those responsible for the devastating September 11th terror attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon near here which left some 6,000 dead or missing.
Investigators are more concerned, however, with preventing similar attacks, amid fears terrorists had tried to acquire dangerous chemicals and licenses to transport them, FBI director Robert Mueller said.
"Our primary focus is on preventing potential future attacks. We are working hard to identify and locate associates of the hijackers who may pose a threat to this nation," he said.
Investigators have arrested several people on charges of fraudulently obtaining commercial drivers licenses and permits to transport hazardous materials, including five in Michigan, three in Washington state and two in Missouri.
The Post article, however, tells the stories of some of those who have been detained or sought out by the FBI.
A Connecticut resident from Yemen, Ali Maqtari, was picked up by federal investigators and Immigration and Naturalization Service officials after dropping his wife off for basic training at her Army barracks near the Tennessee-North Carolina border, the
Post said.
Maqtari's lawyer said in the article that although agents told him there was no evidence linking Maqtari to the September 11th hijackers, Maqtari was still being held in jail on an immigration violation - a 10-day period of "unlawful presence" when he switched from tourist to marriage visa - which would normally have been dealt with by mail.
The Post article also recalled the case of three Saudis who traveled to Boston on September 12th to visit their ailing father; a clerk at the Westin hotel where they were staying tipped off the FBI because the name on their bill was similar to one of the suspected hijackers, and the FBI raided the hotel - one agent pointed a gun at one of the women and then grabbed her and hit her across the mouth when she tried to run away, the family's lawyer said.
The Saudis were released after five hours, the Post said, quoting the Saudi Embassy as saying the case was a "humiliation."
The Post quoted Mueller as saying that the FBI is targeting people "based on predications that the individual may have information," but it added that so far, of the more than 350 people held in the investigation - mostly Arabs, including both immigrants and American citizens - most are being held on suspicion of immigration violations, traffic offenses and some other misdemeanor charges, and not a single one has been criminally charged.
The FBI's investigation has also raised concerns about Internet and computer privacy with its refocused attention to computer encryption - the practice of scrambling e-mail and other data - which makes it nearly impossible for third parties, including law enforcement, to read intercepted digital communiqués.
Only a recipient with a special "key" can unscramble and read these messages. U.S. law enforcement officials have been trying, without success, to have a "backdoor" inserted into such encryption software that would give them the ability to read intercepted encrypted messages and data.
Civil liberties groups have steadfastly opposed giving the government an unfettered right to crack personal encryption technologies, instead calling for legislation that will require online investigators to seek permission to use the backdoors on a case-by-case basis.
This restriction on a backdoor key for government, privacy advocates say, is even more important in light of such law enforcement technologies as Carnivore, a program that police can use to intercept a large amount of e-mail for later sorting for suspicious messages.
"A unfettered backdoor for law enforcement just invites abuse," said Deborah Pierce, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based online civil rights organization.
"They should have to convince a judge each time they want to intrude on someone's communications."
The pressure that Ashcroft and others are putting on to get his new legislation package through raises concerns among some that they are simply trying to push through laws they have been trying to obtain for years, and are taking advantage of the current national state of emergency to do so.
The American Civil Liberties Union, in a press release Monday, called on lawmakers to take the time to fully understand the impact of the new laws before passing them through, and to take extra caution over measures which may impinge on civil liberties.
Besides concern over search-and-seizure authority and other measures that "go far beyond addressing the terrorist attacks… The ACLU is also greatly concerned about provisions that would allow for the indefinite detention of non-citizens without any judicial review."
"The civil liberties we value so much as a society are at stake," said Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU's Washington National Office, "and we urge you to go slowly."
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