We've learned a lot, lately, about spying by the FBI -- none of it particularly good.
First there were revelations last month that field office feds hadn't quite mastered what is and isn't kosher when it comes to National Security Letters -- and had improperly obtained phone, Internet and financial records on over a thousand occasions. Then there was the report last week that the bureau's launching a new program, the System To Assess Risk, or STAR, which will cull all kinds of public and private records and operate like a credit bureau for bad guys, tabulating a score that indicates the likelihood that an individual represents a terrorist threat.
Then yesterday *Wired News' *Kevin Poulsen had a huge scoop about the spyware the FBI now uses to track suspects even in routine criminal
(i.e. non terrorist) investigations. All the signs point to more domestic spying in the future, not less.
So it seemed like appropriate timing when the Justice Department announced on Friday that it's totally overhauling oversight of FBI investigations. The AG's office is billing this as a "lawyer's scrub" for G-Men. But when you read the fine print, the scrub is less deep cleanse than Washington whitewash. I've got a piece arguing this could mean less oversight, not more, over on Slate. Check it out.
