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FBI To Get New Guidelines to Improve Information Sharing
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft is expected to issue new FBI guidelines today that would allow the bureau to share more of the information gathered in national security investigations with state and local law enforcement agencies, according to the Washington Post (see GSN, Sept. 17). The new guidelines contain provisions permitting the FBI to share certain information with state and local officials when it is “for the purpose of preventing or responding to a threat to national security or public safety,” the Post reported. FBI agents involved in national security investigations would also be able to conduct “proactive collection” of publicly available information on groups or individuals of interest. Agents were previously barred from collecting such information without specific cause to begin an investigation, according to the Post. The new guidelines “move the investigative capabilities into the 21st century but keep the safeguards,” said FBI Deputy General Counsel M.E. “Spike” Bowman. Bowman also said that he expects civil libertarians to be concerned with the new guidelines. “Anytime the FBI finds it easier to investigate, they are going to get exercised,” he said (Susan Schmidt, Washington Post, Nov. 5). Meanwhile, the FBI has been slow to implement its new Trilogy counterterrorism computer system because a contractor has missed a deadline to deliver software and equipment, the General Services Administration said yesterday. Computer Sciences Corp.’s failure to meet a deadline to deliver upgraded capabilities will delay the bureau’s efforts to make the Trilogy program fully operational, the GSA said. The program is designed to allow FBI agents to receive case files at their desks and to link the FBI with various law enforcement databases, according to the Washington Times (Jerry Seper, Washington Times, Nov. 5).
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