CIA and FBI Seek Greater Leeway in Fighting Terrorism : Justice: Agencies back bill making it easier to deport suspects. Civil libertarians fear new police powers.

International terrorists are shifting from hostage-taking and hijacking to “indiscriminate slaughter of innocent men, women and children,” Adm. William O. Studeman, acting director of the CIA, said Thursday in urging Congress to grant U.S. authorities new powers to fight terrorism.

Although the number of international terrorist acts has declined over the last 10 years, the shift in the type of terrorism is producing more civilian casualties, greater property damage and “increasingly devastating effects on economies,” Studeman said in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee.

The greatest threat to U.S. interests are extremist groups claiming to act on behalf of a religion--especially Islam, he said.

Studeman urged enactment of the Clinton Administration’s Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995, which has drawn increasing opposition from civil liberties groups. Joining him was FBI Director Louis J. Freeh, who cited the case of an individual he identified only as “Y.”

“Y” entered the United States with his wife in 1989 on exchange visitor and spouse visas, and he has been attending classes at a major university, Freeh said. Throughout his stay here, “Y” has been active in an internationally known terrorist organization, playing a major role in financing, communications and administration, according to an FBI investigation.

“Y” has not violated any visa requirements and thus cannot be deported under normal procedures. The FBI cannot disclose any classified information about the man to support deporting him because it would cause “irreparable harm to the national security,” Freeh said.

Under the counterterrorism act, “Y” and other non-citizens would be provided with only a summary of the classified evidence against them; a special panel of federal district court judges would handle their deportation proceedings. In rare cases when even disclosing the summary could lead to the death or serious injury of a person, the judge could consider the evidence without showing the targeted individual the summary.

Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, denounced this provision and others as outrageous.

“Are we going to allow the government to deport aliens convicted of no crime, based on secret information?” Conyers shouted as he delivered his opening statement. “This is still the United States of America.”

But the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), said the proposal “strikes a careful, rational balance between preserving our fundamental rights and protecting ourselves from the violent intentions of international terrorists.”

The counterterrorism measure would also create two federal offenses: international terrorism within the United States and conspiring within the United States to commit terrorism against people overseas.

It would also ban raising or transmitting funds to organizations that the President designates as terrorist and whose activities threaten the U.S. national security, foreign policy or economy.

Gregory T. Nojeim, legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union’s national office, told the committee that the bill “does substantial damage to the U.S. Constitution.” He contended that tinkering with it “by deleting a word here and adding a section there will not cure the bill of its constitutional infirmities.”

But Deputy Atty. Gen. Jamie S. Gorelick said the bill “is not a hysterical response to a non-problem. It is a real problem.”

The hearing was conducted under heavy security. Spectators had to walk through what seemed to be especially sensitive metal detectors after first passing through magnetometers, which are installed at all public entrances to the Rayburn House Office Building.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.) gave no explanation for the stepped-up security, even when Conyers protested that it was “a calculated, phony activity.”

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) joked that enough copies of the 108-page act had not been brought into the hearing because of the metal detectors’ reaction to staples.