Ashcroft Rethinks Domestic Spying

The Justice Department, as part of an overall review of its counter-terrorism measures, is considering relaxing long-standing guidelines that had prohibited the FBI from spying on religious and political groups in the United States, federal officials said Friday night.

While officials stressed that no final decision has been made, they said U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft is considering easing guidelines that restrict the FBI from placing religious groups under surveillance, including using wiretaps without probable cause.

The proposal, first reported by the New York Times, is only one of many such proposals under Justice Department review, department spokeswoman Susan Dryden said.

“There is an attorney general guideline that we’re reviewing; it’s pretty far down the road,” Dryden said. “We are reviewing all of our guidelines, as part of a comprehensive review that the attorney general ordered on Nov. 8 . . . as part of an effort to reorganize and re-prioritize the department. In any review that we’re conducting, our first and foremost obligation is to protect constitutional freedoms.”

The restriction on domestic spying was instituted in the 1970s after a widespread FBI surveillance operation was disclosed.

For almost 20 years, the bureau’s Counter-Intelligence Program targeted civil rights activists, black nationalists and opponents of the Vietnam War. The FBI used illegal wiretaps, blackmail, extortion, anonymous letters, forgery and incitement to violence against groups it considered subversive or potentially subversive.

The program was at its peak in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Benjamin Spock.

A number of well-known people were targeted, including Muhammad Ali and antiwar activists such as Jane Fonda and Dr. Benjamin Spock.

In the wake of congressional investigations, the FBI adopted internal guidelines that prohibited agents from using subversion or the threat of terrorism to justify the monitoring of Americans’ political activities.