Miller said that the Department of Justice is still in the process of drafting the guidelines. “Any review and change to the guidelines will reflect our traditional concerns for civil liberties, the First Amendment, and our emphasis on using the least intrusive instigative tools possible,” he added.
He urged the civil rights group against jumping to conclusions, especially those based on conjecture by people who have not seen the new guidelines, since a final draft is not complete.
According to the AP report, Attorney General Michael Mukasey acknowledged the overhaul was under way in early June, saying the guidelines sought to ensure regulations for FBI terror investigations don't conflict with ones governing criminal probes. He would not give any details. "It's necessary to put in place regulations that will allow the FBI to transform itself ... into an intelligence gathering organization in addition to just a crime solving organization," Mukasey told reporters.
The Associated Press said although the guidelines do not require congressional approval, House members recently sought to limit such profiling by rejecting an $11 million request for the FBI's security assessment center. Lawmakers wrote it that was unclear how the FBI could compile suspect profiles "in such a way as to avoid needless intrusions into the privacy of innocent citizens" and without wasting time and money chasing down false leads.
The denial of funding could limit the FBI's use of profiles, or "predictive models and patterns of behavior" as the government prefers to describe the data-mining results, but would not change the guidelines authorizing them. The guidelines would remain in effect until a new attorney general decided to change them.
1 | 2
