While I like the renewed focus at the FBI on terrorism, I find their newest investigative power a bit alarming. Under new guidelines, agents don't have to be investigating an actual crime to perform surveillance operations. This means they can now monitor religious groups, Internet chat areas and websites. Previously these areas could only be monitored if agents were following a lead, developing a specific case, or had received a "tip".
When combined with the powers granted under the USA Patriot ACT, the FBI can now function as true secret police in way that hasn't been possible since the bad old days of J. Edgar Hoover. We are open to investigations like the one carried out by the FBI on Martin Luther King, Jr. during the civil rights era. Joy. It's is now legal for the Feds to monitor all of the dissident sites on the 'Net, which opens a lot of people up for harassment, especially those who have dedicated sites to calling for the impeachment of the President, questioning his legitamcy in office, or organizing peace protests.
I guess the doors have opened for the American version of the Gestapo, the Stasi, or the KGB.
So much for the land of the "free".
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30427-2002May29.html