INTELLIGENCE GATHERING AND ANALYSIS: IMPACTS ON TERRORISM (police)

 

 

In the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the United States expanded law enforcement and policing powers to fight against international terrorism. The main areas of expansion were in the pursuit of domestic terrorists, drug traffickers, and organized crime. The expanded powers made it easier for police and intelligence agencies to share information that could be used for the possible prosecution of suspected terrorists. Changed policies and laws promoted efforts to collect personal information, religious and political affiliations, and records of finances and travel. Revisions of investigative rules expanded surveillance of oral and electronic communications and legalized a wide variety of undercover operations against suspected terrorist targets. The most controversial innovations allowed law enforcement agencies to arrest suspected terrorists and detain them indefinitely without providing access to counsel or opportunities to seek judicial review. New criminal laws relaxed the definition of terrorism sufficiently enough to potentially reclassify drug trafficking and organized crime as threats to national security. Expansions of criminal involvement also made it possible to pursue fringe members of terrorist organizations without requiring individualized information about whether and how particular defendants promoted the aims of the organization with which they associated.

These expansions of law enforcement powers were not simply a reaction to the 9/11 attacks. They were built on initiatives under way well before 9/11 that targeted organized crime. Starting in the late 1980s and accelerating through the 1990s, many European nations established laws that, for the first time, tried to better control law enforcement powers. These controversial powers included covert policing methods, such as wiretaps, electronic bugs, and the strategic deployment of informants and undercover agents. Like the post-9/11 initiatives against terrorism, these developments arose from a perception that the targeted problem of organized crime transcended national borders, threatened the survival of the democratic state, and resisted more conventional modes ofpolice inquiry. And like the post-9/11 antiterrorism campaigns, Europe’s revamping of its covert policing apparatus was designed to facilitate international cooperation, particularly with U.S. law enforcement agencies.

The Bush administration, in reaction to the large-scale 9/11 terrorist attacks, made national security one of the priorities of the government. Securing the United States from additional terrorist attacks had become part of the administration’s policy of combating terrorism. The administration’s first response was to establish the USA PATRIOT Act, which was modeled after the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (1978). The USA PATRIOT Act stands for ”Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.” Congress enacted it virtually without significant debate, without detailed committee reports, without a conference committee, and with little floor commentary. Submitted just days after the 9/11 attacks, it was rushed through Congress at lightning speed for a statute of its size and complexity. It passed the House on October 24, 2001, by a vote of 357 to 66, and passed the Senate the next day, October 25,2002, by a vote of 98 to 1. It was signed into law by President Bush the following day, October 26.

The PATRIOT Act contains more than 150 sections. It is divided into ten separate titles and is hundreds of pages long. The powers it grants to federal investigative agencies and law enforcement agencies are unprecedented and reach everything from voice mail to consumer reports to banking records. The act is among the most wide-ranging laws passed in recent memory, bringing new federal offices into being, creating new crimes, amending at least twelve federal statutes, mandating dozens of new reports, and directly appropriating $2.6 billion, with more funding to come from approval of various ”authorizations” of unnamed amounts, scattered throughout the statute.

In the Justice Department, the attorney general issued information-sharing protocols authorized by the PATRIOT Act. These protocols make it clear that the Justice Department will use to the fullest extent the authorities granted to it by the act. Among this information sharing is communication by Justice Department personnel to intelligence personnel within thirty days on whether a criminal investigation will be launched based on a given crime report, if the crime report indicates that foreign intelligence may be involved. Federal investigative task forces have been created under the Justice Department, including identification by the U.S. attorney for each judicial district of members of a terrorist task force, which can be quickly assembled from local federal agency personnel when the need arises. Also, there are several ongoing cross-agency task forces to investigate terrorism or terrorist financing.

The PATRIOT Act has given not only new authorities but also a new hubris to federal investigative agencies. Its emphases on information collection, information sharing, expanded definitions, new regulations, cross-agency cooperation, wider authorities, enhanced surveillance techniques, swifter prosecutions, and more severe sentences have brought law enforcement and terrorism investigation in America to new levels.

The entire PATRIOT Act is designed for increased surveillance, information gathering, and investigation of terrorism with a minimum of judicial review. Under the PATRIOT Act, mostly under Title II, investigators can obtain information ranging from consumer reports, certain telephone data, certain details from Internet service providers, educational records, and banking transactions, all without a court order. All that is required is a certification by a federal investigator that the information is necessary or required for a particular investigation, which does not even reach the standard of probable cause that is required with ordinary search

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