FBI: Coming to Mosque Near You!

[Jimbo]

New Justice Department guidelines to be unveiled today will give FBI agents latitude to monitor Internet sites, libraries and religious institutions without first having to offer evidence of potential criminal activity, officials said yesterday.

The new rules will allow agents to surf the Internet for Web sites that might give hints to terrorist activity, according to the description. The new guidelines will allow investigators to seek out and "identify sites and forums in which bomb-making instructions, preparations for cyberterrorism, child pornography, and stolen credit card information are openly traded and disseminated." Under the existing policy, agents could pursue online searches only when they could characterize them as checking leads or otherwise furthering an ongoing investigation. "Pure surfing or searching for the purpose of initially developing leads was not allowed, even in relation to publicly available information that anyone else is free to access and observe," according to the new policy statement. Agents will also be permitted to do topical research not directly related to a specific crime under the new guidelines, such as research on a biological agent.

LINK

 

[Kadarin]

So the new rules will allow the FBI to surf the web sniffing around for stuff. This is nothing that the general public doesn't already have access to, so I have no problem with it.

I hope we catch more bad guys...

 

[Jimbo]

I didn't realize that the old rules were that dumb.
The ACLU is already wringing their hands over it.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Originally posted by: Astaroth33
So the new rules will allow the FBI to surf the web sniffing around for stuff. This is nothing that the general public doesn't already have access to, so I have no problem with it.

I hope we catch more bad guys...

Not like they weren't already busy sniffing around the web looking for pr0n like the rest of us.