View: The FBI -- Fumbling bunch of idiots

Too bad Nancy Drew can't join the FBI, the one that's supposed to be new and improved and that's going to save us from terrorists.

Although the heroine of the famous detective stories for girls exists only on paper, she inspires more confidence than the professional sleuths on the government payroll.

Here's the way "The Password to Larkspur Lane," published in 1933, describes Nancy, with her impeccable manners and white gloves. "Many a problem which had baffled professional mystery-solvers had been cleared up by her keen mind, coupled with what Nancy herself called 'a sort of sixth sense ...' "

Compare that to the self-serving incompetents at the bureau, now occupied full time with trying to cover their nether anatomy. Although they've never seen two dots they could connect, they are being given expanded powers, among them the freedom to go on "fishing expeditions." No evidence whatsoever will be required to initiate a criminal probe.

From now on, in service of the war on terrorism, the FBI can monitor public events, including political rallies and religious services, and surf the Internet for suspicious communications. In addition, local field offices will be licensed to launch terrorism investigations without waiting for an OK from headquarters.

Starting with Attorney General John Ashcroft, God's very own avenging angel, many people defend the increased power granted the bureau as necessary. Count me among others who see a smoke screen for the FBI's past mistakes, complete with enormous potential for abuse.

If personal experience predicts what's in store, the bureau will take advantage of its new freedoms to harass people for anything that it considers left wing. It's done so before.

The FBI once asked me to help investigate myself, in strictest secrecy of course. No doubt it would have compromised the investigation if I'd told me about it.

Apparently, someone in the bureau thought that I posed a threat to the republic. He must have been relying on a kind of sixth sense, because in the mid-1970s, when these events took place, I hung out almost exclusively with people 2 feet tall.

It's hard to get small children to conspire against the government, believe me. You can't even get them to eat their carrots. But I guess the bureau figured that I was getting a hold on them young.

Back then I was a young housewife and mother living in Mill Valley, a suburb of San Francisco. By way of expressing our opposition to the Vietnam War, my husband and I had joined something called the Telephone Tax Protest.

The idea was to withhold that portion of your telephone bill that was a special assessment to pay for the war, a dollar or two a month in our household. While a challenge to the tax made its way through the courts, protesters wrote a separate check to an escrow account.

That's the kind of radical firebrands we were in the group, salting away money to pay back the government if our lawsuit lost -- with interest. Somehow I don't think we aroused much alarm on the part of the military-industrial complex.

As if the Telephone Tax Protest weren't dangerous enough, I belonged to the ACLU and was on the county Board of Directors. Consisting almost entirely of lawyers, every one of them male, the board had urged me warmly to join them because they needed a secretary.

One summer day, my next-door neighbor, an older woman and a friend, phoned and asked me to meet her at the fence between our houses, where we schmoozed about recipes and stain-removal techniques. She made the request in a whisper.

She'd had a call from a mysterious man, Mary told me when we were face to face. He wanted to know how many people went in and out of our house, what they looked like, what she knew about our finances and whether we were often away on trips.

Mary told the caller that she didn't spy on her neighbors or have any use for those who did. "Kid," she added, "what's going on? He said something about national security."

As Nancy Drew would say, I hadn't a clue until a week later. My own phone rang. "Mrs. Roskie?" asked the man on the other end of the line. Before I could tell him that he had the wrong number, the caller identified himself as an FBI agent.

Once again, he said, he needed to ask some questions about the McFaddens next door. He was sure I'd had time to reconsider since our last conversation and would agree to cooperate.

"Mrs. Roskie" was my neighbor Mary. My husband and I were the McFaddens. Having somehow screwed up his notes and reversed our telephone numbers, Agent Doofus wanted to question me about us.

With regret, I think of the misinformation that I could have fed him if I'd stayed calm. "The McFaddens are lovely people. They start every day by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance out on the lawn.

"And you know, it's the sweetest thing. They've trained their dog to put his paw over his heart."

Instead, when I figured out what was going on, I flew to bits. "Leave us alone," I wailed, "we're not doing anything wrong."

Being the target of an FBI investigation terrified me. Older and tougher-minded though I am now, it would unnerve me again.

Why is the federal government prying into my personal life? I'd worry, while I was dialing my lawyer. What information is it seeking and to what end?

Is there a file somewhere that labels me a subversive and that will come back to haunt me? After all this time, it still makes me angry that the agent who approached my next-door neighbor -- and I'll never know who else -- asked questions that hinted at criminal behavior.

A recent letter to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle declared that people needn't be concerned about infringements on their civil liberties unless they have something to hide. The FBI only investigates people engaged in "nefarious behavior."

Right. Like joining the ACLU or the almost comically naive Telephone Tax Protest, a good suburban liberal's version of "Burn, baby, burn" if ever there was one.

Responding to concerns like mine, Ashcroft was quoted as saying that FBI agents will be told to respect First Amendment rights. This is like putting a steak in front of a dog and telling him, "Leave it!"

Already the European Parliament is proposing similar new guidelines for the police in 15 European Union Countries. Racial profiling has such unlikely defenders as Nicholas D. Kristof of The New York Times and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., both of them long-time supporters of liberal causes.

We've opened the door to snooping on a scale not seen since the bad old days of Cointelpro, and such is the post-Sept. 11 political climate, that it's considered soft-headed and maybe un-American to object. No wonder I prefer the scrupulously fair-minded Nancy Drew -- for whom, until proven otherwise, everyone was above suspicion -- to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III.

"There's something mysterious about them Tookers," a hotel keeper tells Nancy in "Larkspur Lane," while she's on the trail of a villain.

"Lots goes on there nights, with big cars speedin' through the village and stoppin' there at all hours. ... They don't come to church, or don't subscribe to the local paper. Just stand-offish and unfriendly."

Nancy Drew: "Oh, well, that is no fault. I should think you could overlook their other irregularities as long as they pay their bills."

(Cyra McFadden is a San Francisco-based journalist and writes a monthly column for United Press International.)