Critics: New FBI rules allow data snooping

WASHINGTON, May 30 (UPI) -- Newly revised guidelines for FBI investigations would unleash the agency to use sophisticated data searching techniques to "mine" commercially collected data for signs of suspicious activity, whether or not anyone tagged by the search was suspected of wrongdoing, privacy experts told United Press International Thursday.

Such data mining could throw suspicion on people for such legal activities as making many international phone calls or only driving rented vehicles, privacy advocates asserted.

A fact sheet provided UPI by the Department of Justice states that, before the new guidelines, the FBI had no clear authority to use commercial data mining services available to commercial businesses unless it was related to a particular investigation.

The new guidelines "authorize the FBI to use commercial data mining services to detect and prevent terrorist attacks, independent of particular criminal investigations."

However, DoJ was already using such services with few limits said James Dempsey, deputy director at the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington.

"It has always been the case that if they have the slightest suspicion of criminal conduct -- in fact if they have some indication that something is wrong somewhere -- they can open a preliminary inquiry," Dempsey told UPI. They could do whatever they wanted during the 90-day preliminary investigation phase, he said, including checking all the private databases.

The Department of Justice is one of the largest customers of private data firms, Dempsey said. According to an April 2001 article in the Wall Street Journal, the Justice department had an $8 million contract with ChoicePoint in 1996. ChoicePoint compiles and makes available home and mailing addresses, bankruptcy information as well as a wide range of other data drawn from credit reports and public sources, the newspaper reported, noting the FBI even had a custom-designed Web site to access the information.

The difference now is when the data can be accessed, privacy advocates said. They charged that agents will be allowed to do open-ended searches looking for patterns of behavior among the general population, not looking for information on a particular person.

"The question (now) is, if they have no indication of any criminal conduct, can they go in and try to find people who have changed their apartment three times in the last year and who don't own a car or only use rented cars? That may be an indication that someone is trying to evade surveillance -- 'so let's go check that person out,'" Dempsey said.

"The agency can go on a 'fishing expedition' with the new rules," agreed Chris Hoofnagle, legislative counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, also in Washington. "It changes the entire system in America, where we are presumed innocent until we are guilty. It will allow the FBI and law enforcement generally to snoop into our private affairs when we haven't even been suspected of any wrongdoing."

A Justice department spokesman, who returned a call asking about the guidelines and privacy concerns, was unable to clarify how the new rules would change the department's data practices.

The expanded investigation techniques also could be used to put pressure on people, whether or not they have done anything wrong, Hoofnagle asserted. "Historically, the FBI has intimidated individuals with unpopular viewpoints. The change in guidelines will empower them to do more of that."

The guidelines also would not help find terrorists, said Dempsey's organization in a statement. Instead, CDT charged, the changes would add to information overload and "are likely to make the FBI less efficient in preventing terrorism by diverting resources down rat-holes of fruitless investigations."

Dempsey added, "It's a stupid way to conduct investigations and likely to result in innocent people being improperly targeted."