Proposed FBI guidelines

The University of Pittsburgh’s Jurist, last week, brought our attention to a letter from Senate Judiciary Committee leaders Patrick Leahy and Arlen Specter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, asking he delay implementation of new FBI guidelines until Congress had a chance to review changes that had been made regarding racial profiling and investigative procedures. That letter was accompanied in proximity with one from four other members of that committee. ( Second letter )

Mukasey had defended the proposed guidelines before the Senate Judiciary Committee the first part of last month, but agreed.

In that letter the Department of Justice says it “welcomes the opportunity to explain in detail to the American people and members of this committee the importance of our efforts to revise & harmonize the Attorney General guidelines,” but also says, since 9-1, the FBI has “evolved from its traditional law enforcement role with some intelligence community activities into a flexible and efficient member of the intelligence community capable of fulfilling its mandate to be an intelligence driven agency…. The effort to bring together different sets of Attorney General guidelines, including those that govern criminal investigations, national security investigations, and the collection of foreign intelligence, is critical for the Department of Justice… all interests would be best served by the FBI having one consolidated & harmonized set of guidelines providing clear and consistent guidance to agents.”

The proposed rules & guidelines have received a lot of local media attention over the past two months with articles in the Washington Post, New York Times, and Los Angeles Times.

FBI Director Robert Muller is scheduled to testify at an oversight hearing on September 17th.