New FBI Manual Gives Agents More Leeway for Database and Trash Searches

The FBI is set to release its new domestic investigations manual with revisions that give agents greater powers, including greater leeway to search databases.

Former FBI agent Michael German, now a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, told the New York Times he feared the revisions raise the potential for abuse.

The Times outlines the changes. The expansion in database searches relates to the lowest category of investigations, called “assessments,” in which agents look into people and organizations without firm evidence of criminal or terrorist activity.

Currently, FBI agents have to open an assessment before they can do a database search. Under the new rules, agents don’t need to open a formal inquiry to check law enforcement or commercial databases, and they don’t need to make a record of their decision. The information uncovered would not be added to FBI files unless a formal assessment is opened.

The changes also give FBI agents conducting assessments the power to repeatedly use surveillance squads and to search the household trash of potential informants.