Project for Privacy and Surveillance Accountability (PPSA)
  • Issues
  • Solutions
  • SCORECARD
    • Congressional Scorecard Rubric
  • News
  • About
  • TAKE ACTION
    • PRESS Act
    • Over 3 Million Searches
  • Issues
  • Solutions
  • SCORECARD
    • Congressional Scorecard Rubric
  • News
  • About
  • TAKE ACTION
    • PRESS Act
    • Over 3 Million Searches

 NEWS & UPDATES

Is It Time to Tear Up the FBI and Start Over?

8/14/2023

 
Picture
​The Heritage Foundation recently published a sweeping take on FBI reform by Distinguished Fellow Steven Bradbury that amounts to ripping up the current structure of the Bureau and starting over. There is much to appreciate in this iconoclastic report, with far-reaching changes that warrant careful review on Capitol Hill.
 
Here are some of Bradbury’s more intriguing proposals to “reimagine the FBI from the ground up”:

  • Both a “complete makeover” of the existing agency or the establishment of an entirely new agency that would absorb the FBI’s intelligence functions are presented. With the latter, reformers could separate the FBI’s intelligence function from law enforcement, creating a new agency, perhaps akin to Britain’s MI6. This makes sense given that in FISA’s Section 702, for example, we see foreign intelligence and national security used as justifications for domestic snooping. Separation would focus the FBI on its principal purview of domestic crimes, although care would have to be taken not to erect silos that could lead to another 9/11.
 
  • The report calls on Congress to limit the tools of investigation used by the Bureau and prohibit efforts to suppress free speech, religious liberty, and other constitutional rights. Under the plan, Congress could restrict the FBI’s authority to conduct assessments of Americans without any evident connection to a possible crime. Congress could restrict the FBI’s ability to stimulate or induce Americans into engaging in criminal activity, a sensible reform given the FBI’s history of entrapment and sometimes becoming itself entrapped.
 
  • Bradbury suggests Congress should rebalance the FBI’s operational staff away from its D.C. headquarters and towards the field offices. Such moves would both structure the FBI so as to force the agency to focus on domestic law enforcement, as well as help remove it from the Beltway’s political ecosystem. The latter reform may go some way towards depoliticizing the agency and help restore Americans’ trust that the agency stands apart from “the swamp.”
 
  • One suggestion should make privacy advocates everywhere cheer – it calls on the Attorney General to isolate and purge all information improperly collected on Americans by the FBI or other components of the Department of Justice. While this reform would go a long way towards preventing further violations of Americans’ privacy rights, it would first rely on another of the Heritage report’s more questionable suggestions – that the FBI should be placed within the DOJ’s chain of command for more effective management and control. On one hand, the FBI is in sore need of oversight and accountability. On the other hand, bringing the FBI into the DOJ’s chain of command could risk further politicization.
 
In addition to these structural changes, the report proposes a minimum set of actions required to end the FBI’s abuses of its authority. Worthy and sensible recommendations include reforms to insulate the FBI from the Section 702 program, to require the FISA Court to appoint an amicus in all politically sensitive cases involving U.S. persons, and to improve oversight of politically sensitive FBI investigations.
 
PPSA commends Heritage for thinking outside of the Beltway box; however, countering FBI abuses is just one Washington element in need of reform. We are hopeful Congress will also focus on reforming Section 702, end warrantless data purchases, and address other abuses of Americans’ civil liberties.

Comments are closed.

    Categories

    All
    2022 Year In Review
    Analysis
    Call To Action
    Congress
    Congressional Hearings
    Congressional Unmasking
    Court Hearings
    Court Rulings
    Digital Privacy
    Domestic Surveillance
    Facial Recognition
    FISA
    FISA Reform
    FOIA Requests
    Fourth Amendment
    Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act
    Government Surveillance
    Insights
    In The Media
    Lawsuits
    Legal
    Legislation
    Letters To Congress
    NDO Fairness Act
    News
    Opinion
    Podcast
    PPSA Amicus Briefs
    Private Data Brokers
    SCOTUS
    SCOTUS Rulings
    Section 702
    Spyware
    Stingrays
    Surveillance Issues
    Surveillance Technology

    RSS Feed

© COPYRIGHT 2023. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. | PRIVACY STATEMENT
Photo used under Creative Commons from coffee-rank