In the beginning of October, Attorney General Michael Mukasey approved new guidelines for the FBI to investigate.  Normally, we would expect there to be something on the end of the previous sentence, as in “to investigate . . . what?”  But that’s the problem with these new guidelines.  The simple answer is anything they please.

The new guidelines were the subject of a New York Times article that explained them like this:

Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey approved the new guidelines after a review of several months that sought to consolidate different and sometimes conflicting standards within the F.B.I. that govern when agents can use informants, do undercover surveillance, interview witnesses or use other investigative techniques.

The new guidelines, reflecting the evolution of the F.B.I. in the seven years since the Sept. 11 attacks, state that “the F.B.I. is an intelligence agency as well as a law enforcement agency.” They are also one of the final steps by the Bush administration to extend its far-reaching counterterrorism policies into the next administration and beyond.

As I read this article, it meant little.  It didn’t tell me what difference these new guidelines made, what it authorized agents to do, how it would/could be used.  I waited for more, but there wasn’t any more to be had.

Today, the Times has an editorial about these guidelines, which provides more information than the previous article. 

Under the new rules, agents may engage in lengthy physical surveillance, covertly infiltrate lawful groups, or conduct pretext interviews in which agents lie about their identities while questioning a subject’s neighbors, friends or work colleagues based merely on a generalized “threat.” The new rules also allow the bureau to use these techniques on people identified in part by their race or religion and without requiring even minimal evidence of criminal activity.

After a bit, it dawned on me why this had was so insidious; its lack of a smoking gun aspect that causes people to rise to their feet and scream out their outrage.  These new rules convert the FBI into the domestic CIA, a government arm designed to conduct essentially limitless spying on Americans, without cause or reason.  Talk about smooth. 

This rule eviscerates the basic constraints placed on the FBI, that it would never conduct generic spying on its own people.  The American people would never, but never, be the subject of our own government spies, who had free rein to investigate whatever and whoever they felt deserved investigation. 

Up to now, the criteria for initiating an investigation had been the belief that a crime had been committed.  The FBI investigated crimes.  While there were issues about the lengths to which such an investigation should go, the intrusion into the fabric of society in the course of such investigations, it had a minimum threshold for the involvement of our government against us, the commission of a crime.

Under these new rules, which the Times notes come in the waning hours of the Bush administration, our federal law enforcement apparatus has been disconnected from its original purpose and has now been given approval to go forth and spy.  On us.

The government’s reaction to criticism has been the usual, trust us.  We wouldn’t do anything wrong.  We wouldn’t listen to pillow talk between our soldiers and their wives, or overseas calls by reporters.  We won’t become the secret police of the United States. 

Mr. Mukasey has promised that investigations conducted under the new rules will be consistent with the Constitution. Clearly, the Bush administration cannot be trusted to find the right balance between law enforcement and civil liberties. Even before this administration the F.B.I. had its own long history of abusing its powers to spy on civil rights groups and antiwar activists.

The difference this time is that these changes have happened at a time when few of us were watching, when our attention was focused elsewhere.  They slid this one in the side door.  There’s was no hot case to connect it to, or particular bit of outrageous conduct to coalesce opposition.  This happened, and no one noticed, and it is now the officially approved operating methodology of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

It’s unlikely that this will pose an immediate threat, given that FBI resources are stretched too thin trying to appease the lust for Wall Street criminals at the moment.  The saving grace of grandiose government law enforcement schemes is that they still aren’t particularly effective in accomplishing their goals.  This is one instance where law enforcement focus on political issues works to our advantage, since it keeps them away from most Americans while the focus on the handful of billion dollar bonus babies, whose only crime is negotiating deals that were really good for them.  In other times, we would call this “the American way.”

But the new rules are in place, and the next administration will have a decision to make on January 21st, whether to maintain a national internal spying agency or go back to the old way of doing things, where Americans need not fear their own government spying on them.

What do our Presidential candidates say about this?  Who will reverse this stealthily approved set of rules and return us to a nation where our government doesn’t spy on us?  Who will maintain an internal spying agency? 

Despite the lack of urgency about these new guidelines, this may be one of the most significant changes from the Bush administration that will rend the fabric of American society.  And almost no one knows or cares.