One of the more disturbing developments in recent law enforcement history is the FBI's decision to set up a division devoted solely to investigating domestic terrorism.

The bureau announced last week that it would separate the functions of counterintelligence and anti-terrorism, placing each under an assistant director who would report first to the FBI's deputy director and then to the director, Louis Freeh. The news caused only little ripples in the public pond but sent real shock waves through other law enforcement agencies -- local, state and federal.Missing from the announcement was any meaningful definition of what constitutes "domestic terrorism," and efforts by other federal agencies to elicit one has produced only the vague "I'll know it when I see it" reply once used to define pornography.

Without a clear-cut definition, the bureau has carte blanche to enter any case, no matter how small. The fact is, hundreds of agents assigned specifically to deal with the problem are doing just that, stepping all over crime scenes that once belonged to a variety of other agencies. The result is increased friction between the FBI and other agencies who see the bureau as more and more becoming a domestic police force with all-encompassing power. Also, this new emphasis by the bureau has set up a scenario not unlike the earliest days of the Cold War, when FBI agents poked their noses into the activities of any organization someone deemed subversive, no matter how innocuous it actually was.

The FBI recently issued a scary public warning to local law officers throughout the nation that the dawn of the new millennium could produce serious acts of terrorism from a variety of potential sources, including religious sects, militias and those individuals who prophesy the end of the world in 2000.

The move to establish terrorism as a major threat and to meet it with increased funding and personnel has its roots in the end of the Cold War, when most of the country's intelligence units began downsizing through consolidation and shifting focus to such matters as industrial espionage. The bureau was faced with reassigning hundreds of agents who once spent their careers keeping tabs on low-level foreign diplomats and conducting other counterintelligence operations.

View Comments

To prevent a loss of manpower and, in fact, to find a way to increase the agent corps, the bureau sold Congress on the need to guard against domestic terrorism. Their efforts were enhanced by the bombings in Oklahoma City, at the World Trade Center and at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Although these probably could be defined legitimately as acts of domestic terrorism, the FBI has used this excuse to take over the investigations of dozens of crimes that are just that -- crimes -- with no hint of planned larger domestic violence.

At the same time, the bureau has faced strong criticism from Congress and elsewhere for its failure to properly handle the investigation of Chinese spying on the nation's nuclear laboratories. As a means of quieting that criticism, the recent split into two divisions was announced.

The FBI is a great institution but one that has shown itself to be far from infallible. While terrorism of any kind, domestic or foreign, is not to be taken lightly, there should be some parameters to define the problem. Giving any one agency the leeway to justify anything it does under the guise of preventing it is not only dangerous but frightening. Those powers are just too sweeping.

Dan K. Thomasson is former editor of the Scripps Howard News Service.

Join the Conversation
Looking for comments?
Find comments in their new home! Click the buttons at the top or within the article to view them — or use the button below for quick access.