An Intelligence Giant in the Making

Overshadowed by the public focus on new Internet surveillance and “roving wiretaps” were numerous obscure features in the bill that will enable the Bush administration to make fundamental changes at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency and several Treasury Department law enforcement agencies.

Known as the U.S.A. Patriot Act, the law empowers the government to shift the primary mission of the FBI from solving crimes to gathering domestic intelligence. In addition, the Treasury Department has been charged with building a financial intelligence-gathering system whose data can be accessed by the CIA.

Most significantly, the CIA will have the authority for the first time to influence FBI surveillance operations inside the United States and to obtain evidence gathered by federal grand juries and criminal wiretaps. Washington Post