Source:
ABC News Blotter As part of its growing intelligence operations within the United States, the FBI has increased its surreptitious entry and search missions since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, according to an unclassified bureau document.
"The refocusing of FBI operational priorities and the new emphasis placed on intelligence-based activities. . . has resulted in a dramatic increase" in the demand for so-called 'black bag" jobs, in which teams of highly-trained specialists covertly enter a home or office, search its contents and leave without indicating they had been there, states the budget document. It does not detail how many of the secret searches it carries out, and the FBI did not respond to comment.
The bureau is asking Congress for an additional $5 million to pay for the operations, and over a dozen new specialized personnel.
In 1995, most of the FBI's secret search operations were related to criminal investigations, according to the document. Last year, close to 90 percent of such operations are for national security matters, it asserts.
"It's obviously troubling that people's homes are being searched and they may never learn of it – if they're never charged with a crime," said Lisa Graves of the Center for National Security Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank which studies intelligence policy and constitutional issues. Graves told the Blotter on ABCNews.com she does not believe the searches receive sufficient judicial oversight.
Read more:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/06/as_part_of_its_.html