Anti-terrorism warrants are up 31% since Sept. 11, '01
Ted Bridis
Associated Press
May. 2, 2003 12:00 AM

WASHINGTON - The government requested and won approval for the highest-ever number of special warrants last year for secret wiretaps and searches of suspected terrorists and spies, an increase of 31 percent over 2001, the Bush administration disclosed Thursday.

Attorney General John Ashcroft revealed the figure in a mandatory, two-paragraph report to U.S. court officials. Last year's total of 1,228 approved warrants was far higher than the 934 approved in 2001, offering a sign of the aggressive efforts to prevent terror attacks in the United States.

Last year's figure was the first to reflect an entire 12-month period under the Patriot Act, the law passed immediately after the Sept. 11 terror attacks that allows the FBI to use such warrants in investigations that aren't mostly focused on foreign intelligence.

Operating with permission from a secretive U.S. court that meets regularly at Justice headquarters, the FBI has used such warrants to break into homes, offices, hotel rooms and automobiles, install hidden cameras, search luggage and eavesdrop on telephone conversations. Agents also have pried into safe deposit boxes, watched from afar with video cameras and binoculars and intercepted e-mail.

Key senators agreed this week on changes that would broaden the use of surveillance warrants.

Under the agreement, described by congressional officials speaking on condition of anonymity, Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., will try to amend the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to allow for such warrants against non-citizens even when a target can't be tied directly to a foreign power.

The bill also will include a requirement sought by Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., for the Justice Department to report to lawmakers how often that provision is employed. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, would abandon efforts to make permanent many of the expanded police powers in the Patriot Act, these officials said. Some of the powers will lapse automatically at the end of 2005 unless Congress renews them.

Experts said the increase in this special category of warrants offsets a significant drop in traditional wiretaps in criminal cases.

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