NCJ Number
94098
Date Published
1984
Length
40 pages
Annotation
This report outlines concerns about domestic security guidelines and provides recommendations for revision of current guidelines.
Abstract
Virtually all hearing witnesses emphasized that domestic security guidelines are necessary and desirable. Guidelines serve to establish regular procedures by which the FBI can allocate resources to domestic security investigations. They also provide standards by which the value of carrying out an investigation can be estimated. They further provide a form of authorization for certain types of investigations and investigative techniques. Witnesses also emphasized the need for reform of the Attorney General's Guidelines for Domestic Security Investigations (Levi Guidelines). The most common criticism of the Levi guidelines was that the criminal standard is an inappropriate intrusion of a law enforcement concept into an intelligence activity. Domestic intelligence is a valuable and necessary part of law enforcement which can assist in the anticipation and prevention of violence or the violation of the law as well as in the investigation of past violations. Under the criminal standard of the Levi guidelines, it has been virtually impossible to investigate subversion that is restricted to legal and nonviolent activities. The subcommittee recommended that the Levi guidelines be extensively revised to include the deletion of the criminal standard, specific authorization on subversive activities, extension of time limits, relaxation of recruitment restrictions, and easing of restrictions on initiation of investigations. Sixty-two footnotes are included.