FBI Implements New Surveillance Rules

WASHINGTON -- From Albany, N.Y. to Albuquerque, N.M., FBI field offices are working under new guidelines for terrorism cases that allow criminal and intelligence agents to work together and share information.

The strategy, which has been in the works for about a year, was completed over the summer, and a directive was sent to the agency's field offices in October that "emphasized this is the way we're doing business for the future," a senior law enforcement official said Saturday.

"You can have investigators working side-by-side now, whereas before they couldn't share information and it really frustrated putting the big picture together," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The FBI also will be able to conduct more surveillance under the auspices of a secret intelligence tribunal, the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which comprises judges selected by the chief justice of the Supreme Court. The judges sit on a rotating basis to review applications for electronic surveillance.

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