THE CASE FOR GREATER VIGILANCE

THE CENTRAL QUESTION RAISED BY THE OKLAHOMA CITY bombing is whether a free society can prevent terrorist acts. A good deal of loose talk will be heard about the subject in the next few weeks--some of it urging the FBI to "do whatever is necessary," and some of it cautioning the government to "protect the Constitution." We have been through this before, and we ought to remember what we learned in order that we not, again, lose our bearings.

Terrorist groups, like any other criminal conspiracies, are best attacked by infiltration. This means either planting an undercover agent in their midst or recruiting one of their members as an informant. This is the job of the FBI.

If we are being terrorized by a foreign conspiracy, the bureau has rather wide discretion; if the conspiracy is a homemade one, it has a bit less. Until 1976 the bureau had a free hand in these matters. Today, however, it operates under two sets of written guidelines, one secret and one public, but both approved by the Attorney General. The secret guidelines specify the circumstances under which the FBI is allowed to penetrate groups thought to be agents of a foreign power. The public rules, which govern intelligence gathering aimed at domestic groups, are more restrictive. Yet the FBI can actively gather intelligence even on a group with political or religious sponsorship provided the bureau has credible reasons to believe the group may engage in violence. The threat of violence need not be imminent; it need only be plausible.

These guidelines were put in place in the aftermath of the COINTELPRO scandal of the early 1970s, when it was revealed that the bureau was not only infiltrating but disrupting and harassing extremist organizations. First issued in 1976 by Attorney General Edward Levi and later modified by Attorney General William French Smith, the rules give the bureau authority to investigate by means that include, if necessary, "recruitment or placement of informants in groups, 'mail covers,' or electronic surveillance," provided the "facts and circumstances reasonably indicate" that a group "is engaged in an enterprise for furthering political or social goals wholly or in part through activities that involve force or violence."

There is disagreement as to whether these rules are too restrictive. In my view there is no major problem with the guidelines, but there may be one with their interpretation. FBI agents have learned to be politically risk averse. Every senior official remembers the 1976 Church Committee criticism of the FBI for burglarizing the offices of "domestic subversive targets" and bugging the rooms of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Some critics even suggested that the bureau end its intelligence gathering.