US Attorney General John Ashcroft is looking into relaxing restrictions on the FBI's ability to spy on religious and political groups in the United States, the New York Times reported on Saturday, citing senior government officials.
The current limits on the Federal Bureau of Investigation were imposed in the 1970s, following information that agents Ran A Surveillance network to monitor domestic protesters against the US war in Vietnam, rights activist Martin Luther King, the White Supremacist Ku Klux Klan and the Black Militant Black Panther group.
The programme, called Cointelpro, was originally set up by legendary FBI director J Edgar Hoover -- and the limits imposed only after is death in 1972. Ashcroft and FBI director Robert Mueller favour the controversial changes, while senior veteran FBI agents are opposed, officials told The Times.
The FBI and other law enforcement agencies have detained over 1,000 people in the aftermath of the attacks that toppled The World Trade Center in New York and left part of The Pentagon outside Washington in ruins, according to justice officials.
Under current rules the FBI can send undercover agents to investigate groups that meet at religious sites -- including mosques and churches -- only with strict limitations. US investigators say that following September 11 Islamic militants have sometimes met at mosques.