Panel votes to increase FBI oversight

The FBI, which has come under clouds of controversy, would undergo new scrutiny under legislation approved Wednesday by the House Judiciary Committee.

The committee voted to create in the Justice Department the position of Deputy Inspector General to examine activities of the FBI. The proposed review of the FBI was part of an amendment to the first Justice Department authorization bill (H.R. 2215) in some 22 years.

The bill, approved by voice vote, would authorize about $20 billion for Justice Department activities. The Department has been getting regular appropriations annually but the Judiciary Committee decided it wanted an active role in supervising the department, rather than letting appropriations committees alone decide money policies.

The last regular authorization bill for the Justice Department was enacted in 1979.

The FBI has come under fire in recent years, culminating recently in exposure of its failure to turn over all documents to lawyers for Oklahoma City terrorist bomber Timothy McVeigh, a controversy that resulted in temporarily postponing his execution.

The Judiciary Committee action is part of several moves in Congress to step up review and oversight of the FBI.

The plan to scrutinize FBI activities through a new Justice Department watchdog was sponsored by Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisc., and adopted by voice vote. His amendment also would require Attorney General John Ashcroft to review a previously undisclosed order by former Attorney General Janet Reno in 1994. That order, a committee staffer said, limited the Justice Department Inspector General's oversight of the FBI.

In other voting, the committee approved an amendment by Rep. Robert Barr, R-Ga., for a report on the so-called FBI "Carnivore" surveillance of the Internet in its hunt for criminals.