News that Attorney General John Ashcroft wants to remove restrictions placed on FBI covert operations that curtail domestic surveillance of political and religious groups has resurrected the ghosts of past government misconduct.

It has also verified earlier fears that the massive anti-terror Patriot Act passed in late October, the President�s demand that he be able to try foreign nationals before secret military tribunals, the round-up and confinement of 1,200 unnamed people, the call for law enforcement to help federal authorities with "voluntary interviews" of 5,000 young Arab men, offers of express service green cards for foreign-born informants in exchange for information and warrentless wiretaps of defendants and their lawyers were truly just the beginning.

It was said that those measures should not be too worrisome because they involved those who were not American citizens. The latest Ashcroft proposals would open up domestic spying in ways not seen since the bad old days of Cointelpro, an FBI program that targeted and destroyed Black organizations during the civil rights and Black Power movements.

This was the operation that sent mail to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who is now honored during annual King Holiday celebrations at FBI headquarters, urging him to kill himself.

This was the program that employed informants and plots to keep Black Panther leader Geronimo Pratt in jail for 27 years on false, trumped up murder charges and the type of operation that led to the 1969 killing of Black Panther Fred Hampton in Chicago. He was shot to death when authorities raided a West Side apartment, with his pregnant girlfriend barely surviving the assassination.

It was under Cointelpro that Kwame Toure, then known as Stokely Carmichael, was falsely branded a snitch in an attempt to create a climate for his death. Cointelpro sought to destroy the Nation of Islam.

It was under Cointelpro that differences between Black organizations and leaders were fomented, created and exploited through anonymous-FBI sent letters and telephone calls, information gleaned from wiretaps was leaked to undermine trust, crime was encouraged by government operatives, and personal and moral weaknesses were taken advantage of and lied about.

If that isn�t enough, all of the abuses of this hellish campaign to prevent the rise of a Black messiah have never been made public.

Though Ashcroft defenders say changes are needed to ferret out terrorists plotting dark acts behind the walls of mosques, there should be little doubt that Black America must be especially vocal against such measures.

Not only do you have a sizable Black population that embraces Islam and millions more with an affinity for the religion, Black leaders, lawmakers and organizations have been most hesitant to give President Bush a blank check in his shadowy war against terrorism. It was a Black woman who serves as a congressperson from California who cautioned against giving the President too much power, while all of her colleagues marched in lockstep with him. It has been Black lawyers, political scientists and leaders who have urged caution and respect for civil liberties as America has quickly moved to curb them.

Law enforcement agencies have plenty of tools to use in their search for criminals, which is what terrorists are. Billions of dollars are earmarked for intelligence agencies to help do the job. What is needed is respect for the rule of law, civil liberties and application of existing legal tools to pursue wrongdoing and violations of law, not changes that further open the door to religious, ethnic and political profiling.