Monday, Jan. 5, 2004 | 11:18 a.m.
The FBI used subpoenas to obtain guest lists at Las Vegas hotels prior to the New Year's Eve celebration.
Since the nation went to the high-level terrorism alert on Dec. 21, the FBI has been searching for terrorists by going over lists of those who have used truck and car rental agencies, airlines, hotels, and storage units in the Las Vegas Valley as well as Laughlin and St. George, Utah.
Most of the businesses freely handed over the records, but some would not do so without a subpoena.
"Everyone was very helpful and worked with us on this. No one was belligerent," said Special Agent Todd Palmer, a Las Vegas FBI spokesman. "Some hotels have policies requiring a subpoena before they can release that type of information. So we got subpoenas."
The FBI would not say what hotels required subpoenas before providing the information, and when asked how many subpoenas were required, Palmer would only say "some."
Metro Police reportedly helped gather the information, but the number and type of subpoenas used was not immediately known.
The FBI's authority to demand records from casinos and other businesses in terrorism cases was greatly enhanced when the president signed the 2004 authorization bill for intelligence agencies on Dec. 13.
While banks, credit unions and other financial institutions were previously subject to such demands, the measure expands the list to include car dealers, pawnbrokers, travel agents, hotels and other businesses.
The new law allows for the FBI to use administrative subpoenas instead of requesting a subpoena from a judge or a grand jury.
Gary Peck, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, said the demands for information made by the FBI on Las Vegas hotels is a troubling example of the power the federal government now has at its disposal.
"This certainly makes all of us who talked about the coming of Orwell's '1984' seem far less unreasonable," said Peck, who commended the hotels for standing up for their rights and the privacy rights or their patrons.
"When you look at the way all the antiterrorism laws fit together, it becomes obvious that they empower the FBI and other government agencies to go snooping around in all manner of records."
Peck added that terms like terrorism are exceedingly elastic and can be stretched to cover almost anything when there is no judicial oversight.
FBI officials in Las Vegas recently confirmed that the Patriot Act was used to seek the financial records of current and former politicians in what sources said was part of an ongoing political corruption investigation and not a counterterrorism case.
American Gaming Association President Frank Fahrenkopf did not immediately return calls seeking comment on the subpoenas this morning, but he has said he was concerned about the scope of the law that granted the FBI additional search powers.
Officials with Las Vegas hotels did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
Palmer said that since the terror alert level went to orange, agents in Las Vegas have only been requesting lists of names from the hotels and other businesses. The names are then matched to various terrorist watch lists, Palmer said.
FBI officials would not comment on whether any of the names collected matched a watch list. They reiterated that there are still no specific threats against Las Vegas.
Peck was concerned that there is nothing to stop agents from going back without judicial oversight and seeking financial and other detailed records from casinos.
"I have to think that if and when the patrons of these casinos figure out that the FBI is going through their records, it won't be good for the Las Vegas economy," Peck said.
archive
