The FBI has amended its guidelines, giving significant new powers to its roughly 14,000 agents, allowing them to do investigations without oversight. The new guidelines allow FBI agents to go through household trash, use surveillance and search databases. Former FBI agent, Michael German, who is now a lawyer for the ACLU in Washington DC says that the new guidelines are very concerning. “At the same time the FBI is using more and more secret powers, they’re removing the standards and the oversight necessary to make sure that they’re only focused on people who are doing bad things rather than people that they don’t like for some other reason,” says German.