FBI's bullying tactics are growing tiresome

Photographs produced Sunday by former government scientist Steven J. Hatfill, purporting to show his ''girlfriend's'' apartment trashed by FBI agents, evoked an uneasy sense of recognition among law enforcement experts. Applying pressure on loved ones of an investigative target is a favorite method by the bureau, and rough treatment in the execution of a search warrant is a familiar application of that pressure.

The problem with the FBI, however, goes beyond strongarm tactics. Since the FBI has affirmed that Hatfill is not a suspect in last year's anthrax murders, why is he subjected to such treatment? Why have the news media been tipped in advance of repeated searches of his home? These unanswered questions spawn unsubstantiated conspiracy theories that testify to the FBI's deteriorating prestige.

FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General John Ashcroft will say nothing about what they are up to, and congressional investigators generally get no cooperation in seeking answers from this Justice Department. But the handling of the Hatfill affair has aroused the interest of Republican Rep. Dan Burton, whose investigations have uncovered some of the FBI's unsavory past.

Hatfill has had a checkered career, including service among white mercenaries in Rhodesia. Last year, he lost his government clearance and then his job for undisclosed problems that may have been unrelated to the anthrax attacks. That background, however, hardly justified the media feeding frenzy when the FBI search of his living quarters was leaked.

Hatfill has compared himself to Joseph K., doomed by unspecified charges in Franz Kafka's The Trial. Although no official charges are filed, Hatfill reports FBI agents are indicting him to close friends--especially his unnamed girlfriend. ''Her apartment was wrecked,'' he said Sunday, ''while FBI agents screamed at her that I had killed five people and that her life would never be the same again.''

Neither the Justice Department nor the FBI responded to this, either immediately or when I sought a reply from them this week. Indeed, Kafka is recalled in the attorney general's opaque comments about Hatfill.