2/22/18, "Senior FBI Official Expresses Concern About Lack of Public Trust," Wall St. Journal, Aruna Viswanatha
"A senior FBI official weighed in Thursday on recent criticism of the bureau...saying he is concerned about a loss of trust in the FBI.
“When
I look through the prism of risk for our organization, I find the No. 1
risk for our organization is losing the faith and confidence of the
American people,” said David Bowdich, the Federal Bureau of
Investigation’s acting deputy director. Mr. Bowdich said he didn’t “want
to get into the politics of anything or partisan attacks.”
“I believe we are doing everything we can to regain that from
those that we lost it from, but also to maintain it from the many that
we still have that from,” Mr. Bowdich said at a news conference at
Justice Department headquarters."...
"Bowdich said Thursday... “Now let me be clear that there was a mistake
made. We know that. But it is our job to make sure that we do everything
in our power to ensure that does not happen again.”"...
................
Comment: No, your #1 job is to fire all the people connected to the "mistakes." How many people did you fire after the Orlando, Florida night club Islamist massacre--another FBI "mistake"? Bowdich is just one more quivering FBI "clubhouse" guy, completely useless.
.............
Additional source:
2/22/18, "‘There was a mistake made’: No. 2 FBI official addresses criticism over fumbled tip on Nikolas Cruz," Washington Post, Matt Zapotsky
 |
| Bowdich, 2/22/18, Reuters |
=======
Added: The FBI is well documented to be a danger to all Americans:
.
"In 2016, Islamist Omar Mateen slaughtered 49 people at an Orlando nightclub. While the FBI did investigate him for 10 months it closed the file because it believed he was "being marginalized because of his Muslim faith." Seriously."
11/20/17, "Should The FBI Be Abolished?" American Spectator, Steve Baldwin
"Abuses from the likes of Comey and Mueller are
just the tip of the iceberg. We need to be reminded why the founders
opposed having any sort of national police force."
"For the last few years, the media has been dominated
by a number of sensational stories: that Trump colluded with Russia to
influence the presidential election; that the Trump team was wiretapped
by Obama intelligence officials; that Hillary used a private email
server to transmit classified information; that Hillary and the DNC
colluded with Russian sources to compile a dossier on Trump, and
finally, that Russia acquired 20% of America’s uranium supply during the
same time period $145 million miraculously appeared in the Clinton
Foundation’s bank account. It all stinks to high heaven but it’s created
a confusing array of facts that has bewildered most Americans. They all
know something is seriously wrong with their country even if they can’t
pinpoint exactly what the problem is.
But there is a common
denominator in all these scandals or alleged scandals, and that would be
the FBI and the actions they took or didn’t take. Indeed, it’s hard to
not conclude that the agency’s actions in these events were improper if
not illegal. If so, this validates the warnings by constitutionalists in
the early 1900s that a federal police force would someday be used to
prop up the ruling elites and attack those who dare challenge the
establishment.
Under FBI Director James Comey, Hillary was allowed
to escape prosecution, even though he presented compelling evidence
that she committed numerous felonies by transmitting classified
documents using her private email server. Comey also leaked classified
information to a friend to be disseminated to the media, another felony,
and his FBI was the recipient of a dossier full of sensational but
false allegations traced to Putin-connected individuals. Instead of
investigating the dossier’s sources, Comey used the phony intel as the
basis for his allegation that the Russians intervened in our election, a
charge later proven to be without factual basis. It also appears that
Comey likely used the dossier’s claims to convince a FISA court to
authorize a phone tap on various Trump aides and possibly even Trump
himself.
Lastly, Comey refused to demand that the DNC hand over
the computer servers they claimed were hacked by Russia, but
nevertheless, he announced that the Russians had hacked into the DNC,
thereby helping to create the phony Trump/Russia collusion narrative.
But a group of cyber experts led by former high-ranking NSA cyber expert
Bill Binney has concluded that the hack simply could not have occurred
for technical reasons and that the leaked DNC emails had to come from an
inside source.
Regardless, for Comey to create a phony “Russia hacked
the DNC” narrative without his agency ever analyzing the DNC server
calls into question his honesty and his integrity.
On
top of all that, former FBI director Robert Mueller — now Special
Counsel — is investigating Trump for collusion with Russia when the
evidence is now revealing that the only party that colluded with the
Russians to influence the 2016 campaign was the Democratic Party. But
Mueller doesn’t have the integrity to widen his investigation to cover
the Clinton/GPS Fusion/Russian dossier scandal but instead is spending
millions on investigating alleged crimes by former Trump campaign
workers that occurred years ago and had nothing to do with Trump,
Russian collusion, or the 2016 election.
Lastly, when Mueller was
FBI Director, he served on the board of the Committee on Foreign
Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the agency that approved the
sale of uranium to Russia by the Uranium One company only a short time
after his own agency had arrested a Russian official attempting to bribe
American uranium officials. But there is no record of Mueller warning
his fellow CFIUS members about the illegal Russian efforts. It likewise
begs logic to believe that Mueller knew nothing about the $145 million
the Clinton Foundation received from Putin-connected sources shortly
after the CFIUS vote. It is also inconceivable that Mueller, as FBI
Director from 2001-2013, was not aware that the Clintons were using
their foundation and Hillary’s Secretary of State position to operate a
massive pay-to-play scam that went far beyond the Uranium One scandal.
It
has become abundantly clear that Mueller is a partisan, as is Comey.
Both of them have jeopardized national security in order to protect the
Democratic Party. This is an unprecedented situation and both men should
be investigated. Moreover, Mueller should be removed as the Special
Counsel. The foxes are guarding the hen house.
Mueller and Comey
have turned the FBI into a partisan force that ignores crimes by the
left and fabricates crimes on the right such as the Trump/Russian
collusion theory. Again, such corruption of the FBI was predicted by
constitutionalists at the time the agency was formed. That time has
arrived.
Within most conservative circles today
it would be considered sacrilegious to argue in favor of abolishing the
Federal Bureau of Investigation. Indeed, older Americans still think of
the FBI as an agency full of incorruptible, efficient, clean-cut guys in
suits tracking down mobsters and exposing communist subversion. Younger
Americans are influenced by popular shows such as television’s Criminal Minds, which, again, portray the G-Men as squeaky clean heroes.
However,
it has become increasingly clear in recent years that this agency has
become so politicized, so corrupt, and so large and bureaucratic that it
may no longer be an effective agency. The time has come to discuss its
abolition.
The FBI was started in 1935, although its predecessor —
the Bureau of Investigation — was founded in 1908. In the early 1900s,
crime was becoming more nationalized with multi-state mob crime families
and the creation of large prostitution smuggling rings that crossed
state lines. As a result, advocates of a federalized police force argued
that a federal law enforcement agency was necessary in order to keep up
with the criminals. The main argument was that the local police forces
didn’t have the resources or the flexibility to investigate complex
criminal cases or to chase mobsters from state to state.
But note
that the FBI did not come into existence until 132 years after the
country declared its independence. This was because the founders never
envisioned a federal role for law enforcement. It is not one of the
“enumerated” duties of the federal government listed in the
constitution.
There were reasons for that. Our founders were
skeptical of a large federal government and, indeed, not even the
“federalist” faction argued for a federal law enforcement role. The
Constitution’s authors all assumed that most of the country’s governing
would be carried out by state and local governments; the Federal
government was created simply to take care of things that states were
not well suited to do, such as maintaining a military, minting currency,
and negotiating trade treaties.
Indeed, for most of America’s first
century, the highest law enforcement officer was the county sheriff.
Except
for treason, the idea of federal crimes was not even mentioned in the
Constitution. Our founders had a healthy fear of America turning into a
tyrannical government such as those which existed all over the world at
the time. They wanted to maximize freedom; hence the Bill of Rights.
They assumed the creation of a federalized police force would make it
far easier for the federal government to abuse the rights of its
citizens. This is why neither the Constitution, the ratification
debates, nor the Federalist papers ever mention anything about a federal law enforcement role. Nada.
Nothing. Indeed, in Federalist No. 45,
James Madison specifically singles out “internal order” as an
“unenumerated power” that must “remain in the state governments.”
In
the last few decades, Congress has created over 3,000 federal crimes,
thereby undermining the authority of local law enforcement and
ultimately making the federal government more powerful and more prone to
corruption and tyranny. As the late Washington Times columnist
Sam Francis wrote,
“Over the last 30 years or so, the creeping federal
incursion into law enforcement has yielded some 140 agencies at the
federal level that have such a role… but everyone knows the federal
engulfment of law enforcement has failed miserably to control crime and
make the country safe. That’s because, by its very nature, effective law
enforcement is local.”
And there’s no doubt that national police
forces in other countries have been used to transition a country to a
dictatorship. Historian William L. Shirer wrote in his famous history of
Nazi Germany, The Rise and Fall of the Third Rich, “On June
16, 1936, for the first time in German history, a unified police as
established for the whole of the Reich — previously the police had been
organized separately by each of the states …the Third Reich, as is
inevitable in the development of all totalitarian dictatorships, had
become a police state.”
But the FBI has never seemed concerned
about its growing powers. Indeed, in the aftermath of WWII, the FBI was
so impressed with Hitler’s police state, they secretly hired hundreds of
Nazis as spies and informants. As Rutherford Institute president and
conservative civil rights lawyer John Whitehead writes, the FBI “then
carried out a massive cover-up campaign to ensure that their true
identities and ties to Hitler’s holocaust machine would remain unknown.
Moreover, anyone who dared to blow the whistle on the FBI’s illicit Nazi
ties found himself spied upon, intimidated, harassed and labeled a
threat to national security.”
But long before the rise of Hitler,
America’s founders understood that the more locally controlled law
enforcement is, the more accountable they are, whereas, a federal police
force tends to be abused by a central government and is largely
unaccountable to local and state governments. Indeed, it is unsettling
to review the long list of incidents in which the FBI abused the rights
of Americans and was clearly used by one political faction or another to
carry out police state-like tactics. Let’s take a trip down memory
lane:
Prosecuting Opponents of World War 1.
President Woodrow Wilson used the FBI’s predecessor to illegally harass
and prosecute thousands of peaceful opponents of World War 1, a war most
conservatives would argue America had no business entering. ["Over there, over there, send the word to beware over there, cause the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming."...]
COINTELPRO.
This was the FBI’s covert internal security program in the 1950s and
’60s, created to “disrupt, misdirect, discredit, and neutralize” groups
and individuals the government deemed to be enemies. It was carried out
under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover with the consent of Attorney
General Robert Kennedy. Congressional hearings found that “Many of the
techniques used would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all
of the targets had been involved in violent activity, but COINTELPRO
went far beyond that … the Bureau conducted a sophisticated vigilante
operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment
rights of speech and association…” Many conservatives of the day cheered
on COINTELPRO since it targeted Marxists and antiwar groups, but that
cheering ended when the FBI set its sights on the right.
FBI Preparations for Martial Law.
MuckRock, a group that exposes governmental corruption, obtained a 1956
FBI document via a FOIA request that described the FBI’s plans to
implement martial law and round up dissidents in the event of nuclear
war. The document, titled “Plan C,” states that ‘”as of April 17, 1956,
12,949 individuals were scheduled for apprehension in an emergency.” The
FBI’s secretive list of “anti-government” citizens they felt needed to
be rounded up has never been revealed but it’s clear the FBI was keeping
files on anti-government individuals.
The Ruby Ridge Murders. In
1992, a BATF informant convinced former Green Beret Randy Weaver to
sell him two shotguns which had barrels shortened illegally, thus
creating the pretext for the FBI to launch a military-style assault on
Weaver’s remote Idaho cabin, eventually killing his wife and fatally
shooting his son in the back. The FBI agents violated numerous rules of
engagement and an Idaho jury found Weaver innocent of almost all
charges.
According to author James Bovard, “Judge Lodge issued a lengthy
list detailing the Justice Departments misconduct, fabrication of
evidence and refusal to obey court orders.” No one was held accountable;
indeed the agent in charge, Larry Potts, was promoted to FBI Deputy
Director.
The Waco Massacre. In
1993, 76 citizens — including 26 children — were burned to death when
the FBI laid siege to a Branch Davidian compound in Waco on the grounds
they believed cult leader David Koresh possessed unauthorized weapons.
However, there was no reason for the FBI to use police state tactics.
Koresh visited town almost every week and could have easily been
arrested during these excursions. Six years later the FBI admitted
during the course of a civil lawsuit that the tear gas it fired into the
compound was, in fact, pyrotechnic tear gas, which, probably caused the
fire that killed most of the people. The shells were even stamped with a
fire warning. Moreover, a law enforcement infrared video revealed
muzzle flashes from the FBI’s positions, so contrary to the FBI’s
testimony that they did not fire “a single shot,” it appears its snipers
were shooting people as they tried to escape the compound. Indeed, a Policy Analysis
report by the Heritage Foundation stated that “numerous crimes by
government agents were never seriously investigated or prosecuted” and
therefore, “the people serving in our federal police agencies may well
come to the conclusion that it is permissible to recklessly endanger the
lives of innocent people, lie to newspapers, obstruct congressional
subpoenas, and give misleading testimony in our courtrooms.”
Helping Bill Clinton Collect Dirt on his Enemies.
Often referred to as “Filegate,” in 1993-94, the FBI willingly turned
over as many as 900 background check files on Republicans to the Clinton
White House. Nothing came of the investigation into this as the
Clintons claimed it was all a big mistake. Right.
Project Megiddo. This
was another shady FBI project, launched in 1999, created for the
purpose of monitoring groups on the right, such as constitutionalists,
devout Christians, anti-tax activists, anti-UN and pro-gun groups and
individuals, all considered by the FBI to be budding terrorists. Such
descriptions cover just about everyone on the right. It is not known if
Project Megiddo violated the rights of individuals as the FBI did with
previous similar programs, such as COINTELPRO, but it’s likely.
Not
surprisingly, much of the info used by Project Megiddo was fed to them
by hysterical leftist groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center
(SPLC), as even the FBI has publicly acknowledged. Shameful.
Use of Criminals as Undercover Agents.
Rutherford Institute President John Whitehead writes, “FBI agents are
also among the nation’s most notorious lawbreakers. In fact, in addition
to creating certain crimes in order to then ‘solve’ them, the FBI also
gives certain informants permission to break the law… USA Today
estimates that agents have authorized criminals to engage in as many as
15 crimes a day. Some of these informants are getting paid astronomical
sums.”
Operation Vigilant Eagle. This FBI
program initiated in 2009 targeted anti-government activists such as Tea
Party activists and, alarmingly, veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan
wars who are, as one FBI document states, “disgruntled, disillusioned or
suffering for the psychological effects of war.”
The purpose of this
program was allegedly to counter terrorism, but there’s not a shred of
evidence veterans are more prone to terrorism than any other citizen.
Nonetheless, the FBI actually claimed that veterans who challenge the
government are suffering from “Oppositional Defiance Disorder (ODD).”
One of the program’s first targets was 26-year-old decorated Marine
veteran Brandon Raub.
Due to posting anti-government statements on his
Facebook page, the FBI arrested Raub with no warning, labeled him
mentally ill and placed him in a psych ward against his will.
Thankfully, Rutherford Institute attorney John Whitehead intervened and
secured his release. Whitehead writes that he “may have helped prevent
Raub from being successfully ‘disappeared’ by the government.” And this
has happened to other veterans. If the FBI paid as much attention to
jihadists as it does to military veterans, it would have stopped every
domestic terror plot!
Targeting Pro-Lifers. In
2010, The FBI held a joint training session on terrorism with Planned
Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation. The main message of the
seminar was that all pro-lifers are potential terrorists, an outrageous
allegation. Indeed, material passed out by the pro-aborts at the
seminar listed three pages of “anti-abortion websites,” including those
of National Right to Life, Concerned Women for America, the American
Center for Law and Justice, and Human Life International. None of those
groups advocate violence. This is another example of how the FBI allows
itself to be used by the left to go after its enemies.
Similarly, during
Bill Clinton’s presidency, the FBI created a project called VAAPCON to
create files on pro-life religious leaders such as Rev. Jerry Falwell.
Indeed, Judicial Watch, representing Falwell, sued the Clinton White
House, seeking info on the project, but all the files mysteriously
disappeared, Clinton style.
The IRS Scandal. The
government watchdog group, Judicial Watch, obtained documents revealing
that the FBI was involved with the illegal IRS effort to investigate —
and thus silence— around 500 conservative and Tea Party groups during
Obama’s 2012 reelection. Perhaps the worst use of the IRS in American
history, this was about manipulating the 2012 presidential election and
the FBI was complicit in this abuse of governmental power. As JWs Tom
Fitton writes, “Both the FBI and Justice Department collaborated with
Lois Lerner and the IRS to try to persecute and jail Barack Obama’s
political opponents.” [The Tea Party was no threat to Obama. It was a
mortal threat to the GOP Establishment. It cost Obama nothing to use his
influence with the IRS to help his GOP E pals who in any case
desperately wanted Obama re-elected in 2012 and would elect him for life
if they could.]
FBI Worked With the SPLC. For
much of the Obama era, the FBI listed the Southern Poverty Law Center
(SPLC) on its website as part of its effort to combat “hate crimes.”
However, many of the groups identified by the SPLC as “hate groups” are
not. One example is the Family Research Council, a mainstream pro-family
organization. As a result of the FBI’s promotion of SPLC’s phony hate
group list, a shooter entered FRC’s headquarters in 2012, wounding the
front desk security guard and attempted to slaughter all the FRC
employees. He was subdued by the wounded guard. Indeed, the SPLC
believes all Christian groups that oppose the gay agenda or abortion are
“hate groups,” a bizarre notion that has never been condemned by the
FBI even though it did, in 2014, quietly drop the SPLC from its website.
Data Mining Innocent Americans. In 2013, Bloomberg
exposed the FBI’s data mining project carried out on hundreds of
thousands of Americans, most of whom were not guilty of any crimes.
Raids on Homes of Anti-Government Activists.
Repeatedly, the FBI has raided homes on the flimsiest of evidence. In
2014, it raided the home of prepper Martin Winters, claiming he was some
kind of domestic terrorist. But nothing was found aside from food
stocks and other survivalist gear.
Then there’s Terry Porter, also a
prepper, whose house the FBI raided in 2012 using twice as many agents
as in the Branch Davidian raid. Again, nothing alarming found there.
Since when did anti-government preppers become terrorists? The FBI raids
group meetings as well, such as when it raided a Republic of Texas
secessionist movement meeting in 2015. No one was arrested because no
one did anything illegal. But once again, the FBI treated a handful of
elderly men discussing constitutional issues as a terrorist plot.
Fraudulent Forensics.
Special Agent and whistleblower Frederic Whitehurst revealed in 2015
that FBI crime lab technicians routinely testified falsely about crime
lab samples throughout the 1980s and 1990s. As former Judge Andrew
Napolitano writes, “its agents and lab technicians who examine hair
samples testified falsely in 257 of 268 cases that resulted in
convictions. Of the convictions, 18 persons were sentenced to death, and
of those, 12 have been executed.” Yes, innocent people died, thanks to
the FBI.
FBI High School Informer Network. In
2016, the FBI launched an effort to enlist the help of high school
students to ostensibly identify terrorists, but the FBI documents in
question reveal they were also urging students to report on
anti-government groups such as libertarian and constitutional groups.
This effort is shockingly similar to the informant networks set up by
the KGB in the USSR and the Stasi in East Germany.
The FBI Record on Fighting Terrorism.
Many
Americans assume, however, that at least in the area of Islamic
terrorism, the FBI has kept Americans largely safe. Not so fast. The
record doesn’t quite show that. In fact, the agency has blundered many
terrorism investigations and thus jeopardized the security of Americans.
Examples:
- In 2009, Islamist Nidal Hasan fatally shot 13
people at the Fort Hood Military Base, but his radical associations and
open support for jihad were previously known by the FBI. It even had
emails in which Hasan stated he wanted to kill his fellow soldiers.
Indeed, records show that not only was there reluctance by officials to
drum Hasan out of the military — for political reasons — but he was
promoted at every opportunity.
- In 2013, local officials caught
seven foreign Muslims trespassing after midnight onto Quabbin Reservoir,
a critical Northwest drinking reservoir. The FBI took over the case but
let the trespassers go because they believe them to be just “tourists.”
Yes, just midnight tourists. Only a few months earlier, another
terrorist had been arrested for planning to poison a different
reservoir.
- In 2013, the Tsarnaev brothers bombed the Boston
Marathon, killing three people and injuring hundreds more. Russian
intelligence warned the FBI about Tamerlan Tsarnaev and the agency even
interviewed him, but it appears the FBI determined that Russia’s
intelligence was not accurate. Until the bombs went off.
- In
2015, when the government watchdog group Judicial Watch obtained
documents confirming that ISIS terrorists were crossing the
Mexican/Texas border, concerned FBI agents held meetings at the U.S.
Consulate in Ciudad Juarez with Mexican officials. But not to figure out
a plan to deal with such crossings, but rather to deny these
allegations and to determine who leaked the info to JW. Forget the
message and attack the messenger. What a great counter-terrorism
strategy.
- In 2015, the FBI failed to prevent the San Bernardino
terror attack by an Islamic couple from Pakistan connected to an Islamic
terrorist group whose files were among those purged earlier by the FBI,
thereby making it nearly impossible for the agency to detect this pair.
- In
2015, two Islamic terrorists attacked a Muhammad art expo in Garland,
Texas, but the FBI actually had an informant at the scene with the
terrorists, but it never bothered to warn the expo’s organizers of the
impending attack. Apparently, the agency didn’t want to blow the
informant’s cover! Fortunately, security guard Bruce Joiner shot and
killed both shooters before they could get inside the exhibition hall.
Joiner wonders why the FBI would allow this attack to transpire, stating
“That’s not the kind of thing we do in the United States with our
citizens.”
- In 2016, Islamist Omar Mateen slaughtered 49 people
at an Orlando nightclub. While the FBI did investigate him for 10 months
it closed his file because it believed he was “being marginalized
because of his Muslim faith.” Seriously.
- The FBI has flat out
denied that Las Vegas shooter Steven Paddock has any Islamic terror
connections, but the reality is it really doesn’t know enough about him
to make such a claim. Indeed, ISIS never takes credit for attacks that
are not its own and on three occasions, it has announced Paddock was
connected to ISIS. It even revealed Paddock’s Islamic name: Abu Abdul
Barr al-Amriki. Also, Paddock made trips to the Middle East. Given the
FBI’s record, ISIS’s statements may be more credible than the FBI’s
denials.
- The latest terrorist incident in New York City was also
bungled. Months before Sayfullo Saipov mowed down over 20 people, the
FBI interviewed him because it knew he was connected to two men with
terrorist connections. As such, his visa should have been revoked and he
should have been deported, but the agency didn’t even open up a file on
him.
- Finally, the 9/11 terrorist attack itself could have been
prevented by the FBI. It had enough intel to connect the dots but
didn’t. Many of its pre-9/11 reports on al Qaeda were lost or not shared
with the proper people. One was a memo by Phoenix FBI Agent Ken
Williams, describing suspected al Qaeda members training at U.S. flight
schools. How could that not result in a full-scale investigation? And
Special Agent Mark Rossini sent a message to FBI headquarters warning
that 9/11 hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar had a multi-entry visa to enter the
U.S. before 9/11. But that cable went “missing” when Congress held
hearings on how our intelligence agencies manage to completely miss so
many obvious clues.
And there are many other examples that
can’t be cited here due to lack of space, but it’s difficult to find a
domestic terrorist investigation that the FBI hasn’t screwed up. The
above incidents alone cost the lives of almost 3,200 Americans. One
would think that in the aftermath of 9/11, the FBI would make an effort
to become more efficient when it comes to counter-terrorism, but with
the 2008 election of Barack Obama, the FBI not only remained overly
bureaucratic but became hyper politically correct.
Incredible as
it may seem, in 2011, Obama’s FBI Director, Robert Mueller, met with a
coalition of radical Islamic groups and agreed to purge thousands of
files “offensive” to Muslims. Judicial Watch said the “purge is part of a
broader Islamic ‘influence operation’ aimed at our government and
constitution.”
In other words, the FBI caved in to groups that do
not have our best interests at heart. Indeed, two of the groups Mueller
met with, ISNA and CAIR, were unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy
Land Foundation terror funding case. Many terror experts believe this
purge crippled the FBI’s abilities to detect some of the terror plots
that occurred during the Obama years. Due to its desire not to offend
Muslims, the FBI jeopardized the lives of many Americans.
Conservatives Should Quit Defending the FBI
The FBI has a long history of being used by various administrations to
harass certain groups and individuals, or, conversely, to allow certain
groups and individuals to commit crimes without fear of prosecution. The
FBI is supposed to uphold the Constitution but instead has repeatedly
violated the constitutional rights of Americans. This politicization has
cost many Americans their lives and their freedoms. The abuse listed
here is not comprehensive but it’s enough, one would think, to make
conservatives think twice about defending this agency’s police state
tactics.
Indeed, the Wall Street Journal has reported
that “nearly one out of every three American adults are on file in the
FBI’s master criminal database,” even though most of them have not been
convicted of a crime. Does anyone really believe our founding fathers
would be fine with such sweeping federal law enforcement powers?
The
aforementioned conservative civil rights attorney, John Whitehead,
summarizes today’s FBI: “In additions to procedural misconduct,
trespassing, enabling criminal activity, and damaging private property,
the FBI’s laundry list of crimes against the American people includes
surveillance, disinformation, blackmail, entrapment, intimidation
tactics, and harassment.” President Harry Truman once said, “We want no
Gestapo or secret police. The FBI is trending in that direction.” And
that was 72 years ago.
It’s Time to Turn Over FBI Investigations to the States
If
the FBI was abolished and its workload turned over to the states, it
would not be as difficult as some would portray it. Indeed, what most
Americans don’t realize is that almost every state already has a state
version of the FBI. New Mexico has the New Mexico State Police, the
Golden State has the California Bureau of Investigation, Texas has both
the Texas Rangers and the Texas Department of Public Safety, and Georgia
has the Georgia Bureau of investigation. (One can view the list here.)
Moreover,
all these agencies are equipped with crime labs and the latest forensic
tools. At one time, such tools were prohibitively expensive for state
police agencies to acquire, but technological advances have brought the
cost of such equipment down, resulting in most states having the latest
forensics equipment that at one time was monopolized by the FBI. For
example, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is famous for its forensic
work: “The Division of Forensic Sciences envisions a future in which we
continue to build and develop an internationally recognized forensic
laboratory system that partners with governmental and private
entities….”
Today, much of the FBI’s work entails the
investigation of federal crimes committed within one state. There is no
reason why the states can’t handle these investigations and if the case
does happen to cross over into other states, then the states simply
coordinate. Those days in which a criminal would escape the law by
crossing a state line are long gone. Indeed, that practice was one of
the reasons why the FBI was created, but with today’s advances in
communication technology, that simply doesn’t happen anymore. All states
today have the technology to easily track criminals as they cross state
lines and it’s not difficult for two states or more to work together in
the apprehension of a criminal.
Already, states today cooperate on a
wide array of governmental actions; there is no reason why they can’t
coordinate on a police investigation or criminal apprehension.
Some
of the FBI’s workload involves complex white-collar cases such as tax
evasion, money laundering, bank fraud, and commodities fraud, but if a
state police agency feels it doesn’t have the expertise to investigate
such crimes, it can enlist the assistance of existing agencies that
already investigate such crimes. The IRS, Securities Exchange
Commission, Treasury Department and the Secret Service all have
investigative branches that handle different aspects of financial
crimes.
Then, of course, there are the federal crime databases
largely maintained by the FBI, including the National Crime Information
Center database, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System,
the Integrated Fingerprint Identification System, and the Combined DNA
Index System (CODIS). These databases should be turned over to the
Department of Justice, which, in part, already play a role in
maintaining them. More importantly, the state police agencies will need
to be given ready access to these databases if they are to take on cases
formerly handled by the FBI.
State law enforcement agencies are
not perfect but it is far more difficult for the federal government to
politicize the actions of a state agency. Moreover, it is much easier to
hold state agencies accountable for any abuses they commit, just by
virtue of being closer to the people.
Indeed, with access to
federal crime databases, most state police agencies have the capability
to handle cases the FBI now handles, including domestic terrorist
investigations. It’s a good bet that, given the FBI’s record on
terrorism, the states will do a better job at stopping and preventing
terrorism.
America’s founders were wise men and they knew not to
make law enforcement a federal responsibility. They foresaw how the
federal government could use a national police agency to play favorites,
wreak havoc on our democratic institutions, and ultimately move us
closer to a police state. The only question that remains is whether any
politician will have the guts to initiate discussion on abolishing the
FBI."
=============
Added:
"The behavior the FBI admitted to a FISA judge just last month [April 2017] ranged
from illegally sharing raw intelligence with unauthorized third parties
to accessing intercepted attorney-client privileged communications
without proper oversight the bureau promised was in place years ago."
May 26, 2017, "Declassified memos show FBI illegally shared spy data on Americans with private parties," Circa.com, John Solomon and Sara Carter
"The FBI has illegally shared raw intelligence about Americans with
unauthorized third parties and violated other constitutional privacy
protections, according to newly declassified government documents that undercut the bureau’s public assurances about how carefully it handles warrantless spy data to avoid abuses or leaks....
..........
Then-FBI Director James Comey unequivocally told lawmakers his agency used
sensitive espionage data gathered about Americans without a warrant
only when it was “lawfully collected, carefully overseen and checked.”
Once-top
secret U.S. intelligence community memos reviewed by Circa tell a
different story, citing instances of “disregard” for rules, inadequate
training and “deficient” oversight and even one case of deliberately
sharing spy data with a forbidden party.
For instance, a ruling declassified this month by
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) chronicles nearly 10
pages listing hundreds of violations of the FBI’s privacy-protecting
minimization rules that occurred on Comey’s watch.
The behavior
the FBI admitted to a FISA judge just last month [April 2017] ranged from illegally
sharing raw intelligence with unauthorized third parties to accessing
intercepted attorney-client privileged communications without proper
oversight the bureau promised was in place years ago.
The court also opined aloud that it fears the violations are more extensive than already disclosed.
“The
Court is nonetheless concerned about the FBI’s apparent disregard of
minimization rules and whether the FBI is engaging in similar
disclosures of raw Section 702 information that have not been reported,”
the April 2017 ruling declared.
The
court isn’t the only oversight body to disclose recent concerns that
the FBI’s voluntary system for policing its behavior and self-disclosing
mistakes hasn’t been working.
The Justice Department inspector general’s office declassified a report in 2015 that
reveals the internal watchdog had concerns as early as 2012 that the
FBI was submitting ‘deficient” reports indicating it had a clean record
complying with spy data gathered on Americans without a warrant.
The
FBI normally is forbidden from surveilling an American without a
warrant. But Section 702 of the Foreign Surveillance Act, last updated
by Congress in 2008, allowed the NSA to share with the FBI spy data
collected without a warrant that includes the communications of
Americans with “foreign targets.”
But the FISA court watchdogs suggest FBI compliance problems began months after Section 702 was implemented.
The
FBI’s very first compliance report in 2009 declared it had not found
any instances in which agents accessed NSA intercepts supposedly
gathered overseas about an American who in fact was on U.S. soil.
But
the IG said it reviewed the same data and easily found evidence that
the FBI accessed NSA data gathered on a person who likely was in the
United States, making it illegal to review without a warrant.
“We
found several instances in which the FBI acquired communications on the
same day that the NSA determined through analysis of intercepted
communications that the person was in the United States,” the
declassified report revealed.
It called the FBI’s first oversight report “deficient” and urged better oversight.
FBI
officials acknowledged there have been violations but insist they are a
small percentage of the total counterterrorism and counterintelligence
work its agents perform.
Almost
all are unintentional human errors by good-intentioned agents and
analysts under enormous pressure to stop the next major terror attack,
the officials said.
Others fear these blunders call into the
question the bureau’s rosy assessment that it can still police itself
when it comes to protecting Americans’ privacy 17 years after the war on
terror began....
“No one on the Hill wants to look like we are soft on terrorism when you
have increasing threats like Manchester-style attacks. But the evidence
of abuse or sloppiness and the unending leaks of sensitive intelligence
in the last year has emboldened enough of us to pursue some reforms,” a
senior congressional aide told Circa, speaking only on condition of
anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to talk to the media. “Where that
new line between privacy and security is drawn will depend on how many
more shoes fall before the 702 renewal happens.”...
One of the biggest concerns involves so-called backdoor searches in
which the FBI can mine NSA intercept data for information that may have
been incidentally collected about an American. No warrant or court
approval is required, and the FBI insists these searches are one of the
most essential tools in combating terrorist plots.
But a respected former Justice Department national security prosecutor
questions if the searching has gotten too cavalier. Amy Jeffress,
the former top security adviser to former Attorney General Eric Holder,
was appointed by the intelligence court in 2015 to give an independent assessment of the FBI’s record of compliance....
Jeffress concluded agents’ searches of NSA data now extend far beyond
national security issues and thus were “overstepping” the
constitutional protections designed to ensure the bureau isn’t violating
Americans’ 4th Amendment protections against unlawful search and
seizure.
“The FBI procedures allow for really virtually
unrestricted querying of the Section 702 data in a way the NSA and CIA
have restrained it through their procedures,” she argued before the
court in a sealed 2015 proceeding.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article152948259.html#storylink=cpMay 26, 2017, "Declassified memos show FBI illegally shared spy data on Americans with private parties," Circa.com, by John Solomon and Sara Carter"The FBI has illegally shared raw intelligence about Americans with
unauthorized third parties and violated other constitutional privacy
protections, according to newly declassified government documents that undercut the bureau’s public assurances about how carefully it handles warrantless spy data to avoid abuses or leaks....
Then-FBI Director James Comey unequivocally told lawmakers his agency used
sensitive espionage data gathered about Americans without a warrant
only when it was “lawfully collected, carefully overseen and checked.”
Once-top
secret U.S. intelligence community memos reviewed by Circa tell a
different story, citing instances of “disregard” for rules, inadequate
training and “deficient” oversight and even one case of deliberately
sharing spy data with a forbidden party.
For instance, a ruling declassified this month by
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) chronicles nearly 10
pages listing hundreds of violations of the FBI’s privacy-protecting
minimization rules that occurred on Comey’s watch.
The behavior
the FBI admitted to a FISA judge just last month [April 2017]ranged from illegally
sharing raw intelligence with unauthorized third parties to accessing
intercepted attorney-client privileged communications without proper
oversight the bureau promised was in place years ago.
The court also opined aloud that it fears the violations are more extensive than already disclosed.
“The
Court is nonetheless concerned about the FBI’s apparent disregard of
minimization rules and whether the FBI is engaging in similar
disclosures of raw Section 702 information that have not been reported,”
the April 2017 ruling declared.
The
court isn’t the only oversight body to disclose recent concerns that
the FBI’s voluntary system for policing its behavior and self-disclosing
mistakes hasn’t been working.
The Justice Department inspector general’s office declassified a report in 2015 that
reveals the internal watchdog had concerns as early as 2012 that the
FBI was submitting ‘deficient” reports indicating it had a clean record
complying with spy data gathered on Americans without a warrant.
The
FBI normally is forbidden from surveilling an American without a
warrant. But Section 702 of the Foreign Surveillance Act, last updated
by Congress in 2008, allowed the NSA to share with the FBI spy data
collected without a warrant that includes the communications of
Americans with “foreign targets.”
But the FISA court watchdogs suggest FBI compliance problems began months after Section 702 was implemented.
The
FBI’s very first compliance report in 2009 declared it had not found
any instances in which agents accessed NSA intercepts supposedly
gathered overseas about an American who in fact was on U.S. soil.
But
the IG said it reviewed the same data and easily found evidence that
the FBI accessed NSA data gathered on a person who likely was in the
United States, making it illegal to review without a warrant.
“We
found several instances in which the FBI acquired communications on the
same day that the NSA determined through analysis of intercepted
communications that the person was in the United States,” the
declassified report revealed.
It called the FBI’s first oversight report “deficient” and urged better oversight.
FBI
officials acknowledged there have been violations but insist they are a
small percentage of the total counterterrorism and counterintelligence
work its agents perform.
Almost
all are unintentional human errors by good-intentioned agents and
analysts under enormous pressure to stop the next major terror attack,
the officials said.
Others fear these blunders call into the
question the bureau’s rosy assessment that it can still police itself
when it comes to protecting Americans’ privacy 17 years after the war on
terror began....
“No one on the Hill wants to look like we are soft on terrorism when you
have increasing threats like Manchester-style attacks. But the evidence
of abuse or sloppiness and the unending leaks of sensitive intelligence
in the last year has emboldened enough of us to pursue some reforms,” a
senior congressional aide told Circa, speaking only on condition of
anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to talk to the media....
One of the biggest concerns involves so-called backdoor searches in
which the FBI can mine NSA intercept data for information that may have
been incidentally collected about an American. No warrant or court
approval is required, and the FBI insists these searches are one of the
most essential tools in combating terrorist plots.
But a respected former Justice Department national security prosecutor
questions if the searching has gotten too cavalier. Amy Jeffress,
the former top security adviser to former Attorney General Eric Holder,
was appointed by the intelligence court in 2015 to give an independent assessment of the FBI’s record of complianceJeffress
concluded agents’ searches of NSA data now extend far beyond national
security issues and thus were “overstepping” the constitutional
protections designed to ensure the bureau isn’t violating Americans’ 4th
Amendment protections against unlawful search and seizure.“The
FBI procedures allow for really virtually unrestricted querying of the
Section 702 data in a way the NSA and CIA have restrained it through
their procedures,” she argued before the court in a sealed 2015 proceeding.
“I think that in this case the procedures could be tighter and more
restrictive, and should be in order to comply with the Fourth
Amendment,” she added.
The court thanked Jeffress for her
thoughtful analysis but ultimately rejected her recommendation to impose
on the FBI a requirement of creating a written justification why each
search would help pursue a national security or criminal matter....
That was late in 2015. But by early 2017, the court became more
concerned after the Obama administration disclosed significant
violations of privacy protections at two separate intelligence agencies
involved in the Section 702 program.
The most serious involved the NSA searching for American data it was
forbidden to search. But the FBI also was forced to admit its agents and
analysts shared espionage data with prohibited third parties, ranging
from a federal contractor to a private entity that did not have the
legal right to see the intelligence....
The
court’s memo suggested the FBI’s sharing of raw intelligence to third
parties, at the time, had good law enforcement intentions but bad
judgment and inadequate training.
“Nonetheless, the above described practices violated the governing minimization procedures,” the court chided.
A footnote in the ruling stated one instance of improper sharing was likely intentional.
“Improper access” to NSA spy data for FBI contractors “seems to have
been the result of deliberate decision-making,” the court noted.
The
recently unsealed ruling also revealed the FBI is investigating more
cases of possible improper sharing with private parties that recently
have come to light.
The government “is investigating whether
there have been similar cases in which the FBI improperly afforded
non-FBI personnel access to raw FISA-acquired information on FBI
systems,” the court warned.
The
ruling cited other FBI failures in handling Section 702 intel,
including retaining data on computer storage systems “in violation of
applicable minimization requirements.”
Among the most serious
additional concerns was the FBI’s failure for more than two years to
establish review teams to ensure intercepts between targets and their
lawyers aren’t violating the attorney-client privilege.“Failures of the FBI to comply with this ‘review team’ requirement
for particular targets have been focus of the FISC’s concerns
since 2014,” the court noted.
The FBI said it is trying to resolve the deficiencies with aggressive training of agents.
That
admission of inadequate training directly undercut Comey’s testimony
earlier this month when questioned by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
“Nobody
gets to see FISA information of any kind unless they've had the
appropriate training and have the appropriate oversight,” the
soon-to-be-fired FBI director assured lawmakers.
The struggle for
the intelligence court and lawmakers in providing future oversight will
be where to set more limits without hampering counterterrorism effort.
The FBI told Circa in a statement, "As indicated in its opinion, the
Court determined that the past and current standard minimization
procedures are consistent with the Fourth Amendment and met the
statutory definition of those procedures under Section 702."
Jeffress,
however, warned in her 2015 brief of another dynamic that will pose a
challenge too, an FBI culture to use a tool more just because it can.
“These
scenarios suggest a potentially very large and broad scope of
incidental collection of communications between a lawful target and U.S.
persons that are not the type of communications Section 702 was
designed to collect,” she told the court in a written memo.
And
when questioned at a subsequent hearing, Jeffress observed: “I don’t
think that the FBI will voluntarily set limits on its querying
procedures, because law enforcement agencies tend not to take steps to
restrict or limit what they can do, for obvious reasons.”"
.......................
Additional source, McClatchy:
May 26, 2017, "Secret [FISA] court rebukes NSA for 5-year illegal surveillance of U.S. citizens," McClatchy, Tim Johnson, via Miami Herald
..........
