This week the Justice Department released details of widespread cheating by FBI agents taking exams meant to test their knowledge of domestic surveillance laws.
Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine told The Associated Press his investigation found, insignificant abuses and cheating.''
Fine ordered the investigation after learning of the FBI's regular practice of targeting liberal anti-war groups for surveillance by labeling the groups as possible terrorist organizations. In 2002 FBI agents conducted surveillance operations on an anti-war rally in Pittsburgh for no justifiable reason. Last week the FBI searched the homes and offices of anti- war groups in Minneapolis and Chicago, claiming the groups might be supporting terrorists.
Under the bureau's new unprecedented domestic surveillance rules the FBI claims they are allowed to conduct surveillance and open files on Americans without evidence of criminal activity. Fine's investigation found that FBI officials regularly fabricated or exaggerated the factual basis for opening files and investigating American citizens, and often provided purposely inaccurate information to Congress regarding its domestic surveillance operations.
In a related story, the Obama administration and the Justice Department are asking Congress to grant law enforcement sweeping new access to America's social networking sites like Facebook, voice-over-internet services like skype, and encrypted text massaging like Twitter. The law would require these, and future companies to build-in backdoor patches to their networks that would give LEAs real time monitoring capabilities of private communications. Valerie Caproni, the FBI general counsel explains, "This is about lawfully authorized intercepts."
Unfortunately Caproni's statement is where the problems begin. The FBI themselves acknowledge that their ''trusted'' agents lie, cheat, and misrepresent the truth to justify spying on citizens who have contrary opinions to those of the government. Is there any reasonable expectation that the government would not abuse this new intrusive power as well. United States Code already gives LEAs the power to call into private homes and record phone calls without a warrant, why would police watching skype chats for jollies be such a stretch?
The FBI is advertised as the most professional law enforcement agency in the world, given wide latitude - along with state and local law enforcement, to abridge individual civil liberties and Constitutional rights if they feel the ends justify the means. However, where does it end? If it is ok to lie to Congress, is it ok to lie to a jury? If it is ok to exaggerate a threat, is it ok to plant evidence? If an organization disagrees with war and killing, is it ok to label them as terrorists and read their personal Tweets? Where do we draw the line, and who do we believe when they say "Trust us."
A more disturbing question is, if America's most trusted police can't be trusted how about local law officers and DAs? Who knows how many tests are cheated on and how many civil liberties are violated daily by our local men and women in blue. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and if it is happening in the hallowed halls of the Justice Department it is happening tenfold in the courthouses of mainstream America.
In an address on world democracy given in Poland, The Associated Press reported that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said democracies worldwide are threatened by repressive policies that suppress civic organizations, unions, religious groups, rights advocates and other non-government organizations that press for social change and shine a light on government's shortcomings.
The Secretary of State should walk across the street and deliver the same speech to the Justice Department and the White House - maybe if she posted it on Facebook the FBI would get the message quicker. At some point in recent American history government and corporate rights replaced individual rights as the purpose of our grand experiment with democracy. The startling fact that the U.S. has the largest prison population of any nation in the world is a testimony to the thin veil that amounts to individual liberty in America.
No comments:
Post a Comment