Reading how the FBI committed the illegal inspection of the emails related to Jill Kelley’s complaint, hearkens us back to the days shortly after WWII to the times when the FBI had another illegal program that went on through the Fifties and into the Sixties where it opened regular mail coming into America from overseas. Like with the emails, it did this secretly.
Having personally been affected by this, I can give you an insight how the FBI may operate with the information it secretly gathers up. In college a few of us were trying to figure out where to go on our spring break. We came up with the idea that perhaps we could travel south inexpensively on someone else’s dime if we could go to Cuba. I wrote a letter to Fidel Castro to see if we were welcome there for a week or so.
The first response I received was a couple of weeks later. It was a note telling me to report to the college’s Dean of Discipline. He told me he knew that I had been invited by Fidel to go to Cuba. He said if I went, I would not be allowed to graduate. I didn’t ask him how he knew of my plans. In those days one did not ask questions of those in power.
A day or two later I received the response from one of Fidel’s ministers inviting us to attend. Years later when I later read about the FBI’s program, I realized that it had opened the return letter and notified the school.
Today, the FBI has accumulated vast amounts of emails. There is no reason to believe that with the information they are gathering they are not doing the same thing today. This is how the FBI operates. It’ll feed information to employers or others in exchange for those people feeding information back to it.
That’s why the media is so subservient to the FBI. It depends on them for leaks and other inside information. When the FBI or DOJ attorneys gave out secret grand jury minutes about Billy Bulger to the Boston Globe it expects the Globe to do something for it down the line. The media needs that information so it won’t do anything to bite the hand that feeds it.
This reminds me of what I read about with the secret police forces of the Soviet Union or its Eastern European allies. They had everyone spying on everyone else. At least here we are not yet being swept up into secret prisons although we’ve seen that our government is fully capable of doing this to a discreet group it considered a threat.
Martin Niemöller a German pastor told how the Nazis came and took away the Communists and he said nothing being anti-Communist, then the trade unionists and he remained silent, and then the Jews and not being Jewish also kept quiet. Finally they came and took him.
The idea is that if you don’t speak up when injustices are occurring to others believing it may not happen to you, then it may. Here there is great silence as our secret police are secretly invading our private communications and compiling secret dossiers on us. You may think you are not affected but you don’t know and cannot find out.
Obviously, in light of this you will take safeguards and be less candid in your writings and in expressing your thoughts. If so, you can see that the illegal actions of the FBI have already affected your behavior. You have already given up a certain aspect of your freedom.
Unlike when I was caught up in its illegal mail screening, today’s society with its massive electronic storage devices and instant retrievals make almost every word you write or which is written to you is capable of being captured, stored, and later retrieved. It may be undermining you today or come back to bite you many years later.
Ask yourself, is this what you want? Are you comfortable with the FBI having access to all your information? In my book, Don’t Embarrass The Family, I make 15 recommendations for making the FBI into a more responsible organization, one that presents a lesser threat to the people.
Recommendation N calls for minimizing intrusions on privacy. Had that been followed, none of these events that titillated the public and brought down generals would have happened. There was no crime, no compromising of our security, and no need for that investigation.
the author as always brings up pertinent , interesting information. we have a rail project here in hawii. people who hold elected office love this project for the campaighn contributions and the transit oriented developement around the proposed rail stations. how they went about it is to long to go into. you could google honolulu rail project to find out more. many residents feel criminal conduct occured in the govermental process. however people also feel if they publicly ASKED FOR AN INDEPENDENT investigation the people who hold power on this island would get the fbi onto them. even going into the federal building is not the most comfortable feeling. the leading opponent to the project a former governor just lost in the race for mayor here. ran for office 8 times won, one time lost when he was not with the buisness interests. i do not want to go into the local fbi offices to ask for an independent investigation because i feel that my name would be put into some goverment database. who wants that? you are right most people do not want to get personaly involved.
Hawaii:
(I used your name if that was your name just because I fall behind in corresponding and doing it I can identify back to the person who wrote. I’ll call you Hawaii. If that’s not OK, I’ll omit any name.)
Your post tells us what I have been talking about. The FBI is supposed to work for us but too many see it as working against us. I guess if the FBI were interested in this blog, which I don’t think is the case because it must have better things to do, it would already know the identity of everyone who has commented here. I received an email from a guy in Connecticut outside this blog who tried to go after what he thought was criminal conduct in his state and he keeps coming up against a stone wall and even has had some push back which seems to have made his life a little unpleasant.
It seems a shame that so many people do not want to get involved. The FBI has no power over the people other than to pretend that it does. Think back to the 1750s and 1760s. There were lots of people afraid to get involved then because the king of England had only one punishment for people he considered traitors and that was hanging. But there were some who had the courage of their convictions and went ahead and brought others along with them and freed us from England’s grasp. The FBI is not as powerful as the king. It’s time for the people to stop being afraid. We’re not asking for a revolution all we want is our rights under the Constitution to be left alone to do what we want to do.
Your absolutely correct.
The problem is the average person doesn’t know or if they do know they don’t care because they think its happening to someone else, not realizing they are also being victimized.
The FBI operates solely for their own agenda, not the governments and not the citizens, just themselves.
Which leads to the question, What is their agenda?
The Petreaus investigation was clearly an intelligence gathering mission by the FBI and done solely for their political purposes.
I have no doubt the FBI follows your blog for local intell and they know who all your commenters are regardless of our pseudonym’s.
It will be interesting to see if President Obama re-appoints Mueller as the head of the FBI after the CIA debacle. Was Mueller loyal to the President or playing politics against him ?
Only the FBI knows.
Notoboyo:
Good comment. The goal of the FBI is to accrue power so that no one will interfere with what it decides to do. It has the idea America should operate a certain way, more or less in the manner it is now operating where Congress fears the FBI, the DOJ does what it wants, and the FBI has no limitations on its ability to invade anyone’s privacy. It will protect itself fiercely and will destroy anyone who threatens it. It is the only agency in our country that cannot be investigated and is the only one that does not have to disclose what it is investigating.
If the FBI is following me or my blog I’m sure its agents are bored to tears. I’ve got such a small voice that if the FBI knew about it then it would be a clear sign it has nothing of importance to do. You can rest assured if the FBI wanted to identify anyone who wrote to me it could easily do that. That is exactly what I’m talking about when I say its powers are such that people have changed their behavior because of them.
Mueller was definitely political in the Petraeus affair. He held the matter so as not to embarrass Obama. Whether he did this as a thanks to Obama for giving hi two years extra as director, something that was never supposed to happen, or because he is looking for a further appointment, it is hard to tell from my vantage point. I’ve believed all along Mueller would not want to continue as director. If he does it is an ominous sign. It means everything we learned about allowing one man to accumulate too much power has been forgotten. Thanks for writing.
Nothing overwhelmingly reflective in my comment requiring posting, however, just wanted to say, it seems the FBI is most likely a lot worse that Petraeus at conducting ‘affairs’ and being involved in other people’s business where they don’t belong. Actually, the FBI seems to be consistently proficient at it.
Jan: You’ve heard the expression “who takes care of the caretaker’s daughter when the caretaker’s busy taking care.” You are absolutely right that the FBI would not do to anyone in its agency what it did to Petraeus. That’s why it needs supervision and reform. Thanks for commenting.