On June 13 the front-page headline of the NY Times announced: "FBI Agents Get New Leeway to Push Privacy Bounds.” America’s Federal State Police Agency decided that its present Guidelines did not provide sufficient freedom for our G-Men to protect our citizenry against the terrorist hiding behind every bush. No longer is “probable cause” or serious evidence of criminal intent required for the Blue Meanies to descend on your database, computer files, or even your sacrosanct garbage can, or to practice surveillance on “suspicious groups” to gather proof of guilt or even incriminating data to pressure candidates into becoming informers. Apparently the Bureau has such confidence in the moral antennae of its agents to distinguish the innocent from the guilty that something as mundane as a search warrant or permission from above is no longer required.
The writer of these lines does not take these developments lightly, since he himself has been the subject of intense FBI attention over the years. (See the linked excerpt from my memoirs). In fact much of this attention is and has been focused on peace and other progressive groups. These renewed efforts of God’s garbage men are part of the post 9/11 campaign to use these innocent deaths as an excuse to erode the Bill of Rights and the US Constitution. Whatever the promises of Candidate Obama, the present inhabitant of the White House has become a defender of Guantanamo, and the indicter of more whistleblowers for espionage than almost any predecessor. This moral rearmament of the FBI should come as no surprise to us.
The writer of these lines does not take these developments lightly, since he himself has been the subject of intense FBI attention over the years. (See the linked excerpt from my memoirs). In fact much of this attention is and has been focused on peace and other progressive groups. These renewed efforts of God’s garbage men are part of the post 9/11 campaign to use these innocent deaths as an excuse to erode the Bill of Rights and the US Constitution. Whatever the promises of Candidate Obama, the present inhabitant of the White House has become a defender of Guantanamo, and the indicter of more whistleblowers for espionage than almost any predecessor. This moral rearmament of the FBI should come as no surprise to us.