an important article, written six months ago, before Durham's report, but even more relevant now. It's long, too long for @FranchiseBlade and @larsv8 to read it, moreover w/o external commentary from the NYT and MSNBC they won't know what to make of it. Still, for anyone who thinks the FBI is a paragon of virtue because it opposed their current Bete Orange, it's worth the time. For the last half century, Americans have told themselves a pleasant story about the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It goes like this: Yes, there were abuses during the long tenure of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. But that was decades ago. After painful and revelatory hearings in the 1970s, Congress formed permanent select committees in the House and Senate to scrutinize the bureau and the intelligence community. The Justice Department issued new guidelines for the wiretapping authority that the FBI had arrogated to itself. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, created a secret court to approve warrants to eavesdrop on American citizens. After the scandals exposed in the 1970s, or so the story goes, the FBI was reformed, reformed itself, and has earned its place as perhaps the most famous agency in the federal government and the best-known law-enforcement organization on earth. A wonderful story. If only it were true. In fact, a half century after Hoover died in office, the FBI is mired in scandal again—and the record shows it has continued to conduct itself in highly questionable ways throughout the decades following Hoover’s passing. And while no director since Hoover has accumulated the power he held and wielded over Washington in his time, the bureau remains a threat to both the civil liberties of its targets and the democratic health of the republic. Over the past six years in particular, we have learned that FBI officials routinely deceive not only the public but also the institutions designed to protect the public from FBI overreach. Agents lie to supervisors. Supervisors lie to judges. FBI directors mislead Congress. And almost no one is ever punished. read the rest
@basso is clearly concerned that BLM protesters were targeted. Defund law enforcement when it goes after your people eh? Why worry if you have nothing to hide amirite?
@basso Simple question. Can you name the last democrat to run the FBI??? If the fbi is as broken as you claim which party has been running the department for the past 60 years? Who was last democrat to run the agency ? I'm waiting for your response
Read the article. 90% of it is a history lesson from 20 years ago or earlier which I don't care all that much about. The author tries to leverage historical abuses as evidence of massive overreach in the current world. His overall point is there is no accountability and little control in the FISA process. He uses the same common vernacular all the right wing media uses to try to paint this as a big scandal. Unfortunately, I actually know the details of what transpired, because I chose to be educated on the issues, and thus it's easy to spot the liberties he has taken to sell his narrative. But this will certainly achieve its goal to provide a permission structure to the brain dead morons on the right to keep ignoring the rotten core of thier party. I would be much more sympathetic to the idea, if these investigations didn't unearth unprecedented levels of corruption and numerous indictments.
don't forget about the Washington Post related: FBI misused surveillance tool on Jan. 6 suspects, BLM arrestees and others Crime victims, political donors and potential sources were targeted in digital searches that the FBI says have now been scaled back https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati.../19/fbi-digital-surveillance-misuse-jan6-blm/ excerpt: The FBI has misused a powerful digital surveillance tool more than 278,000 times, including against crime victims, Jan. 6 riot suspects, people arrested at protests after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020 and — in one case — 19,000 donors to a congressional candidate, according to a newly unsealed court document. FBI officials say they have already fixed the problems, which the agency blamed on a misunderstanding between its employees and Justice Department lawyers about how to properly use a vast database named for the legal statute that created it, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). But the failures to use the database correctly when collecting information about U.S. citizens and others may make it harder for the agency to marshal support in Congress to renew the law, which is due to expire at the end of this year. It may also create additional head winds for the FBI, which has been under attack for years by former president Donald Trump and his political supporters. House lawmakers aligned with Trump held a hearing this week trying to show that the nation’s premier law enforcement agency is biased against conservatives. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees Section 702, has pressured the FBI to address the problems, writing in the April 2022 opinion that was unsealed Friday that if the agency doesn’t perform better, the court will crack down and order its own changes to FBI practices. The Section 702 database is a vast trove of electronic communications and other information that can be searched by the National Security Agency and the FBI. The FBI is authorized to search the database only when agents have reason to believe that such a search will produce information relevant to foreign intelligence purposes, or evidence of crimes. Built in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the database is seen by U.S. officials as one of the prize jewels of the national security apparatus. Its primary purpose is targeting foreign intelligence or terrorism information. But the sweeping nature of the information in the database has long worried civil rights advocates, who argue that the government has proved it cannot be trusted to use the system carefully. more at the link
it doesn't surprise me, in the current environment, but it does somewhat surprise me, that liberals here (and no doubt elsewhere) have so enthusiastically embraced the police state. as Cocaine Mitch said, it may be expedient now, but you will regret it
Every time Basso makes a post in this thread or @Os Trigonum just ask them a simple question. Who was the last Dem director? Who exactly has had control of the FBI for 50+ years?
Law enforcement will never save itself. All law enforcement, from local to federal, needs to be held accountable by independent body. The FBI has a pretty bad history but at least there are now federal IOG (DOJ IOG was established in the late 80s) to keep it in check. Local PD doesn't even have that. Also a reminder that the Trump admin wanted to do away with all independent check on the DOJ and other executive branch. So, if this is something you care about, start by not being a hypocrite.
BS. As long as the police state is going after conservatives, you guys in here are as giddy as Joey B when he’s around children and can’t wait to sniff their hairs.
