The FBI improperly investigated some left-leaning U.S. advocacy groups after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Justice Department said Monday. DoJ cited cases in which agents surveilled and put activists on terrorist watch lists even though they were planning and conducted nonviolent civil disobedience.
And what are the consequences?
“After more than four years of investigation and an exhaustive review of hundreds of investigative decisions the FBI made after the September 11 attacks,” said FBI spokesman Michael P. Kortan, the report “did not uncover even a single instance where the FBI targeted any group or any individual based on the exercise of a First Amendment right.”
He added that although Fine had “disagreed with a handful of the FBI’s investigative determinations over the course of six years,” the inspector general “has not recommended any significant modifications to the FBI’s authority to investigate criminal conduct or national security threats.”
As we noted earlier, thank goodness Fredo, Ashcroft et al. can’t whitewash the whole thing. Imagine the cynicism.
DrLeoStrauss says
FBI complains about being forced to suspend GPS surveillance. Has about 3,000 devices.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/fbi-chief-court-ruling-forces-bureau-to-use-agent-surveillance-instead-of-gps-in-some-probes/2012/03/07/gIQAX84KxR_story.html
DrLeoStrauss says
@Sam Lowry
Agency domestic activities, well you’re right, that horse done left the barn a while ago. On the plus side, the vertical integration intended with local LEOs with fusion centers and new nonsense ‘classification’ categories like ‘sensitive but unclassified’ to show ankle – alot of that integration effort depended on the ankle *and* federal homeland security grants.
Sam Lowry says
I guess the CIA was feeling a little left out of the whole domestic spying game (complete with dubious legality). One step closer to becoming a full blown police/counter-intelligence state….
http://www.nbc12.com/story/15321022/with-cia-help-nypd-moves-covertly-in-muslim-areas
DrLeoStrauss says
Federal and state wiretaps are on the rise in 2011.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/063011-wiretaps.html?hpg1=bn
DrLeoStrauss says
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/opinion/19sun1.html?_r=2&hp
DrLeoStrauss says
New Bureau Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide to drop. Obama for once delivers change from Bush, fewer constraints.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/world/51992858-68/agents-fbi-search-bureau.html.csp
Dr Leo Strauss says
Item No. 11,247 on Ye Olde Domestic Surveillance . . .
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43208176/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times/
Dr Leo Strauss says
PATRIOT Act abuses? Doesn’t matter anyway. Only a liberal democracy would care.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/05/secret-patriot-act/
Dr Leo Strauss says
Lame even for them. FBI recovers stolen Ferrari then wrecks it when agent takes it for test spin. And USG refuses to pay for damage.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1390717/Ferrari-owner-driven-court-FBI-agent-seizes-vehicle-investigation-takes-test-spin-smashes-refuses-pay-750-000-damages.html
Dr Leo Strauss says
@Comment
This is an example of contractor absurdity we know about. Congressional and executive reluctance to oversee contracting all but ensures this episode is a tip of the iceberg. After all, who really cares $9 billion in cash just vanished?
Comment says
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-stoner-arms-dealers-20110316
Comment says
@Dr Leo Strauss Demented – Imagine being the g-man stuck in that task.
Dr Leo Strauss says
Obama Administration seeks FBI wiretapping to stop copyright infringement of streaming video. Seriously. FBI wiretaps.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20043421-281.html
Comment says
Btw – there are quite a lot of people who support tracking that guy just because his name.
Dr Leo Strauss says
The America you refer to, Comment, expired a long time ago.
Comment says
We’re not libertarian – but no President ever gives up any police/surv power. They all try to expand it. We think it’s the nature of power – Any sign of slackening or liberty giving serves to undermine the general presumption of the executive.
Not sure what can be done to get America back to Arcadia.
DrLeoStrauss says
Student who discovered GPS device on his car now suing FBI.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110304/10254213366/student-who-found-gps-device-his-car-due-to-reddit-comment-sues-fbi.shtml
Dr Leo Strauss says
Some people are surprised the Obama Administration’s DOJ permits FBI interception of domestic callers calling an overseas number without even bothering to request court authorization. They apparently did know Obama is asking for Patriot Act re-authorization even though House Dems and renegade Reps sandbagged it.
And the FBI’s activities are a diversion for other programs anyway. All one can do is remember a different America.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/02/11/108562/obama-assertion-fbi-can-get-phone.html
DrLeoStrauss says
Wyden spits into the wind seeking warrants for law enforcement to gain location ID.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110128/01424512872/senator-wyden-proposing-legislation-requiring-warrants-law-enforcement-to-get-device-location-info.shtml
DrLeoStrauss says
re the Bureau, reports of internal disciplinary action — your tax dollars at work.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/01/fbi_agent_threatened_to_release_sex_tape_with_reporter.php
Dr Leo Strauss says
That pesky 4th Amendment isn’t quite dead, yet, for the American Nomenklatura apparatchiks.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/12/fourth-amendment-email
DrLeoStrauss says
Bureau suspects Irving Kristol playing in the Soviet sandbox. Brezhnev’s heirs chatting up a mediocre Trotskyite. Talk about period of stagnation. Imagine the jenga enjoyed by all.
http://gawker.com/5703723/the-fbi-suspected-bill-kristols-dad-of-consorting-with-soviet-spies
Dr Leo Strauss says
re Hunter’s point, WaPo actually takes time to talk to people other than the Bureau to ask if ‘stings’ aren’t potentially manipulative entrapment. Those brave WaPo souls, asking the tough questions.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/us/politics/30fbi.html
Dr Leo Strauss says
Hunter, agree with you. We’re close to a vertically *and* horizontally (with the judiciary) integrated authoritarian mind set.
Hunter says
“Our adversarial jurisprudential system has not fallen so far that it accepts every government’s mere allegation as fact, yet.”
It hasn’t? I thought that was only the case when the government’s adversary was especially telegenic (or allied with some other faction of the government…). I guess my cynicism gets away with me sometimes.
Dr Leo Strauss says
Glenn Greenwald’s skeptical of the Bureau’s latest alleged thwarting of a terrorist plot in Portland at Salon.
http://bit.ly/eWrwML
He’s right that the Bureau’s track record warrants some healthy skepticism about its one-sided affidavit and media spash. In his comments section, a reader cited Pat Lang’s support for the Bureau.
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2010/11/good-work-by-the-fbi.html
The two positions aren’t incompatible. Lang evaluated the facts of a case he was read into, and determined for himself that the Bureau acted responsibly. His call in that one matter. A trier of fact ultimately should make that determination in every case. Our adversarial jurisprudential system has not fallen so far that it accepts every government’s mere allegation as fact, yet.
Dr Leo Strauss says
To grasp fully the hilarious ineptitude with the Bureau’s ‘Sentinel’ computerized case file system car wreck ($100 MM over budget, years late and not working), one should remember the Bureau and
Contractorare just building on the Bush-era FBI andOther Contractor’sclusterf*ck of computerization, ‘Trilogy’. That monument to inept management and contracting was over half a billion dollars right down the hole and years wasted. Never used. Scrapped.Start the comedy trail of tears here:
http://features.techworld.com/storage/1283/anatomy-of-an-it-disaster-how-the-fbi-blew-it/
Then, here’s Sentinel via
Contractorand *your* FBI wunderkind.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/20/AR2010102006754.html
As Bugs would note, these ‘maroons’ can’t pass an open book multiple choice test without cheating at all the way from the Assistant Director In Charge level on down. Now go re-read the CALEA links in this thread.
The wonder of it all . . .
Dr Leo Strauss says
The CALEA Mad Lib goes wide release.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/us/19wiretap.html
Comment says
This guy should form a new show with Sanchez
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QVzKihKiYI&feature=player_embedded
Comment says
When Clinton complained about the liberal media (was thinking of WaPo and their inaccurate Susan Schmidt stories in particular) a ways back – this was the kind of thing he was thinking about.
There is zero doubt that Todd would take GOP accusations of foreign funding of Dems like Gore and/or Clinton more seriously even with less proof. Yet, Todd is a Dem himself.
Comment says
When Todd frets that Axelrod is Joe McCarthy it is just so pathetic on so many levels – If Chuck Todd time traveled and ran into Joe McCarthy at the Sulgrave club, he would probably receive a kidney punch.
Comment says
High school social rankings far more elevated and substantial than this unintentionally hilarious essay:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-clemons/tom-donilon-the-last-best_b_757101.html
Comment says
Chuck Todd – symbol of the liberal media self defeat – demands proof that Rove contributions are foreign sourced. This is mush – Politics is not a courtroom and secret contributions are inherently suspicious. But Todd want’s to be on Rove’s rolodex. This should be a slam dunk. Money is fungible.
Dr Leo Strauss says
What’s left of the so-called ‘media class’ know one fundamental truth: there is no penalty for crossing Dems, and the Movement never forgets. For lifestyle maintenance and career viability reasons he has to show ankle.
At least Todd and that crowd should be pleased MSNBC chose the oddly Rumsfeldian ‘Lean Forward’ as a slogan. It could have been worse: ‘Courage’.
Comment says
Yes – the quote machine has aged well.
Hunter says
Oh man, the revived quote machine (which I’m really happy with, btw) just threw up that Heidegger quote about the proper political organization for the technological age… priceless!
Comment says
1st they cribbed exam answers, then they refused to buy miniaturized bugs, then they placed it under the car, then they went after the Baptists, but I was not a Baptist ..
Comment says
1st they cribbed exam answers, then they refused to buy miniturized bugs, then they placed it under the car, then they went after the Baptists, but I was not a Baptist ..
Dr Leo Strauss says
Like stink bugs . . .
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/10/fbi-tracking-device/all/1
If only we had a president who understood constitutional law. Who understood what ‘citizen’ and ‘civil servant’ meant. Because the difference between THIS and the lawlessness of the Warlord’s eight years . . .
Tbilisi says
@Dr Leo Strauss
Yep, sounds familiar!
I didn’t know that about the PATRIOT Act. But sounds right given what I’ve heard about DHS being a dusted-off version of a late-90s proposal from a certain large contractor.
RedPhillip says
@Dr Leo Strauss Good Doctor, it is both funny and pathetic. Graveyard humor it it’s best.
Dr Leo Strauss says
@Tbilisi
Yup, a replay of the 1990s for sure. Sat through hours in meetings with Jim Dempsey, Jerry Berman, and the then-white-hot former NSA General Counsel Stuart Baker then at Steptoe & Johnson, industry, etc. The apparatchiks will get their way, again.
From CALEA to encryption and export controls the apparatchiks largely prevailed, with industry peeling off from the privacy proponents caving. Industry funded CDT and other front groups to make the civil liberties arguments and help give them the patina of caring about the constitution.
In the end, industry really was mainly concerned that they get *reimbursed* for any switch or software redesign. With CALEA, there was concern about a technologically illiterate FBI in particular (NSA was far ahead anyway) would learn about software and networks and create a out of control wish list to task industry to fulfill their whims. Eventually the FBI technical illiterates got enough access to create the so-called government ‘punchlist’. Industry chose to fight here, mainly as a negotiating ploy to increase their reimbursement monies.
CDT was only one of many organizations and people involved but very much a source of energy. Jerry Berman is no shrinking violet ego-wise, and Jim is supremely confident that he is, er, confident, but they fought for legal principles. By and large industry (tech software somewhat less but included) used legal principles as a starting point with caving and getting re-imbursed an acceptable outcome.
Government won encryption even easier.
People forget that the PATRIOT ACT was actually cobbled together in basic form by the Reno Justice Department. It was a wish list for the careerist national security mediocrities and when 9/11 came along, they spell-checked it, updated it, threw the kitchen sink in, reformatted it all in a nice font, and got Pat Leahy to ram it through like a crazed teenager in heat.
Tbilisi, we know thanks to the recent DoJ Inspector General’s report that senior FBI management at the Assistant Director level are liars. The IG found the FBI is pervasively filled with lazy, incompetent careerists who have to cheat to take a 50 question, open book, multiple choice test that has no penalty for failure except to retake it. The only requirement was the FBI apparatchik had to certify they took the test themselves without assistance. And they cheated, printed out anwers and passed them around and then tried to lie to the Inspector General’s office about it.
The Washington Field Office head, Assistant Director Persichini, pushed out early for lying about his cheating on the open book, multiple choice test, and multiple ‘special (perhaps special needs?) agents in charge’ (SACs’) at WFO and in other field offices cheated, were caught lying about it and SACs Andrew Castor and Keith Bryars got their knuckles rapped. Charleston, S.C. was particularly filled with corruption.
What’s the sad point? The FBI is more concerned here about agents who lie and cheat on an open book multiple choice test with no consequences for failure than, oh, say untrammeled abuse and destruction of the U.S. Constitution. THAT’s their priorities.
The current Russian FSB (nee Second Main Directorate of the KGB) has a head start on the FBI. But the lazy liars, incompetents and self-serving apparatchiks here are sure giving catching up to the Second Main Directorate the old college try.
Behold the squalor of the American Nomenklatura ruling the lumpen masses in the name of ‘securing Amerikuh’.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/38230785/DIOG-Cheating-Exam-Investigation
It’d be funny if it wasn’t utterly pathetic.
Tbilisi says
Since we’re giving all our IP away for free, we might as well make it easy for everyone to spy on us too: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/fbi-backdoors/
RedPhillip says
I’ve been waiting for something like this to happen. ‘Material Support for Terrorism’ is a massively wide net, and while it has been used up to now against Islamic organizations and individuals, it was only a matter of time before the government used this handy gadget against other opponents of imperial policy. Had this law been in place 30 years ago, I could have been raided, perhaps charged on the basis of my organizing in support of Mandela and the ANC, or for supporting the FSLN in Nicaragua.
I despise my imperial masters, regardless of which gang colors they front.
Dr Leo Strauss says
http://www.startribune.com/local/103716104.html?