AWRM
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Defund The FBI! #178707
08/13/2022 12:48 PM
08/13/2022 12:48 PM
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 23,871
Tulsa
airforce Online content OP
Administrator
airforce  Online Content OP
Administrator
Senior Member
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 23,871
Tulsa
It used to be only those radical Libertarians saying this. Now it's everywhere, and it's growing.

Quote
Defund The FBI!

I & I Editorial Board
August 12, 2022

No, that headline’s not a joke. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, once so popular it had its own TV show solely dedicated to its heroics, has become a hyper-politicized, jackbooted bully that no longer serves the American people or the U.S. Constitution, which its employees are sworn to protect. It has become, instead, the intelligence arm and domestic enforcer of the far left.

Did we say defund? Yes. But we don’t mean simply to cut its funding, as leftists have disastrously proposed for police forces across the country. We mean tear down the entire rotting edifice of the FBI and replacing it with a new agency that respects the Constitution and holds itself accountable to all Americans, not just the woke far left.

The raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound may be the breaking point, but it’s only the latest FBI outrage. In recent years, under Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray, the Bureau has acted overtly to aid one political party over the other, demonizing those who oppose the Democrats’ “woke,” “progressive” agenda for America.

To be sure, this has been going on for some time now, starting with the FBI’s feeble investigation of Hillary Clinton’s home-based server, which intelligence sources say was almost certainly hacked by the Russians, the Chinese, or both. It was a clear violation of the law, exposing America’s secrets to our worst enemies.

And the FBI did nothing.

The FBI was also improperly involved in the 2016 presidential election, allowing itself to be used by the Democratic National Committee, the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democrat law firm Perkins Coie to launch a spying operation against Trump and his campaign.

The FBI initially denied any impropriety, naturally, but in fact sat up a “secure work environment” at Perkins Coie offices to coordinate its investigation with its Democrat allies.

At one point, in April 2016, FBI counterintelligence chief Peter Strzok brazenly told colleague (and lover) Lisa Page, “we’ll stop” Trump’s election. He subsequently launched “Crossfire Hurricane,” the investigation intended to sink Trump’s presidential hopes. Strzok called it the FBI’s “insurance policy.“

Of course, the whole “Russian collusion” theory spread by Clinton, her supporters and the FBI has proved to be a hoax. And the “dossier” upon which it was based turned out to be filled with lies and distortions.

The FBI’s flagrant and inexcusable behavior continued in 2017, after the attempted assassination of Republican congressional members by disgruntled Democratic activist and aging “Bernie Bro” James T. Hodgkinson.

The FBI downplayed the shooting, which nearly killed GOP Rep. Steve Scalise and wounded three others, suggesting it was just a failed “suicide by cop” attempt by a mentally imbalanced man. Only later did the FBI admit that Hodgkinson was, in fact, a terrorist bent on killing GOP politicians.

But the FBI didn’t learn its lesson.

During the 2020 election, as Bureau whistleblowers recently told Sen. Chuck Grassley, the FBI actively sought to quash the investigation into Hunter Biden’s lost laptop and his (and Joe “Big Guy” Biden’s) many questionable business deals during the election.

Why? To elect Joe Biden as president.

Meanwhile, the FBI looked the other way in 2020 as BLM and Antifa rioted during that long, hot summer in city after city, leading to an estimated 30 deaths and more than $2 billion in damage.

Terrorists? Nah, said the FBI, taking a knee.

But then came Jan. 6, the supposed “insurrection” that was really little more than a day-long temper tantrum thrown by assorted groups and individuals angry over voting irregularities that they believed cost Trump the 2020 election.

They caused little property damage and killed no one. Yet dozens have been jailed for months, and some already sentenced to years in prison after Garland’s Justice Department charged more than 120 with crimes.

Both the FBI and U.S. Capitol Police knew that some might commit violent acts. How? Despite denials, the FBI almost certainly had infiltrated all the groups involved.

Yet, during his February 2021 Senate confirmation hearings, Garland likened those who participated in the Jan. 6 riots and demonstrations to the KKK, and suggested the bogus “insurrection” was worse than the Oklahoma City bombings, which killed 168 people.

“From false accounts about the death of a Capitol Police officer and tales of an ‘armed insurrection’ to the fortification of Washington, D.C., political protest is being criminalized in a way that sets an extremely dangerous precedent for the future,” wrote Julie Kelly of American Greatness in March 2021.

That mindset is perfectly reflected in President Biden’s 2021 declaration that “terrorism from white supremacy is the most lethal threat to the homeland today.” That’s the template the FBI is now following.

We won’t get into the details of the FBI’s Trump raid. Many others have already done that.

But suffice it to say, the FBI “raid” was really just political theater meant to scare those of us who don’t agree with the Democrats’ attempts to destroy our republic. It’s the kind of thing that used to happen in the now-defunct USSR, and that still happens in China, North Korea, Venezuela and other hard-core socialist countries.

The message is out. If you disagree with this administration or its pervasive Deep State adherents, you’re the target. There’s no longer room for dissent.

We don’t blame just the FBI. The FBI should play a vital role in protecting our rights. But its actions recently have been so egregious, so blatant, that its many transgressions can no longer be ignored or tolerated. Its repeated violations of the spirit and letter of the Constitution’s guarantees of our rights are unacceptable.

Or, as historian Victor Davis Hansen recently noted, “The FBI is beyond redemption.”

We agree. So do many others, as polls show. Defund the FBI? At the very least, the next Congress must investigate its serious political misconduct, and hold those responsible accountable for its repeated misdeeds. And it’s clear we need to create an entirely new, de-politicized agency built from the ground up. This time, however, let’s make sure it truly respects America’s Constitution, the only real guarantor of our freedom.


Onward and upward,
airforce

Re: Defund The FBI! [Re: airforce] #178708
08/13/2022 01:41 PM
08/13/2022 01:41 PM
Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 3,323
Tyler County, TX
T
Texas Resistance Offline
Senior Member
Texas Resistance  Offline
Senior Member
T
Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 3,323
Tyler County, TX
Don't replace the FBI while the Demorats are in power or we will likely get a Gestapo secret police bureau with a baby murdering gook like Lon Tomohisa Horiuchi running it.
[Linked Image]


www.TexasMilitia.Info Seek out and join a lawful Militia or form one in your area. If you wish to remain Free you will have to fight for it...because the traitors will give us no choice in the matter--William Cooper
Re: Defund The FBI! [Re: airforce] #178712
08/14/2022 04:59 PM
08/14/2022 04:59 PM
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 23,871
Tulsa
airforce Online content OP
Administrator
airforce  Online Content OP
Administrator
Senior Member
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 23,871
Tulsa
"The FBI was designed to spy on Americans who disagreed with policy." Ron Paul, way back in 1988.



Onward and upward,
airforce

Re: Defund The FBI! [Re: airforce] #178714
08/14/2022 07:05 PM
08/14/2022 07:05 PM
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 23,871
Tulsa
airforce Online content OP
Administrator
airforce  Online Content OP
Administrator
Senior Member
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 23,871
Tulsa
Marjorie Taylor Greene is selling "Defund the FBI" t-shirts.

[Linked Image]

When the Libertarian Party starts selling them, I'll buy one.

Onward and upward,
airforce

Re: Defund The FBI! [Re: airforce] #178721
08/16/2022 01:38 PM
08/16/2022 01:38 PM
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 23,871
Tulsa
airforce Online content OP
Administrator
airforce  Online Content OP
Administrator
Senior Member
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 23,871
Tulsa
GOP calls for defunding the FBI are gaining steam. But where were they thirty years ago, when the FBI (under a Republican president) murdered a mother holding a baby in her arms at Ruby Ridge? Still, this is interesting.

Quote
...Driving the news: Dan Bolduc and Bruce Fenton, leading Republican Senate candidates in New Hampshire, said in a recent debate they believe the Department of Homeland Security and top agencies need to be significantly "reduced" and called for abolishing the FBI.

1. Anthony Sabatini, a leading primary candidate in Florida's 7th District, has long called to defund the FBI and tweeted on the night of the Mar-a-Lago search that Florida should "sever all ties with DOJ immediately" and arrest FBI agents on sight.

2. Tim Baxter, a candidate in New Hampshire’s 1st District, expressed support for abolishing the FBI in a debate on Saturday. Another candidate, Karoline Leavitt, called to "investigate, litigate and incarcerate them."

3. J.R. Majewski, the GOP nominee in Ohio's 9th District, says on his website's issues page: "I will fight to abolish all unconstitutional three letter agencies," including the CIA.

4. Sandy Smith, the GOP nominee in North Carolina’s 1st District, tweeted a poll with "Abolish the FBI" as one of the options.

Asked in a recent radio interview whether Republicans are "actually going to be willing" to defund the FBI, IRS and other agencies, Bo Hines, the Trump-endorsed GOP nominee in North Carolina's 13th District, responded: "Well, I mean we have to."

When his campaign was contacted for comment for this story, a spokesman provided a statement from Hines that said: "I fully support the men and women within these agencies that work tirelessly in good faith to keep our communities safe, but I do not support the political hacks that use these agencies as vessels to go after the American people."

The position also has been embraced by Texas GOP chair Matt Rinaldi and Reps. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who is selling "Defund the FBI" merchandise....


I hope they keep it up. I just think they're about fifty years too late to the party.

Onward and upward,
airforce

Re: Defund The FBI! [Re: airforce] #178741
08/19/2022 01:51 PM
08/19/2022 01:51 PM
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 23,871
Tulsa
airforce Online content OP
Administrator
airforce  Online Content OP
Administrator
Senior Member
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 23,871
Tulsa
The FBI's reputation has cratered. I disagree, they're not at the bottom yet. But they're certainly headed that way.

Quote
It is a familiar pattern: the Left sees an organization or institution that is widely respected, and takes it over. It then politicizes, degrades and misuses that institution. The predictable result is that the public regard formerly enjoyed by the institution is lost.

That is what has happened with the FBI. The Bureau once enjoyed near-universal respect, but in the wake of a series of scandals culminating in the Mar-a-Lago raid, Rasmussen finds the FBI’s favorability rating dropping to 50%, with 46% disapproving.

This is the most startling finding:

Quote
Roger Stone, an adviser to former President Donald Trump, has said there is “a group of politicized thugs at the top of the FBI who are using the FBI … as Joe Biden‘s personal Gestapo.” A majority (53%) of voters now agree with Stone’s statement – up from 46% in December – including 34% who Strongly Agree. Thirty-six percent (36%) disagree with the quote from Stone, including 26% who Strongly Disagree.


It seems shocking to say that the FBI is run by “politicized thugs” who have turned the bureau into “Joe Biden’s personal Gestapo,” but that is the way a little over half of all Americans now see the FBI. Nice going, James Comey and Christopher Wray!


Onward and upward,
airforce

Re: Defund The FBI! [Re: airforce] #178744
08/19/2022 09:07 PM
08/19/2022 09:07 PM
Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 3,323
Tyler County, TX
T
Texas Resistance Offline
Senior Member
Texas Resistance  Offline
Senior Member
T
Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 3,323
Tyler County, TX
Libertarian Party Calls For State & Local Governments To ‘Nullify The FBI’
August 19th 2022, 11:45 am
https://www.infowars.com/posts/libe...ate-local-governments-to-nullify-the-fbi

'The supply of power and water to their facilities should be halted immediately,' the party wrote.

America’s Libertarian Party published some fiery tweets on Friday, calling for the FBI to be dismantled with the help of state and local governments.

“It’s time to use the power of state and local government to #NullifyTheFBI,” the first post said. “State and local governments should withdraw all resources from the bureau and cease cooperation. The supply of power and water to their facilities should be halted immediately.”

https://twitter.com/LPNational/status/1560613257911668736?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1560613257911668736%7Ctwgr%5E3dd16b19b0f6c548e8f3992b67d1247b5d14cfc5%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.infowars.com%2Fposts%2Flibertarian-party-calls-for-state-local-governments-to-nullify-the-fbi%2F

The political party quoted James Madison who said federal overreach should be met with a “refusal to co-operate with officers of the union,” and states should “present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter.”

“No more Ruby Ridges. No more Wacos. No more COINTELPRO. America’s tolerance for the FBI’s thug-like tactics has run out. Taking our country back starts in our own neighborhoods,” the final post stated.

The party also deleted a tweet calling for state governments to “arrest and detain FBI agents intending to enforce unconstitutional, immoral, and unpopular laws.”

The bold remark was followed by a message saying, “All of this is perfectly legal and protected by Supreme Court precedent under the anti-commandeering doctrine (see: Printz v. United States).”

The FBI has long been controlled by globalist operatives and the recent raid of Donald Trump’s home has potentially removed the veil from the Deep State Swamp Creatures pulling the strings.

Also, don’t miss Darren Beattie and Tucker Carlson exposing the FBI’s Jan. 6th pipe bomb debacle.

[Linked Image]


www.TexasMilitia.Info Seek out and join a lawful Militia or form one in your area. If you wish to remain Free you will have to fight for it...because the traitors will give us no choice in the matter--William Cooper
Re: Defund The FBI! [Re: airforce] #178757
08/22/2022 03:04 PM
08/22/2022 03:04 PM
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 23,871
Tulsa
airforce Online content OP
Administrator
airforce  Online Content OP
Administrator
Senior Member
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 23,871
Tulsa
More from the Libertarian Party:

Quote
30 years ago today, the FBI executed an innocent woman holding her baby at Ruby Ridge, one day after US Marshals killed her teen son in cold blood.

The event epitomized the government’s reckless behavior, which still goes unchecked today.

Abolishing the FBI is the only solution to the madness.

Rest in Peace Sammy, Vicki, and Randy Weaver.


Onward and upward,
airforce

Re: Defund The FBI! [Re: airforce] #178770
08/24/2022 12:20 PM
08/24/2022 12:20 PM
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 23,871
Tulsa
airforce Online content OP
Administrator
airforce  Online Content OP
Administrator
Senior Member
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 23,871
Tulsa
More whistleblowers are saying the FBI is out of control.

Quote
We’ve reported on how whistleblowers have come forward reporting on the politicization of the FBI, including in regard to the Hunter Biden case, Trump matters, and domestic terrorism cases.

But now, even more whistleblowers are coming forth, revealing that the Bureau’s management is “out of control” in offices across the country.

Whistleblowers are complaining about a culture of “corruption, cover-ups and retaliation” against agents who are trying to expose it in offices in Miami, Salt Lake City, Buffalo, and Newark.

The complaints included allegations that supervisors forced agents to sign false affidavits, made up terrorism cases to falsely inflate their performance statistics, sexually harassed, or engaged in other sexual acts with a subordinate.


One of the whistleblowers — who said that superiors, including FBI Director Chris Wray, ignored her complaints about sexual harassment — also said that the “bureau suffers from a “mob-like mentality.”

Quote
“The FBI is completely out of control and its culture and structure needs to change. Not only is the political bias completely out of control and disgustingly obvious, the FBI knows they will not be held accountable for their illegal behavior and misconduct,” she said in a letter to Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican on the Judiciary Committee.


One of the other whistleblowers who worked in Buffalo said because the FBI leadership focused on the volume of cases, some supervisors falsely inflated numbers–like for terrorism cases–to help their performance reviews.

Quote
“You have to have so many terrorism cases per year in your office, or else you fail,” he said. “So they would come to us and say things like ‘Open up a case. I don’t care if it’s got merit or not. Just open it up. We only have nine, and we need 10 for me to pass.’”


Kurt Siuzdak who is representing some of the FBI whistleblowers, detailed even more.

Quote
“Every Thanksgiving and Christmas, there’s a number of field offices, and the SAC picks somebody for everybody to follow because it helps them with their metrics,” Mr. Siuzdak said. “So they pick somebody to scrutinize, often without merit from wherever, and that’s the bad guy you need to follow and put your assets on.”

Mr. Siuzdak said different field offices have different names for these holiday operations, such as “Turkey Day Terrorist” or “Thanksgiving Day Terrorist.”


That’s crazy, a waste of time and money, and so wrong. But it gets worse.

Siuzdak said that some of his clients were coerced to sign a false affidavit. That of course could potentially be a crime, if they were making a false representation to a judge and attesting to it.

That shows a very concerning problem in management, if they are coercing or forcing false affidavits. How prevalent is that?

It also raises a big glaring question, given the unprecedented FBI raid on President Donald Trump that they refuse to give the reason for, and perhaps explains why they don’t want the affidavit unsealed. Is the reason that they gave to the judge legitimate? Did they tell the judge that Trump had been cooperating with the government? Or did they make up some nonsense to be able to go in and grab whatever they wanted?

We already know the warrant was incredibly overbroad, not just allowing them to grab any document that was made during Trump’s presidency, but even any documents stored near the documents they wanted. On top of that, we then found out that the White House lied when they said they didn’t have any prior knowledge of the raid. Not only that, but the Biden White House was involved in it from the start, working directly with the Justice Department and National Archives to instigate the criminal probe into the alleged mishandling of documents.

Republicans are going to have a lot on their plate if they take back the House, to help clean out all the mess. But we must take it back, if we are going to fix any of this.


Let's get real. Republicans won't do crap to "fix" it. We need to elect Libertarians to abolish the FBI.

Onward and upward,
airforce

Re: Defund The FBI! [Re: airforce] #178773
08/25/2022 03:38 PM
08/25/2022 03:38 PM
Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 3,323
Tyler County, TX
T
Texas Resistance Offline
Senior Member
Texas Resistance  Offline
Senior Member
T
Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 3,323
Tyler County, TX
I posted this whole article becasue after 48 hours it goes behind a pay wall.

FBI Investigates Millions of Americans Without Warrants
Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola Fact Checked
August 24, 2022
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2022/08/24/fbi-mass-surveillance.aspx

Story at-a-glance

The 2022 annual transparency report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) reveals the FBI has been surveilling millions of American citizens — without warrants or proper cause
Between December 2020 and November 2021, the FBI scoured private emails, texts and other electronic communications of 3.4 million U.S. residents, without obtaining a single warrant. Between December 2019 and November 2020, just under 1.3 million Americans were surveilled in this manner
There’s also been a sharp uptick in the number of times government officials asked for the identity of individuals surveilled to be revealed, a practice known as “unmasking”
Supposedly, FBI agents were looking for signs of potential terrorist activity. They also sought to prevent hacking attacks. In the process, they violated the constitutional privacy rights of millions, and considering the hacking attacks that have occurred anyway, this mass surveillance doesn’t seem to be achieving its stated aim
Two attorneys and two journalists are suing former CIA director Mike Pompeo in Spanish High Court for illegally surveilling them and copying private data from their electronic devices and passports while they were visiting Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy. The agency is also listed as a defendant, for purposes of forcing them to expunge all collected records

In the aftermath of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI's) unprecedented August 8, 2022, raid1 on former president Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, many are starting to question the FBI's actions, not just in this case, but in a more general sense.

What's become clear through this raid is that the FBI has been weaponized to hunt down and neutralize political opposition. On the surface, Republicans appear to be the target, but more specifically, the target is really anyone who disagrees with and wants to stop what we now know is a global coup by an unelected technocrat elite.

The raid on the former president shows that no one is safe from government overreach (or more precisely, the overreach of a government captured by the globalist cabal). This is made all the more disturbing by the fact that the FBI has been surveilling millions of American citizens — without warrants or proper cause.

Public assurances aside, the agency has repeatedly been caught acting lawlessly (the FBI-infiltrated kidnapping plot of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer being just one of the more recent examples2), and that lawless behavior is a piece of evidence that suggests it's been captured by powers that do not have the welfare of American citizens at heart.
FBI Illegally Spies on Millions of Americans

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the FBI is violating Americans' privacy "on an enormous scale." As reported by Bloomberg,3 the 2022 annual transparency report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) reveals the FBI, between December 2020 and November 2021, scoured private emails, texts and other electronic communications of some 3.4 million U.S. residents, without obtaining a single warrant.

Between December 2019 and November 2020, just under 1.3 million Americans were surveilled in this manner. The report also notes there's been a sharp uptick in the number of times government officials asked for the identity of individuals surveilled to be revealed, a practice known as "unmasking."

Supposedly, FBI agents were looking for signs of potential terrorist activity and sought to prevent hacking attacks. But in so doing, they violated the constitutional privacy rights of millions, and considering the hacking attacks that have occurred anyway, this mass surveillance doesn't seem to be achieving its stated aim.
Privacy Rights Help Prevent Tyrannical Overreaches

While some say you have nothing to worry about if you're not doing anything wrong, that old adage has long since worn out because, again, we're dealing with an agency whose job it is to take out political opponents. You don't need to do anything illegal or criminal to be targeted for neutralization.

"Wrong-think" is now a "crime" in and of itself, so you better believe that privacy matters. You do not want the FBI to rifle through your personal correspondence. They will find something, some sentence, some idea, some opinion, with which to hang you, figuratively speaking.

Just look at Dr. Simone Gold. She's now serving a prison sentence over what amounts to medical opinion. She didn't do anything criminal or illegal. She's a political prisoner.

But by "political prisoner," I'm not exclusively referring to opponents of the Democrat Party. The true political opposition parties in this day and age are the technocratic Great Reset insiders (who have infiltrated all political parties) on one side, and the rest of us, who see the playbook and don't want to submit to their planned slave system, on the other.
Congress Must Protect Americans' Fourth Amendment Rights

In response to the ODNI's report, Ashley Gorski, a senior attorney with the ACLU's National Security Project stated:4

"Today's report sheds light on the extent of these unconstitutional 'backdoor searches,' and underscores the urgency of the problem. It's past time for Congress to step in to protect Americans' Fourth Amendment rights."

According to Bloomberg,5 the "authority" used to surveil Americans by the millions was Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). It's set to expire at the end of 2023, unless Congress renews it. Clearly, they shouldn't, as it's being grossly misused.

"Show me the man and I'll show you the crime," Lavrentiy Beria, Joseph Stalin's secret police chief, once said.6 Beria oversaw the expansion of Stalin's gulags for political dissidents, and bragged he could prove criminal conduct by anyone, anywhere. Framing innocent people is nothing new. It's not even all that difficult, especially if you have access to everything a person has ever said, thought or done.
CIA Sued Over Fourth Amendment Rights Violations

The Central Intelligence Agency is also making headlines, and for the same disturbing reason. As reported by Newsweek,7 the CIA illegally surveilled and recorded Julian Assange's conversations with American attorneys, journalists, doctors, celebrities and at least one U.S. Congressman while holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid extradition.

The CIA also obtained copies of visitors' passports, photographs of the IMEI and SIM card numbers in their cell phones (which allows devices to be identified on any network and are essential for surveillance targeting), as well as copies of the private data from their phones and other electronic devices brought into the embassy.

Passports and electronic devices had to be handed over to security guards and could not be brought inside. Unbeknownst to visitors, everything was then meticulously photographed and copied in their absence.

As a criminal attorney, I don't think that there's anything worse than your opposition listening in on what your plans are ... I don't understand how the CIA ... could think that they could do this. It's so outrageous that it's beyond my comprehension. ~ Margaret Kunstler, Attorney

Four Americans who visited Assange are now suing then-CIA director Mike Pompeo in Spanish High Court, seeking damages for violation of their Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure. The agency as a whole is also listed as a defendant, for the purpose of forcing them to expunge all collected records.

Plaintiffs include two New York attorneys on Assange's legal team, and two American journalists who interviewed him. Lead plaintiff, attorney Margaret Kunstler, told Newsweek:8

"As a criminal attorney, I don't think that there's anything worse than your opposition listening in on what your plans are, what you intend to do, on your conversations. It's a terrible thing. It's gross misconduct. I don't understand how the CIA ... could think that they could do this. It's so outrageous that it's beyond my comprehension."

Attorneys aren't the only ones bound by confidentiality. Doctors and journalists also rely on confidential relationships with patients and sources, so the arbitrary copying of everything on their private devices is a gross privacy violation against any number of individuals they may have had interactions with.
CIA Crossed Lines That Shouldn't Be Crossed

The four plaintiffs are also seeking damages against UnderCover Global, a Spanish security firm that provided embassy protection. The lawsuit was launched after whistleblowers from the firm came forward, admitting they illegally spied on Assange's visitors, copied their passports and electronic devices, and then passed everything on to the CIA.

UnderCover Global CEO David Morales allegedly was being paid "substantial sums of money to share surveillance data with the CIA." According to Newsweek:9

"Legal experts, including a former senior intelligence official, told Newsweek that the allegations in the lawsuit, if proven, show the CIA crossed lines drawn to protect American citizens from surveillance by overzealous intelligence agencies."

According to Tim Edgar, professor at Brown University and former deputy privacy and civil liberties officer for the ODNI, the copying of visitors' cell phone data is particularly difficult to defend.

"That seems to me like a very excessive amount of collection," he told Newsweek. "What's the expected intelligence value from that? It's a high bar to justify. If it's just everyone who visited Assange, then it's not like you have a specific reason to look at a particular phone."

During one visit, actress Pamela Anderson wrote down her email and Apple ID passwords to get help with technical security from Assange. A photograph of the slip of paper with her passwords and PIN numbers was given to the CIA.

This hardly seems justifiable from a national security standpoint. It smacks of perversion, really, and one wonders how many CIA agents have sifted through Anderson's private messages for no other reason than pure titillating entertainment.
Seizure of Privileged Material Makes Fair Trial Impossible

But getting back to more serious matters, the CIA's blanket data collection "may make it impossible for Assange to get a fair trial," attorney Richard Roth, another plaintiff in the lawsuit, told Newsweek. Making matters even worse, when Assange was arrested by British police in April 2019, the embassy turned over all of Assange's legal papers and computers to the U.S. Department of Justice. As noted by Roth:10

"When a federal prosecutor comes after a lawyer with a search warrant and seizes their devices, there are multiple layers of review and protection for privileged lawyer-client communications. None of that happened here. They just grabbed everything."

When done in accordance to law, a court will typically appoint a special master, someone who is independent from the prosecuting government, to make sure privileged communications, such as lawyer-client communication, are segregated from the communication handed over to the prosecution.
Alphabet-Soup Agencies and The Great Reset

Since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, we've seen ever more egregious overreaches by government. Intelligence agencies have gone so far as to slap a "domestic terrorist" label on anyone who expresses an opinion that counters the narrative directed by the globalist cabal. This is why privacy rights must be protected at all costs.

In August 2021, former assistant secretary for Homeland Security Juliette Kayyem proposed putting all unvaccinated Americans on a no-fly list. Doctors who speak out against the medical tyranny that is COVID standard of care are being stripped of their medical licenses.

Global organizations such as the International Grand Committee on Disinformation (IGCD), which consists of "an international array of legislators, policy advisers, and other experts," are working together to end free speech worldwide, and every click, comment and online search can and will be used against you.

The digital identity they want to roll out depends on the same kind of intrusive mass surveillance the FBI and CIA have been caught doing, but covering every person on the planet, and without any legal barriers impinging on the kind of information they can gather about you.

In the end, if the technocratic cabal gets their way, you won't even be able to use a public toilet without a compliance passport giving you the green-light.11 That's already the case in China, as you can see in the video below.
Tell Congress to Rein in Out-of-Control Surveillance Powers

Surveillance powers have always been sold to us as something that will protect us. It's high time to realize we've been sold a lie. All the surveillance acts are, in fact, being used against us, and for all we know, that's what they were intended for all along.

After all, The Great Reset didn't emerge out of nothing, overnight. It's a plan that's been in the works for decades, and the digital surveillance network required for it to function as an "open-air prison" has been built up around us for just as long.

We were fooled into thinking it was for our own good, for our protection, but it's not. It's to ensure we won't have the ability to rebel when the final pieces of the Great Reset plan are put into place.

As suggested by Gorski with the ACLU, we need to urge members of Congress to step in and revoke or severely restrict government surveillance powers, and reaffirm the absolute supremacy of the U.S. Bill of Rights. These are rights that cannot be taken from us, come hell or high water — or deep state billionaires with egos the size of Mount Everest.

The way things look, many government agencies — including the FBI and CIA — also need to be dismantled, and only put back together if absolutely necessary, and if so, in new, more limited forms with greater public oversight and more checks and balances.

Make no mistake, this is the highest-stakes game in human history. We're facing nothing short of the enslavement of all of humankind, and our intelligence agencies are proving — through their questionable, biased and often lawless actions — which side they're really on.


www.TexasMilitia.Info Seek out and join a lawful Militia or form one in your area. If you wish to remain Free you will have to fight for it...because the traitors will give us no choice in the matter--William Cooper
Re: Defund The FBI! [Re: airforce] #178926
09/19/2022 12:18 PM
09/19/2022 12:18 PM
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 23,871
Tulsa
airforce Online content OP
Administrator
airforce  Online Content OP
Administrator
Senior Member
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 23,871
Tulsa
The FBI called the veteran-led "American Contingency," a group that aids communities impacted by natural disasters, a "facilitator of domestic terror." They already knew it wasn't.

Quote
It seems increasingly likely that there is a core group of agents inside of the FBI that have grown tired of the overt politicization of the Bureau under the leadership of Christopher Wray and the direction of the Biden administration. Another whistleblower has reportedly come forward and presented information to members of Congress about the abuses taking place inside the FBI. Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio (R) received a complaint from someone inside the agency over the FBI’s designation of American Contingency, a veteran-led group that assists people in the wake of natural disasters, as being “facilitators of domestic terror.” And it was further revealed that the FBI already knew this wasn’t true, having previously investigated the group and found them to be on the up and up. (Yahoo News)

Quote
The FBI was accused of falsely designating a veteran-led emergency prevention organization and its founder as facilitators of domestic terror, according to a whistleblower complaint made public via a letter from the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee.

In the letter, ranking member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said the FBI associated American Contingency with domestic terrorism despite its own investigation proving otherwise in an effort to “advance a misleading political agenda.”

“American Contingency is a company founded by former U.S. servicemember Mike Glover, who has publicly rejected the FBI’s accusations that he is a terrorist and has described American Contingency’s charitable work on behalf of communities devastated by natural disasters,” Jordan said in the letter addressed to FBI Director Christopher Wray.


For whatever reason (and we could certainly speculate what it was), the FBI opened an investigation into Mike Glover and American Contingency in 2020. They looked into his military service record and even his military disability benefits. They investigated the activities of his organization. Was it a coincidence that all of this took place while Joe Biden was locking up the nomination and running for President? Glover made some social media posts disapproving of some of Joe Biden’s proposed policies, but that was apparently about it.

And what did the FBI find? They concluded that Mike Glover was “a decorated veteran of the United States” whose military record and frequent social media posts reflect his “patriotism for the United States.” They further concluded that Glover “desires to assist Americans in preparing themselves for catastrophic events and not to overthrow the United States Government.”

So the FBI knew all of this, and yet they kept the “domestic terrorism” tag attached to his group anyway. You should be starting to detect a pattern here. Joe Biden has repeatedly stated that “white supremacists” or “MAGA Republicans” and “domestic terrorists” are the greatest threat the country faces. The problem is, the supply of actual conservative domestic terrorists massively lags behind the demand for them inside the White House. So Christopher Wray appears to be doing his level best to invent some just to make Biden’s claims look less far-fetched.

Jordan also introduced the FBI’s “Domestic Terrorism Symbols Guide.” The “symbols” that the agency seeks out to investigate domestic terror targets online include “#2a,” which represents the second amendment. Also on the list were the “Betsy Ross Flag” and the yellow “Gadsden Flag.” He ordered Christopher Wray to produce “a full and complete explanation as to why the FBI’s Domestic Terrorism Strategic Unit did not include symbols, images, phrases, events, and individuals about left-wing violent extremism.”

For more on what the FBI has been up to, check out this report of a woman from New Jersey who was never anywhere near Washington on January 6, but had the FBI show up at her door one morning. They demanded her private communications and said they were there because of “an anonymous tip” that she had been part of the Capitol Hill riot. Isn’t the general approach of the FBI to learn of possible crimes that may have been committed and conduct an investigation into potential suspects to find evidence before they show up to roust them out of their beds? Apparently, that’s not the case since Joe Biden took over.

Let’s hope that more whistleblowers come forward and a way is found to get rid of Wray and clean house at the FBI. The entire Bureau has turned into a dangerous farce at this point.


Onward and upward,
airforce

Re: Defund The FBI! [Re: airforce] #178955
09/26/2022 06:15 PM
09/26/2022 06:15 PM
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 23,871
Tulsa
airforce Online content OP
Administrator
airforce  Online Content OP
Administrator
Senior Member
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 23,871
Tulsa
FBI whistleblower: Jan. ^ defendants rights are being abused, SWAT teams are used for misdemeanors, and domestic terrorism statistics are being falsified.

Quote
An FBI whistleblower has reported to the Office of Special Counsel that he believes the bureau and Justice Department are violating the constitutional rights of Jan. 6 defendants, falsifying statistics on domestic extremism and misusing SWAT teams to make misdemeanor arrests, according to a copy of the complaint reviewed by Just the News.

Special Agent Stephen M. Friend, who works for the FBI in Florida and serves as a SWAT team member, told the main federal whistleblower office in Washington he had an "exemplary" work record since he joined the bureau in 2014 and even won awards but was suspended in recent days after he began raising concerns about the FBI's and DOJ's conduct in the Jan. 6 investigation.

"I believed the investigations were inconsistent with FBI procedure and resulted in the violation of citizens' Sixth and Eighth Amendment rights," Friend wrote. "I added that many of my colleagues expressed similar concerns to me but had not vocalized their objections to FBI Executive Management."

The FBI national press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent on Friday.

Friend said one of his many concerns is that the FBI is using SWAT teams to arrest Jan. 6 defendants facing misdemeanor charges, violating the bureau's Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide and creating a potentially unsafe encounter.

"I responded that it was inappropriate to use an FBI SWAT team to arrest a subject for misdemeanor offenses and opined that the subject would likely face extended detainment and biased jury pools in Washington D.C.," Friend wrote in his whistleblower complaint. "I suggested alternatives such as the issuance of a court summons or utilizing surveillance groups to determine an optimal, safe time for a local sheriff deputy to contact the subjects and advise them about the existence of the arrest warrant."

The agent said when he suggested alternatives for arresting suspects in minor Jan. 6 cases one of his bosses "told me that FBI executive management considered all potential alternatives and determined the SWAT takedown was the appropriate course of action."

Friend said he believes the Jan. 6 investigation has involved "overzealous charging by the DOJ and biased jury pools in Washington D.C." and that the heavy-handed tactics smacked of prior FBI mistakes like the Ruby Ridge tragedy in the 1990s.

Friend also confirmed allegations first raised by Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, that the FBI field office in Washington D.C. was opening Jan. 6 cases in other field offices across the country, creating a false data trail suggesting a nationwide problem with domestic violent extremism when in fact the cases all stemmed from the Capitol riot in the nation's capital.

Friend said he was assigned Jan. 6 investigations for Florida and that one consequence of the data manipulation is that agents in field offices across the country are being listed as case agents for search and arrest warrants for subjects they actually had not investigated.

"There are active criminal investigations of J6 subjects in which I am listed as the 'Case Agent,' but have not done any investigative work," Friend wrote in the complaint. "Additionally, my supervisor has not approved any paperwork within the file. J6 Task Force members are serving as Affiants on search and arrest warrant affidavits for subjects whom I have never investigated or even interviewed but am listed as a Case Agent."

Another consequence, Friend said, is that agents are being told to deprioritize other investigations of serious crimes like child sex exploitation.

"I was also told that child sexual abuse material investigations were no longer an FBI priority and should be referred to local law enforcement agencies," he wrote.

In an interview Friday, Jordan confirmed his office has had contact with Friend and that he expressed concerns about the deployment of FBI SWAT teams for misdemeanor cases.

"There's other ways to do this, in this agent's assessment of things, and he wanted to let our office know that," Jordan told Just the News. "Again, I guess you step back and think of it for a second. There were other ways to deal with President Trump. I mean, for goodness sake.

"You had Joe Biden's Justice Department raid the home of a former president, take the phone of a sitting member of Congress, call half the country fascists and extremists," he added.


Onward and upward,
airforce

Re: Defund The FBI! [Re: airforce] #178964
09/29/2022 02:51 PM
09/29/2022 02:51 PM
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 23,871
Tulsa
airforce Online content OP
Administrator
airforce  Online Content OP
Administrator
Senior Member
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 23,871
Tulsa
30 ex-FBI agents are standing by suspended FBI whistleblower. It's getting harder and harder to ignore. Long, but worth posting in full.

Quote
Thirty former FBI agents, including a retired deputy assistant director, head of counterterrorism and five SWAT team members, have spoken out publicly in support of suspended FBI whistleblower Stephen Friend.

Their heartfelt messages, obtained exclusively by The Post, show a deep and widespread anguish about the politicization of the FBI.

“It’s time to stop the FBI from being the enforcer of a political party’s ideology,” says Ernie Tibaldi, a retired agent from San Francisco. “We need to re-establish the FBI as the apolitical and independent law enforcement entity that it always was.”

He expressed gratitude to Friend “for having the courage to stand up to the corruption that has taken over the leadership of the FBI.”

Many former agents hailed Friend, a SWAT team member in Florida, as a “hero” after he was punished for refusing to participate in what he regarded as unnecessarily heavy-handed SWAT raids over Jan. 6 misdemeanors.

In his whistleblower complaint to the Department of Justice inspector general, Friend alleged that the FBI has been manipulating case-file management in order to falsely inflate the threat of domestic terrorism, and using unconstitutional excessive force against political dissenters.

‘Moral courage’

Terry Turchie, former deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, describes Friend as “a model example of what FBI agents nationwide should be.”

“Moral courage, leadership in the face of pressure, and true to the Oath of Office FBI agents take to defend the United States Constitution and protect America and its citizens.

“I am beyond proud to offer him my support in the decisions he had to make.”

Turchie, who led the Unabomber task force, says he didn’t even use a SWAT team in 1996 to arrest Theodore Kaczynski, a violent domestic terrorist who had killed three people and injured 23 others.

“No real FBI agent would defend the position of using SWAT teams to arrest non-violent senior citizens and others with political opinions not currently tolerated by this administration, compounded by the idea that many of these cases involve misdemeanor criminal charges.

“This activity actually generates tension in communities and increases the potential for tragic results and injuries to FBI agents and citizens.”

“I was involved in numerous arrests where we never used any SWAT teams,” says retired Special Agent David Baldovin, who served from 1969 to 2000, including 25 years in SWAT.

“The current use — or should I say abuse — of bureau SWAT teams has been outrageous.”

Baldovin expressed thanks to Friend “for having the courage to say ‘hell, no’ to the current bunch of FBI bureaucrats and tyrants.”

“They do not exemplify Fidelity, Bravery and Integrity, but you, sir, certainly do …

“The SWAT colleagues of yours who agree to participate in these police state tactics are doing the same thing as those in Germany who participated in war crimes. ‘Only following orders,’ right?”

Another SWAT member, retired Special Agent Bob Fricke, who served from 1987 to 2008, says: “When I see the FBI using extreme SWAT tactics on elderly and other citizens who pose no physical threat, it makes me sick. It has to be purely political …

“I participated in many searches authorized by legally obtained search warrants … [All] included serious felonies. The only time I recall participating in a pre-dawn raid in which we all wore body armor and needed SWAT team … assistance involved an extremely violent motorcycle gang …

“I believe Special Agent Friend is an American hero. He is a shining example of what I attempt to inculcate in my students, honor above self.

“Our founding fathers wanted people of high moral character to serve the American people. It is good to know that people such as Special Agent Friend still exist. May God protect him and his family.”

Former Special Agent Brian Shepard, who also served in SWAT, had this message for Friend: “I highly commend your courage! I am standing with you all the way.”

In a 30-year career in law enforcement, SWAT team member Greg Dillon served in the FBI just five years to 1990, before he, too, was forced to become a whistleblower. His book, “The Thin Blue Lie: An Honest Cop vs The FBI,” is a searing account of falsified affidavits, corruption, cover-ups and retaliation.

‘A brave stand’

“I served on SWAT teams in the Alexandria Division and the Washington Field Office. In state service, I served as a supervisor in a Fugitive Unit and later in a Gang Unit. Rarely were SWAT teams used to effect an arrest; those rare circumstances were reserved for career criminals with a history of violence, those known to resist arrest, or suspected of being heavily armed.

“I applaud Steven Friend for adhering to his moral compass and taking a brave stand few are willing to make. Hopefully, his courage will inspire other colleagues to step forward in support.”

Gary Karns, another former SWAT team member, said Friend’s actions were “an act of patriotism. To stand by your principles during these times is the honorable and right thing to do. God Bless you.”

Former Special Agent Dewanna Jackolski was damning about the current state of the bureau: “FBI Agents pledged to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. [We] did not pledge unquestioning loyalty to any supervisor, director, president or political party.

“The oath does not state that we are to obey orders if those orders are being used to persecute individuals who disagree with the actions and policies of the politicians in power. There comes a time and place where our conscience, morality and humanity demand that we speak out and condemn the actions of this FBI.”

Urey Patrick, a supervisory special agent who served in the FBI from 1973 to 1996, says: “The FBI has mutated over the years. [When I joined, it] was an independent investigative agency essentially devoid of political partisanship, subordinate to but not subservient to the DOJ … Since then, it has inexorably devolved into just another supplicant agency doing the bidding of whatever political regime is in control of the DOJ.

“I don’t know if that is irreparable or not, but I do know that, if there is to be a restoration of FBI integrity, honor and calling to duty, it will be only because of men and women like you [Friend]. For what it is worth, I am with you … in any way I can be — as are countless others.”

Retired FBI agent Steve Nash kept it short and sweet: “If no one speaks up, evil wins. I support the truth.”

‘A police force for the Dems’

Terry Turchie, the FBI’s first head of counterterrorism, and a retired front-line agent of almost 30 years, feels it is his moral duty to support Friend, and has been contacted by dozens of current and former agents wanting to help.

Serving agents with whom he has been in contact “believe the FBI is wrong to be doing these things, but simply are fearful of speaking up for now.”

Turchie points out that the FBI has a long tradition of whistleblowers. In the past, FBI agents of integrity “did attempt to fight back” to stop the bureau abusing its powers.

After 9/11, for instance, FBI employees, including the management of the New York Field Office, sounded the alarm over the abuse of national security surveillance powers, warning then-Director Robert Mueller that the bureau “should not be opening counterterrorism investigations based solely and exclusively on National Security Agency intercepts of conversations of US citizens,” says Turchie.

“Mueller rejected that advice.”

In 2013, when Mueller retired, hundreds of FBI employees signed a letter to incoming Director James Comey, warning him about “political bias and political compromise of the FBI,” and saying that Mueller had led the bureau in the “wrong direction … as a result of its transformation from a law enforcement to an intelligence organization.”

Comey did not even acknowledge that he had received the letter and the FBI has continued down the same ill-fated path to this day, with current Director Christopher Wray “doubling down on that course.”

“The FBI has been collapsed into nothing more than a police agency for the Democratic Party,” says Turchie. “Many of us feel that over the decades [we have seen] the complete compromise of the bureau.”

More than 20 FBI whistleblowers have come forward to Republican members of Congress in recent months, and Turchie says those numbers will grow.


Onward and upward,
airforce

Re: Defund The FBI! [Re: airforce] #178965
09/29/2022 11:36 PM
09/29/2022 11:36 PM
Joined: Jun 2019
Posts: 93
Heart of Texas
cavelamb Offline
Member
cavelamb  Offline
Member
Joined: Jun 2019
Posts: 93
Heart of Texas


.
for the ashes of his fathers
and the temples of his gods
.
Re: Defund The FBI! [Re: airforce] #178967
09/30/2022 10:24 AM
09/30/2022 10:24 AM
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 23,871
Tulsa
airforce Online content OP
Administrator
airforce  Online Content OP
Administrator
Senior Member
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 23,871
Tulsa
The FBI is allegedly "purging" conservative employees and retaliating against whistleblowers. That's according to House Judiciary Committee Rep. Jim Jordan (R - Ohio), so take it for what it's worth. But it does fit with other reports.

Quote
The FBI is allegedly engaging in a "purge" of employees with conservative viewpoints and retaliating against whistleblowers who have made protected disclosures to Congress by revoking security clearances, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee Rep. Jim Jordan told Fox News Digital.

Jordan, R-Ohio, said that more than a dozen FBI whistleblowers have come to him and Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee with allegations of misconduct within the FBI.

Jordan and Republicans have been investigating "serious allegations of abuse and misconduct within the senior leadership of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation."

Jordan, in a letter exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital, and written to FBI executive assistant director of the Human Resources branch Jennifer Moore, the congressman says he has received information of retaliation against FBI employees who have confidentially reported alleged misconduct to Congress.

Representative Jim Jordan, a Republican from Ohio, speaks to the press in the Rayburn House Office building in Washington, D.C., on Friday, June 4, 2021. (Photographer: Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

"During the course of this investigation, we have received protected whistleblower disclosures that the FBI is engaging in a ‘purge’ of employees with conservative views by revoking their security clearances and indefinitely suspending these employees," Jordan wrote, noting that "many of the formal notices" for those personnel actions had been signed by Moore.

Jordan also wrote that he has information suggesting Moore has "retaliated against at least one whistleblower who has made protected disclosures to Congress."

That whistleblower, Jordan told Fox News Digital, shared information with the committee notifying them about the Justice Department’s efforts last fall to set up a threat tag label against parents to identify threats at school board meetings against faculty and to then "prosecute them when appropriate." ...


Read the whole thing at the link.

Onward and upward,
airforce

Last edited by airforce; 09/30/2022 10:25 AM.
Re: Defund The FBI! [Re: airforce] #178971
09/30/2022 10:39 PM
09/30/2022 10:39 PM
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 19,714
A 059 Btn 16 FF MSC
ConSigCor Online content
Senior Member
ConSigCor  Online Content
Senior Member
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 19,714
A 059 Btn 16 FF MSC
Federal Bureau Of Intimidation: The Government’s War On Political Freedom

Thursday, Sep 29, 2022 - 11:40 PM

Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

“In so many of the little places of everyday life in which life is lived out, somehow democracy doesn't exist. And one of the creeping hands of totalitarianism running through the democracy is the Federal Bureau of Investigation… Because why does the FBI do all this? To scare the hell out of people… They work for the establishment and the corporations and the politicos to keep things as they are. And they want to frighten and chill the people who are trying to change things.”—Howard Zinn, historian

Discredit, disrupt, and destroy.

That is how the government plans to get rid of activists and dissidents who stand in its way.

This has always been the modus operandi of the FBI (more aptly referred to as the Federal Bureau of Intimidation): muzzle anti-government sentiment, harass activists, and terrorize Americans into compliance.

Indeed, the FBI has a long history of persecuting, prosecuting and generally harassing activists, politicians, and cultural figures.

Back in the 1950s and ‘60s, the FBI’s targets were civil rights activists, those suspected of having Communist ties, and anti-war activists. In more recent decades, the FBI has expanded its reach to target so-called domestic extremists, environmental activists, and those who oppose the police state.

Back in 2019, President Trump promised to give the FBI “whatever they need” to investigate and disrupt hate crimes and domestic terrorism, without any apparent thought for the Constitution’s prohibitions on such overreach.

That misguided pledge sheds a curious light on the FBI’s latest nationwide spree of SWAT team raids, surveillance, disinformation campaigns, fear-mongering, paranoia, and strong-arm tactics.

For instance, just before dawn on Jan. 25, 2019, the FBI sent 29 heavily armed agents in 17 vehicles to carry out a SWAT-style raid on the Florida home of Roger Stone, one of President Trump’s longtime supporters. Stone, charged with a political crime, was taken away in handcuffs.

In March 2021, under the pretext of carrying out an inventory of U.S. Private Vaults, FBI agents raided 1400 safe deposit boxes in Beverly Hills, seizing “more than $86 million in cash as well as gold, jewelry, and other valuables from property owners who were suspected of no crimes.”

In April 2021, FBI agents raided Rudy Giuliani’s home and office, seizing 18 electronic devices. More than a year later, Giuliani has yet to be charged with any crimes.

In June 2022, Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official under the Trump Administration, was led out of his home in pajamas while federal law enforcement officials raided his home.

In the summer of 2022, FBI agents wearing tactical gear including body armor, helmets and camouflage uniforms and carrying rifles raided multiple homes throughout Little Rock, Ark., including a judge’s home.

In August 2022, more than a dozen FBI agents searched Mar-a-Lago, the winter home of Donald Trump.

And in September 2022, 25 to 30 armed FBI agents raided the home of an anti-abortion activist, pointing guns at the family and terrorizing the man’s wife and seven children.

Politics aside, the message is clear: this is how the government will deal with anyone who challenges its authority.

You’re next.


Unfortunately, while these overreaching, heavy-handed lessons in how to rule by force have become standard operating procedure for a government that communicates with its citizenry primarily through the language of brutality, intimidation and fear, none of this is new.

The government has been playing these mind games for a long time.

As Betty Medsger, an investigative reporter for The Washington Post, noted in 1971, the FBI was engaged in practices that had never been reported, probably were unconstitutional, and were counter to the public’s understanding of the agency’s purpose.

The objective: target anti-government dissenters for wide-scale harassment, widespread surveillance and intimidation in order to enhance their paranoia and make them think there was an “FBI agent behind every mailbox.”

Medsger, the recipient of stolen government files that provided a glimpse into the workings of the nation’s most powerful law enforcement agency, would later learn that between 1956 and 1971, the FBI conducted an intensive domestic intelligence program, termed COINTELPRO, intended to neutralize domestic political dissidents.

The explicit objective, according to one FBI memo: “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” perceived threats to the government’s power.

As Congressman Steve Cohen explains, “COINTELPRO was set up to surveil and disrupt groups and movements that the FBI found threatening… many groups, including anti-war, student, and environmental activists, and the New Left were harassed, infiltrated, falsely accused of criminal activity .”

Sound familiar? The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Those targeted by the FBI under COINTELPRO for its intimidation, surveillance and smear campaigns included: Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X, the Black Panther Party, Billie Holiday, Emma Goldman, Aretha Franklin, Charlie Chaplin, Ernest Hemingway, Felix Frankfurter, John Lennon, and hundreds more.

Among those most closely watched by the FBI was King, a man labeled by the FBI as “the most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country.” All told, the FBI collected 17,000 pages of materials on King.

With wiretaps and electronic bugs planted in his home and office, King was kept under constant surveillance by the FBI with the aim of “neutralizing” him. He even received blackmail letters written by FBI agents suggesting that he either commit suicide or the details of his private life would be revealed to the public. The FBI kept up its pursuit of King until he was felled by a hollow-point bullet to the head in 1968.

John Lennon, a vocal peace protester and anti-war activist, was another high-profile example of the lengths to which the Deep State will go to persecute those who dare to challenge its authority.

Lennon was singled out for daring to speak truth to power about the government’s warmongering, his phone calls monitored and data files illegally collected on his activities and associations.

For a while, at least, Lennon became enemy number one in the eyes of the U.S. government.

Years after Lennon’s assassination, it would be revealed that the FBI had collected 281 pages of files on him, including song lyrics.

J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI at the time, directed the agency to spy on the musician. There were also various written orders calling on government agents to frame Lennon for a drug bust. “The FBI’s files on Lennon … read like the writings of a paranoid goody-two-shoes,” observed reporter Jonathan Curiel.

As the New York Times notes, “Critics of today’s domestic surveillance object largely on privacy grounds. They have focused far less on how easily government surveillance can become an instrument for the people in power to try to hold on to power. ‘The U.S. vs. John Lennon’ … is the story not only of one man being harassed, but of a democracy being undermined.”

Indeed, all of the many complaints we have about government today—surveillance, militarism, corruption, harassment, SWAT team raids, political persecution, spying, overcriminalization, etc.—were present in Lennon’s day and formed the basis of his call for social justice, peace and a populist revolution. As Adam Cohen of the New York Times points out, “The F.B.I.’s surveillance of Lennon is a reminder of how easily domestic spying can become unmoored from any legitimate law enforcement purpose. What is more surprising, and ultimately more unsettling, is the degree to which the surveillance turns out to have been intertwined with electoral politics.”

The Church Committee, the Senate task force charged with investigating COINTELPRO abuses in 1975, echoed these concerns about the government’s abuses:

“Too many people have been spied upon by too many Government agencies and too much information has been collected. The Government has often undertaken the secret surveillance of citizens on the basis of their political beliefs, even when those beliefs posed no threat of violence or illegal acts on behalf of a hostile foreign power.”

The report continued:

“Groups and individuals have been harassed and disrupted because of their political views and their lifestyles. Investigations have been based upon vague standards whose breadth made excessive collection inevitable. Unsavory and vicious tactics have been employed—including anonymous attempts to break up marriages, disrupt meetings, ostracize persons from their professions, and provoke target groups into rivalries that might result in deaths. Intelligence agencies have served the political and personal objectives of presidents and other high officials.”

Fifty years later, we’re still having this same debate about the perils of government overreach.

For too long now, the American people have allowed their personal prejudices and politics to cloud their judgment and render them incapable of seeing that the treatment being doled out by the government’s lethal enforcers has remained consistent, no matter the threat.

The lesson to be learned is this: whatever dangerous practices you allow the government to carry out now, rest assured, these same practices can and will be used against you when the government decides to set its sights on you.

All of the excessive, abusive tactics employed by the government and its henchmen today will eventually be meted out on the general populace.

At that point, when you find yourself in the government’s crosshairs, it will not matter whether your skin is black or yellow or brown or white; it will not matter whether you’re an immigrant or a citizen; it will not matter whether you’re rich or poor; it will not matter whether you’re Republican or Democrat; and it certainly won’t matter who you voted for in the last presidential election.

At that point—when you find yourself subjected to dehumanizing, demoralizing, thuggish behavior by government bureaucrats who are hyped up on the power of their badges and empowered to detain, search, interrogate, threaten and generally harass anyone they see fit—remember you were warned.

Frankly, as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we are long past the point where we should be merely alarmed.

These are no longer experiments on our freedoms.

These are acts of aggression by a government that is no friend to freedom.


"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
Re: Defund The FBI! [Re: airforce] #178973
10/02/2022 03:02 PM
10/02/2022 03:02 PM
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 23,871
Tulsa
airforce Online content OP
Administrator
airforce  Online Content OP
Administrator
Senior Member
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 23,871
Tulsa
Jason Morgan, points out that it is probably unrealistic to simply defund the FBI. Reluctantly, I think he's probably right - at least until we finally elect some Libertarians. But we can limit the scope of the FBI, and one way to do that is to vacate all FISA rulings. it's not a bad idea. Here's his article at the Mises Institute.

Quote
The FBI’s raid on President Donald J. Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago residence on August 8, 2022, was, as many FBI critics have said, “unprecedented.” Clearly the FBI is out of control (something Mises readers have known for a very long time). It never targets presidents, and the fact that it’s starting to do so is supposed to indicate that the FBI has strayed from its mandate and is now entering the realm of political gamesmanship.

The logic of this argument is untenable, however. The very fact that the FBI typically doesn’t go after commanders-in-chief, current or former, is proof that the FBI is political. It makes political choices about which crimes (or noncrimes, including the FBI’s favorite, “process crimes”) to investigate and about which criminals (or noncriminals) to harass.

It would take a very, very long time to list the gross injustices in which the political hacks at the FBI have always specialized. It would take even longer to list the things powerful people in the American government have done that have led to precisely zero FBI raids or investigations of any kind. I will spare the reader, noting only that had you or I done any of those things, we would be in prison.

To put it even more simply, the question whether the FBI is political or not can be answered in three words: Operation Crossfire Hurricane.

The debate over the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago ambush, and whether this means the FBI is becoming politicized, is a waste of time. Let us instead use this moment of heightened scrutiny of the born-unconstitutional FBI to focus on a much more central concern: FISA courts.

The Foreign Intelligence Service Act (FISA) of 1978 set up secret courts. These courts are the procedural puppets of the Department of Justice, empowered to issue warrants for the clandestine collection of “foreign intelligence” (read: everyone’s information everywhere) by unconstitutional intelligence agencies such as the CIA and federal police brigades such as the FBI. FISA courts (called Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courts, or FISCs) are essentially star chambers, with the difference that whereas the Star Chamber often operated in defiance of other courts, FISCs, and FISA, have been held constitutional by non-FISC judicial decisions in the United States.

Not that it matters anyway: FISCs do whatever the hell they want, no matter what the Constitution or other judges say. The lawlessness of FISCs is therefore more egregious than the Star Chamber’s ever was.

There is a great irony in this, beyond the American government’s obvious use of the United States Constitution to do unconstitutional things. What is truly ironic is that FISA was passed as a response to the imperial presidency of Richard Nixon. Nixon argued that things are legal if presidents do them (something, let us remember, with which the FBI agreed until 2016). After 9/11 and the Patriot Act, and the general throttling of American freedoms in pursuit of the “war on terror,” questioning the legitimacy of the FISA court became tantamount to announcing one’s membership in al-Qaeda. Presidents, from George W. Bush onward, played up FISA courts as partners in “keeping America safe.” Even Trump threw the FISA crowd a bone.

But this does nothing to justify FISA, which remains patently unconstitutional. FISA courts are even more unconstitutional on their best day than the FBI is on its worst. Put simply the FBI needs a warrant from a court, however staged, to raid your home, read your mail, or wiretap your phone. These acts are violations of the Fourth Amendment at the very least, which is bad enough. But the fact that a judge signs off on the shredding of the Fourth Amendment under color of “law” is even more dangerous than the goons’ executing the phony warrant. The FBI is therefore, in many ways, a symptom of the unconstitutional rot in the justice system, a rot which stinks strongest whenever a FISA court is in session.

There’s a deeper concern as well. The basic structure of the American government is breaking down. The United States nominally has three branches of government, and those are supposed to share and limit power through mutual antagonism. In 1978, the legislative branch, sensing that the executive branch was becoming too strong, brought in the judicial branch to do its checks-and-balances stuff. This was like bringing in mongooses to control snakes, only to later find that the mongooses have gone feral. The judicial branch gradually grew into the tyrannical power it had been given and now lords it over both the executive and the legislative branches.

It does this by means of FISCs and the FBI, the Department of Justice’s private stasi.


There is little hope that a judicial system so mired in intellectual corruption will right itself. One wishes for a patriot in a black robe to do the right thing and throw all cases out of court that include any “evidence” obtained by means of illegal FISA warrants, but, well, dream on. There is even less hope that the Congress, which created the FISA monster in the first place and then pledged its allegiance to it after 9/11, will act for freedom. And if you’re waiting for the executive branch as an institution to help, then please let me introduce you to Messrs. Garland, Barr, Comey, Mueller, Strzok, McCabe, and Wray.

The last hope is the next president. In addition to declassifying everything (see my earlier article at Mises), he or she must pardon everyone ever convicted in any American court on grounds even indirectly related to any FISA warrant. (The list is very long.) The next president must also publish the names of everyone in the federal government who applied for, authorized, or executed any FISA warrants, so that victims can file civil motions seeking damages.

We go to the mat, in other words, or we lose the whole tournament. Either the next president declares war on the rest of the executive branch, and also on the legislative and the judicial branches, or the gestapo rules us all.


The war against liberty in America is very real, and it has been raging for a very long time. The latest FBI raid is simply that—the latest FBI raid. The real problem is systemic. If American patriots don’t get serious, now, about restoring liberty in the United States, we and our descendants will be slaves of the perfectly legal tyranny of our “constitutional” bondage—all nice and signed off on by federal judges.


Onward and upward,
airforce

Re: Defund The FBI! [Re: airforce] #179111
11/06/2022 03:33 PM
11/06/2022 03:33 PM
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 23,871
Tulsa
airforce Online content OP
Administrator
airforce  Online Content OP
Administrator
Senior Member
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 23,871
Tulsa
The FBI will not be forgiven after Tuesday. Amnesty? I don't think so. Not this time.

Quote
It is said that towards the end his life as he sank into dementia, Maurice Ravel was tormented by the theme from Bolero playing over and over in his head. I would not be surprised to hear that Christopher Wray, head of America’s Staatspolizei (also known as the FBI) is suffering from a similar torment as the theme from the movie Jaws plays over and over in his noggin.

In fact, I suspect that John Williams’s minatory masterpiece is playing at Democratic redoubts all across the country. Merrick Garland hears it, as do Raphael Warnock, Tim Ryan, Mark Kelly, Catherine Cortez Masto, Katie Hobbs and Gretchen Whitmer. I decline to speculate about the music bouncing around in John Fetterman’s head, but I know it is loud and distressing. As one commentator noted, Tuesday’s red wave in the midterm elections is going to be like the red elevator scene in The Shining. I had to look that one up but, yep, it seems like an appropriate metaphor for what is about to happen.Some hapless scribe called Emily Oster recently wrote an article for the Atlantic called “Let’s Declare a Pandemic Amnesty.” That’s not bloody likely, Emily. The fallen angel Anthony Fauci and power-hungry apparatchiks throughout the land destroyed businesses, ruined nearly two years of education and socialization for children, made it impossible to visit your dying grandmother, go to the beach or to church or celebrate your favorite nephew’s birthday. Meanwhile, they forced millions to wear pointless masks and undergo experimental vaccinations whose safety, it now emerges, is highly questionable. The spectacle of the coercive power of the state being wielded against ordinary citizens going about their lives was frightening and outrageous.

“Amnesty” comes from the Greek word ἀμνηστία, whose primary meaning is “forgetfulness.” In common parlance, the word carries a suggestion of forgiveness as well. But neither forgetfulness nor forgiveness is on the docket. People are not about to forget what the politicians and their bureaucrats just did to them. And if they do not forget, neither will they forgive.

Nor are they going to forget what the FBI has done and is doing to us. The dawn raids against non-violent political rivals of the regime and pro-life activists, the nationwide dragnets to nab people who protested against the 2020 election, the spying on Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, manufacture of forged evidence in order to mobilize the awesome surveillance apparatus of the state against American citizens and undermine Trump’s presidency. The bill of indictment is long and damning. How long? More than a thousand pages in its first iteration, which GOP members of House Judiciary Committee dropped on Friday under the title “FBI Whistleblowers: What Their D...on of the FBI and Justice Department.”

What they indicate is an agency that has gone rogue and should be dismantled. This has been a theme sounding for more than a years now. Roger L. Simon, writing for the Epoch Times, said that the FBI, like ancient Carthage, must be destroyed. Holman Jenkins, writing for the Wall Street Journal, said that the agency had to be abolished. I’ve argued the same case several times, here, for example, and here. In my column for the December Speccie, I suggest that FBI be relocated to Kansas City and have its budget cut by 75 percent. “Then,” I write, “it should be taken apart altogether,” not least because “a national police is probably unconstitutional certainly un-American”

With few exceptions, the consensus is that the Bureau is beyond reformation or reclamation. Friday’s lengthy J’Accuse underscores the moral bankruptcy and corruption of the FBI.

Its opening statement provides a bracing summary:

Quote
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, under the stewardship of Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland, is broken. The problem lies not with the majority of front-line agents who serve our country, but with the FBI’s politicized bureaucracy. The problem lies, for example, with the FBI hierarchy that spied on President Trump’s campaign and ridiculed conservative Americans. The problem lies with FBI bureaucrats who altered and mischaracterized evidence to federal courts, circumvented safeguards and exploited weaknesses in policies governing investigations and informants to target politically disfavored subjects and to protect favored ones. The problem lies with the FBI structure that centralizes high-profile cases in DC, in the hands of politicized actors with politicized incentives. Quite simply, the problem — the rot within the FBI — festers in and proceeds from Washington.


There follows a detailed exposition, based on first-hand testimony, of the FBI’s corrupt activities. Among much else, it shows (I quote from the table of contents) how “FBI Leadership Is Abusing its Law-Enforcement Authorities for Political Reasons,” how “the FBI downplayed and sought to reduce the spread of the serious allegations of wrongdoing leveled against Hunter Biden,” how “the Justice Department and FBI is using counterterrorism resources to target parents resisting a far-left educational curriculum,” how “the Justice Department and FBI conducted an unprecedented raid on a former president,” how “the FBI stalked a Republican congressman while on a family vacation to seize his personal cell phone,” and on and on.

Of course, anyone can write a report. The significance of this report is that it proceeds from the party that, come Tuesday, will be on the express route to control of the Congress. Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio is slated to become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee when the Augean Stables of Congress are fumigated in January. NPR delicately stated that he has “hinted” that he plans to investigate the DoJ and the FBI if Republicans. Hinted? I’d say he has about [url=https://twitter.com/Jim...HbGTMyC2XYt4eFlPw]as bluntly as possible.

The volume on the theme from Jaws has just been turned up to eleven. It’s doubtless too much to hope that Christopher Wray and Merrick Garland should schedule a fitting for something orange. But their friends should urge them to start polishing their resumés.


Onward and upward,
airforce


.
©>
©All information posted on this site is the private property of the individual author and AWRM.net and may not be reproduced without permission. © 2001-2020 AWRM.net All Rights Reserved.
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.6.1.1