The FBI’s Accelerating War on Freedom
by Nat Hentoff
Among the chief celebrators of the Presidential reelection of the most voracious Big Brother in our history was the FBI, Barack Obama’s tireless partner in putting this country under ubiquitous surveillance. But like the master spy in the White House, the FBI’s head honcho has yet to be satisfied.
Robert Mueller’s zeal has not waned since his May 9, 2012, appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, prompting this comment by Rense.com’s Stephen Lendman: “America now wages war on freedom. It’s perilously close to vanishing. One more major domestic terror attack may end it. Mueller wants unrestricted power to act.”
He nearly has limitless power and multidimensional resources. In light of the fact that the FBI’s tracking of us was never raised in 2012′s Presidential debates, I expect very few Americans remember that, in the final weeks of the George W. Bush Administration, then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey issued “Guidelines for Domestic FBI Operations.” As Lendman bristled, “Anyone may be investigated for any reason or none
at all.”
No wonder President Obama extended Mueller’s term until September 4, 2013. And will he replace his shadowy cohort then?
Having rated an FBI file back in the 1960s, “Watch Hentoff,” I in turn watch the FBI continually. I am horrified by its chronic lawlessness, and so is DefendingDissent.org, whose monthly reports I never miss. The Defending Dissent Foundation’s vigilant website made me aware of a nationwide initiative on “Suspicious Activity Reporting.”
It “encourages or requires police to collect information about a long list of legal activities that are considered ‘suspicious,’ including taking pictures (either of police, other security personnel or facilities, buildings or infrastructure).”
Of course, the FBI can do that too. Say an agent sees someone photographing a New York City police officer slamming a black teenager against a wall because he looked “suspicious.” Anyone snapping such a picture to show how evil U.S. police are just might—thanks to law enforcement’s tendency to overreact—be connected to an organization supporting terrorism.
As DefendingDissent.org reported, here’s what happened when Mueller’s agents and local cops banded together in the Pacific Northwest on July 27, 2012: “Dozens of police and FBI agents dressed in paramilitary gear and carrying assault rifles staged a predawn raid on several activist homes…in Seattle, Olympia and Portland, and the search warrant listed ‘Anti-government or anarchist literature or material’ among the items to be seized.”
The FBI has also wielded its ever-expanding powers in Boston, Massachusetts, where I grew up and where my reporting and commentary on radio station WMEX caught the attention of the city police and the Feds. But I never thought that having a passionate attachment to the First Amendment would generate as much official hostility there as it does today.
DefendingDissent.org reported that Boston police “have been caught compiling intelligence reports and incident reports on peaceful protests, logging them under the heading of Criminal Activity with the labels ‘Groups–Extremist’ and ‘Homeland Security–Domestic.’”
The ACLU of Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild have documents and video-surveillance tapes revealing that “officers assigned to the Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC) at the Boston Police Department are collecting and keeping information about constitutionally protected speech and political activity…we don’t know how far and wide the information was shared.”
As DefendingDissent.org disclosed, an “‘Intelligence Report’ on an antiwar speech at a church was kept for over five years. … It is clear from the report that police had infiltrated meetings of the peace coalition, or had access to meeting notes or minutes.”
I attended Boston Latin School. It was founded in 1635, and one of my fellow alumni was a key enflamer of the American Revolution, Samuel Adams. If he, the Sons of Liberty and the Committees of Correspondence that spread the factual reasons for the Declaration of Independence throughout the colonies were still with us, their grievances would include what the FBI is up to: illegally spying on millions of law-abiding citizens.
