The Federal Bureau of Investigation has reached a stage in its development where it stands as an open threat to the constitutional protections of American citizens. What began as a little-known bureau of the U.S. Department of Justice in 1908 functioned as the department’s detective wing, investigating violations of federal law. Its primary focus was to compile, record, file, and obtain information that could be used in the prosecution of crimes against the government. It has now evolved into an agency that functions as a political tool for the power elites to threaten and intimidate any person, group, or domestic entity that could be perceived as an enemy or opponent to the elite political agenda.
J. Edgar Hoover became the head of the “Radical Division,” which directed its attention to aliens on American soil who could be classified as promoting anarchy or revolution. Records kept of German aliens in the U.S. leading up to and during WW I were extensive. The bureau was considered to be more of a compiler of information rather than an investigative law-enforcement entity. It did not have any legal prosecutorial powers or surveillance abilities against American citizens who had not committed a federal crime. The information gathered by the FBI was to be used by the Justice Department against alien-born anarchists.
As the years passed, the role of the FBI increased significantly. By the late 1930s, with WW II underway in Europe, President Roosevelt expanded the powers of the FBI. In 1939 Roosevelt issued a secret directive authorizing the FBI to take charge of all home-front investigations involving espionage and sabotage in anticipation of the coming war. Once the Japanese attacked the U.S. in 1941, Hoover already had files on thousands of Japanese and Germans in the country as possible antagonists. Roosevelt’s decision to inter all Japanese people regardless of citizenship was opposed by Hoover, who was against interring American citizens. The FBI had been given the power to arrest and to control the interment camps as well.
At the end of WW II, the FBI’s focus was on the communist “Red Scare,” which equated to espionage being conducted by the Soviet Union in America. Hoover began an “under-the-radar” program code-named Venona. Working with the Army Security Agency (now the NSA), they were able to decrypt encoded Soviet messages being sent to Americans. The consensus was that these were either Soviet plants or Communist sympathizers. The information or its source could not be used in any legal proceedings because it was unconstitutional. Yet the information was gathered and filed away to be used at some point as an effective intimidation tool. Although Venona was effective in leading to the eventual prosecution of the Rosenbergs, Hiss, and other Soviet agents, its existence was never revealed until the 1990s, after Hoover’s passing.
With the fear of communist infiltration still going strong well into the 1950s, President Eisenhower gave Hoover a blank check to do whatever was necessary to combat the Red menace. Hoover began COINTELPRO, or the Counterintelligence program. The strategy was to no longer just to prosecute communist party members or haul them up in front of congressional committees, but to manipulate, misinform Operation Solo. This was a successful coup for Hoover. Two Communist Party officials, Jack and Morris Childs, had become disaffected with the party. The FBI persuaded them to remain party members while acting as agents. They rose through party ranks, with Morris eventually becoming the main liaison between the CPUSA and the Kremlin. Information on party objectives, the spy network, and even Soviet policy was obtained by the FBI.
As successful as the results were in this case, COINTELPRO was eventually used as an effective yet illegal tool against other groups and individuals. In the 1960s there was considerable concern about the civil rights movement. With unsubstantiated intel that Dr. Martin Luther King was employing at a high level in his organization two communist party members, the FBI decided to not only wiretap the suspected communists, but to wiretap Dr. King as well, even though they had no evidence that Dr. King was a communist. One can only guess as to how many were surveilled since then.
The FBI of today has taken an unprecedented leap towards an autocratic police force. Its reputation as a nonpartisan, ethical protector of the Constitution has been reduced to that of partisan, unethical detractor of the Constitution. We can no longer expect that all federal crimes will be investigated and prosecuted. We no longer expect that justice is blind but that the FBI uses blinders when investigating certain people. The FBI of today is investigating and intimidating parents of schoolchildren and knocking on the doors of those who post opinions on social media. The FBI of today is stonewalling and obfuscating congressional requests and hearings. The FBI is compiling information on anyone who objects to the Democratic party’s narrative and manipulating through intimidation organizations that don’t support it. Forcing tech providers to remove posts that are pro-Trump or anti-vaccine or anything that offends the current administration is not, and never should be, a function of our federal law enforcement agency.
We have seen the changes in the FBI from an informational resource for the Justice Department to an agency that has usurped the constitutional freedoms afforded us, in the name of political protection of a narrative that supports hubris and power. One can only wonder what other schemes, plans, and subversive actions are now occurring that we do not know about. The bureaucracy will continue to prevail until the people take charge of the government.
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