Thursday, August 21, 2008

A Bad Idea, or "Kiss Your Freedom Goodbye"

The FBI is going forward with a plan to give its agents the ability to open investigations of Americans for no reason whatsoever.

Think about that. They will not have to suspect you of anything to investigate you. The logical consequence of that is that if you have a funny last name or come to some snitch's attention because of your political beliefs, you will be investigated by the FBI.

(And for those of you on the Right who think this is a good idea, care to bet that the FBI won't consider people who own a lot of guns to be a threat?)

If you think this is "tinfoil hat" thinking, you only need to read back into the FBI's history and the private files that were kept by its director on political enemies. You need only look at the investigation by the FBI on those who opposed the Vietnam War.

If you want to see how this really works, in practice, when the security organizations have carte blanche to investigate whoever they damn well choose, go look at what transpired in East Germany and Poland. In East Germany, in particular, the internal security people had millions of files and almost as many informants. They were masters at using subtle coercion to get people to spy on their neighbors and their families.

It can happen here. And it has a chance of happening if we let the FBI do this.

3 comments:

  1. Interesting.

    In my town (in SE PA) there have been three or four large police cases on the front page in the last week. Wanna know what I noticed?

    The cops -- listed in the newspaper articles as run-of-the-mill patrolmen ad day cops, not SWAT or tactical team -- were all wearing camo, full kevlar and face-obscuring masks. Very uber-military. Very intimidating.

    What, o what, could the militarization of our hometown, 'friendly' cops portend?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Our police are turning into vast armies of occupiers.

    People won't cooperate with occupiers.

    ReplyDelete
  3. When it happens gradually, the way it has, people don't notice until it's too late.

    ReplyDelete

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