The FBI should remember this is the great USA, not Syria, Iran or Israel

24 Oct 2005

It is so ironic that we are willing to go to war to defend democracy and to spread the rule of law, when we at home are doing exactly the opposite, by behaving like the dictatorships we defined as the enemy.
That was my conclusion as I read the front-page article in today’s Washington Post ‘FBI Papers Indicate Intelligence Violations” by Dan Eggen.
Of course September 11, made it all possible for government security and intelligence to break the sound barriers and take many legal shortcut to get to potential terrorists. If our government was doing it job in the first place and if our FBI was doing it job in the first place and if our intelligence community was doing its job in the first place, and if we did not align and support those Mujahideens with billions of dollars, we not had September 11th. What happened on September 11th are an indictment of our intelligence and security organizations and an indictment of militant Islam that allowed theses thugs, criminals and murders to commit such a mass murder of innocent people. No one who truly confesses Islam could agree or condones or even find an excuse for what Al-Queda thugs did, and no one could ever find justification or excuses for what our government failed to do.
The Washington Post article speak of a case where the FBI continue to have a suspect under surveillance for 5 years with 16 month of this period without authorization or supervision from the courts.
Of course the FBI claim it was oversight, just like the oversight they committed when they failed to nap these terrorist before they committed their crimes against the American people.
The article also states that the FBI went ahead with it surveillance for some 18 months without filing the necessary papers. I would say this is real contempt for our courts and judicial system. With this in mind and with such a failure on our part why are we going to far away places to spread democracy, when our own freedom are eroding quickly and steadily by our government.
However all is not bad in this county, thanks to people and organizations like David Sobel and his organization the Electronic Privacy Center that sued the FBI to get this kind of information. Thanks God, Allah, G-d, Jesus, Moses, Mohamed and Buddha that we have such men and women like David Sobel and his organizations that went to court and file the necessary law suites under the Freedom Information Act to get such records. This can only happen in this country and as long as we have the contribution we have, American will always be alive and well and on the right side of freedom, notwithstanding what the Right Wingers and the NeoCons what to do and try to shape American in their ugly image.
As a matter of habit and routine, the FBI with contempt for our legal system does not file the necessary documents when they proceed to conduct their surveillance.
The FBI promised, according to the report “ we have set procedures to do the right thing” and we hope they do, so that all of us citizens also do the right thing for our country and our government. The FBI and all of the intelligence community should make it a point to be on the right side of the people. We as citizens are the eyes and ears in the service of our country, committed to its security and freedom, however people who are fearful for their lives and freedom could never be soldier in the service of a country that oppress them and violates their rights. Let us hope that the FBI live up to its mission of protecting the citizens of this country, and abiding by that wonderful documents we call “ constitution” The FBI should remember this is the great USA, not Syria, Iran or Israel.