Archive for FBI
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Thursday 2nd September 2010
Government Online Surveillance and Your Bad Attitude
10:07 am | Attention Deficit Democracy | Central Intelligence Agency | FBI | Surveillance | Comments: 1
This great Dilbert cartoon perfectly captures how surveillance breeds distrust.
The feds are spying on us left and right, and yet politicians whine that we don’t trust the government.
At least not everyone’s a damn fool on that regard. (No - this isn’t the cue to recite the Pledge of Allegiance….)
Wednesday 18th August 2010
The Crime of Lying to the FBI???
8:30 pm | Attention Deficit Democracy | Clinton | FBI | Justice Department | Lying | Rule of Law | dictatorship | lese majeste | Comments: 3
Former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich is a four-star sleazeball. But the feds had their chance to put him away and they failed to convince a jury on all charges except lying to the FBI.
This is one of the “crimes” that best illustrates the mirage of the Rule of Law in the U.S. FBI agents and [...]
Wednesday 4th August 2010
My 2 Cents on WikiLeaks, the FBI, and Assorted Hokum - Antiwar.com Transcript
4:18 pm | Afghanistan | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bob Barr | Bush | Congress | Elective Dictatorship | FBI | Justice Department | Obama | Surveillance | Comments: 2
The good folks at Antiwar.com Radio added a transcript to the MP3 of last week’s interview. My comments on the Obama administration’s ploy to increase FBI surveillance power are excerpted here at the top. (The full text is below. My Kelly Girl past is now no longer secret).
Bovard:
National Security letters have [...]
Tuesday 3rd August 2010
New U.S. Government Motto: Controlling Us to Secure Us
2:56 pm | Afghanistan | Attention Deficit Democracy | Elective Dictatorship | FBI | Justice Department | Obama | Surveillance | Comments: 0
“If you don’t have control of the population, you can’t secure the population,” according to Brig. Gen. Frederick Hodges, director of operations for the NATO regional command in southern Afghanistan.
The front-page Washington Post piece with the above quote deals with Kandahar.
But it is also the motto for the U.S. government’s approach to [...]
Saturday 31st July 2010
MP3 of My Interview with Scott Horton on the FBI, WikiLeaks, Etc.
9:35 am | Afghanistan | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bob Barr | Congress | Elective Dictatorship | FBI | Lying | Obama | Surveillance | Comments: 0
Scott Horton of Antiwar.com Radio and I had fun tarring-and-feathering the usual federal outrages on Thursday. The MP3 is here.
Scott balked at the chance to reveal his deepest thoughts on Chelsea’s wedding. It could have been a great “Bill Hicks moment.”
Here’s Scott’s thumbnail of the interview:
James Bovard, author of Attention Deficit Democracy, [...]
Wednesday 21st July 2010
The Media’s Attitude Towards Government Surveillance
10:03 am | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bush | FBI | Obama | Surveillance | Uncategorized | Comments: 0
This 1990 New Yorker cartoon perfectly captures the usual media attitude towards government surveillance in the post-9/11 world.
Happily, today’s Washington Post blockbuster does not show the same complacency.
Thursday 15th July 2010
What the FBI Does Best
2:33 pm | Attention Deficit Democracy | FBI | Terrorism | cartoon | Comments: 2
It is unfortunate that few of the nation’s editorial writers have ever understood the FBI as well as Handelsman did within weeks after 9/11…..
Friday 14th May 2010
Counterpunch: Operation Tarmac
11:05 am | Ashcroft | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bush | FBI | Justice Department | Lying | Patriot Act | Transportation Security Admin. | Comments: 1
From Counterpunch -
OPERATION TARMAC
by James Bovard
…..
Unfortunately, few people recognize the political racketeering involved in the post–9/11 roundups of airport workers. That practically ensures that, if there is another major terrorist attack or some similar debacle, mass arrests will once again be used to burnish the government’s image.
Tuesday 20th April 2010
The Slippery Definition of Extremism
11:04 am | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bush | Census | Elective Dictatorship | FBI | Justice Department | Rule of Law | Surveillance | Terrorism | Torture | Transportation Security Admin. | War crimes | Wiretapping | lese majeste | Comments: 2
The Future of Freedom Foundation is shotgunning out this op-ed today….
The Slippery Definition of Extremism
by James Bovard
Americans are once again hearing of the perils of extremism. But the definition of this offense is slippier than a politician’s campaign promise. The definition of extremism has continually been amended to permit government policies that few sober people [...]
Friday 2nd April 2010
Extremist Blogs Could be Next!!!!
10:30 am | Attention Deficit Democracy | Elective Dictatorship | FBI | Surveillance | Wiretapping | wool | Comments: 2
From today’s Washington Post website -
“FBI warns extremist letters may encourage violence”
By EILEEN SULLIVAN and DEVLIN BARRETT
The Associated Press
Friday, April 2, 2010; 9:34 AM
….
The article ominously notes: ” In the past year, federal agents have seen an increase in “chatter” from an array of domestic extremist groups, which can include radical self-styled militias, white separatists [...]
Wednesday 17th March 2010
Is the FBI Your Friend on Facebook?
9:07 am | Attention Deficit Democracy | FBI | Surveillance | wool | Comments: 9
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has released internal federal documents detailing how FBI agents are creating false or deceptive profiles online to gather more personal information on Americans.
From the Associated Press story:
U.S. law enforcement agents are following the rest of the Internet world into popular social-networking services, going undercover with false online profiles to communicate [...]
Friday 5th March 2010
FBI Bankrolling Bloggers Advocating Murder?
9:17 pm | FBI | Surveillance | wool | Comments: 8
The Associated Press story on the New Jersey guy who advocating killing federal judges reveals that the bloodthirsty blogger was apparently a paid FBI informant.
A right-wing New Jersey blogger charged with threatening federal judges told a
jury Thursday that his racist Internet rants were an FBI-sanctioned ruse to “flush out” dangerous neo-Nazi and white supremacist [...]