{"id":10585,"date":"2017-09-13T12:37:07","date_gmt":"2017-09-13T16:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=10585"},"modified":"2018-04-19T20:18:45","modified_gmt":"2018-04-20T00:18:45","slug":"fff-janet-reno-tyrant-or-saint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2017\/09\/13\/fff-janet-reno-tyrant-or-saint\/","title":{"rendered":"FFF: Janet Reno – Tyrant or Saint?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Janet Reno: Saint or Tyrant?<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

by James Bovard<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span>

When former Attorney General Janet Reno died last November, the media heaped praise on her as if she had been justice incarnate. Reno had long enjoyed sainthood inside the Beltway; the Women\u2019s Bar Association of the District of Columbia even created a Janet Reno Torchbearer Award. But Reno\u2019s record of deceit, brutality, and power grabs should not be forgotten by any American who cares about freedom.<\/p>\n

Shortly after Reno became attorney general in 1993, she approved the FBI final assault on the Branch Davidians holed up in a rickety building outside of Waco, Texas. She went on Nightline the evening after 80 people died in a conflagration and announced, \u201cI made the decision. I\u2019m accountable. The buck stops with me.\u201d Reno then asserted that the fiery end was all somebody else\u2019s fault: \u201cI don\u2019t think anybody has ever dealt with a David Koresh, who would purposely set people afire in that number.\u201d Nightline host Ted Koppel asked Reno why the feds used \u201ctanks to ram the compound down.\u201d Reno replied, \u201cI think that what we were trying to do was to give everybody an opportunity to come out in the most unobtrusive way possible, not with a frontal assault.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reno masterminded a cover-up of the federal role at Waco. Americans did not learn until 1999 that the FBI had fired pyrotechnic grenades into the Davidians\u2019 home, which could have started the fire that left 80 people dead. She also muzzled federal officials who had been involved at Waco. When she traveled to Oklahoma to hype Clinton\u2019s crime bill in a speech in April 1994, FBI agent Bob Ricks, who had been the agency\u2019s daily spokesman during the 51-day siege, told Reno that many people were still agitated by Waco and asked that the gag order be lifted on himself and other officials. Reno replied, \u201cI don\u2019t think the American people care about Waco anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Oklahoma City bombing the following April showed otherwise. In a speech a few weeks later, Reno told federal law-enforcement agents, \u201cThere is much to be angry about when we talk about Waco \u2014 and the government\u2019s conduct is not the reason. David Koresh is the reason.\u201d She also revealed that the \u201cfirst and foremost\u201d reason for the tank and gas assault was that \u201claw-enforcement agents on the ground concluded that the perimeter had become unstable and posed a risk both to them and to the surrounding homes and farms. Individuals sympathetic to Koresh were threatening to take matters into their own hands to end the stalemate, were at various times reportedly on the way.\u201d This new \u201cfirst and foremost\u201d reason was a convenient ex post facto rationale after the Oklahoma City bombing. There was no evidence that FBI agents faced real threats from an uprising during the Waco siege. Previously, Reno had justified the final assault because she heard children were being abused.<\/p>\n<\/header>\n

That terrorist attack helped propel congressional hearings on Waco \u2014 the first time that Congress had seriously examined the carnage (thanks to the Republican takeover of Congress in the 1994 elections). Reno testified on August 1, 1995. In response to a specific question about why the FBI tanks began destroying the building before the fire, Reno responded, \u201cI share your frustration when you have such a tragedy as this, and you try to figure out what to do in the future to avoid the recurrence of it, not in an experiment, but in a thoughtful way.\u201dThe confidential FBI report that Reno received before approving the attack stated that the impact of the CS gas on \u201cinfants and children cannot be ignored because gas masks are not available for infants and younger children.\u201d When Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) presented Reno with a gas mask to illustrate the point that it could not have fit children, Reno casually tossed the gas mask onto the floor and announced that \u201cit\u2019s not very helpful, in terms of trying to understand what happened there, to just show gas masks. We\u2019ve got to show the people what went into the process.\u201d And Reno continued ensuring that damning information did not come out.The highlight of Reno\u2019s testimony was her revelation that the 54-ton tanks that smashed through the Davidian ramshackle home should not be considered as military vehicles \u2014 instead, they were \u201clike a good rent-a-car.\u201d When she was challenged on this, she added, \u201cThese tanks were not armed. They were not military weapons. And I think it is important, Mr. Chairman, as you deal with this issue, not to make statements like that that can cause the confusion.\u201d Reno later added that it would be wrong to focus on the \u201cmenacing quality\u201d of the tanks, since \u201cthose tanks had been around. People [inside] knew about the tanks. I think they were very accustomed to the tanks, at that point.\u201d But the Davidians were not accustomed to the tanks\u2019 flattening their home.<\/p>\n

Trashing free speech and privacy<\/b><\/p>\n

In October 1993, Reno, upholding a long tradition of attorney generals in the forefront of sabotaging the Constitution, called for government censorship of television violence. In Senate testimony, she warned, \u201cIf immediate voluntary steps are not taken [by television producers] and deadlines established, government should respond and respond immediately. We must move forward to set a schedule for compliance with proper standards, or government should set those standards.\u201d Reno did not say when she would be sending in the SWAT teams to take down Beavis and Butthead.<\/i> But her intimidation tactics ensured her a tidal wave of positive press as a person who truly cared about children.<\/p>\n

In 1996 Congress passed and Bill Clinton signed the Communications Decency Act. The measure would have effectively curtailed all sexual expression on the Internet, imposing a two-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine for anyone who engaged in speech that was \u201cindecent\u201d or \u201cpatently offensive\u201d on the Internet if his words might somehow be viewed by children. A three-judge panel found the law \u201cprofoundly repugnant\u201d to the First Amendment. Despite the setback, Reno defended the law. She declared in early 1997,<\/p>\n

But one of the points we have to remember is, if you have an absolutely incredible technology that \u2026 provides new and incredible opportunities for learning, for communication, and for understanding, it also has incredible opportunities to put stuff on there that can be damaging, harmful, and hurtful, particularly to children. We have seen the problem that exists in this country of children who are unsupervised for many hours of the day\u2026. We have got to design a system that can ensure the availability of this marvelous tool without damaging the children that will have access. And I think that there are ways and effective means, and I think that this will be the basis of the argument.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Reno was referring to the argument that Justice Department lawyers made before the Supreme Court to defend the law\u2019s draconian penalties. NewsBytes summarized the government\u2019s argument before the Supreme Court: \u201cIn the brief, the government asserts that a fear of encountering \u2018indecency\u2019 online could deter potential users from exercising their First Amendment interest in accessing the new medium.\u201d An ACLU lawyer commented, \u201cIt is supremely ironic that the government now says it is protecting the First Amendment rights of Americans by threatening people with jail for engaging in constitutionally protected speech.\u201d The Supreme Court trounced the Justice Department, ruling the law unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

Reno was the chief law-enforcement officer of an administration that vastly expanded illegal government spying on private citizens. In 2000, controversy erupted over \u201cCarnivore,\u201d the FBI\u2019s email wiretap software that allowed the agency to vacuum up vast amounts of private email \u2014 regardless of whether the feds had a search warrant. FBI officials \u201cexplained\u201d the program\u2019s ominous name by stressing that they never thought the public would learn of the program\u2019s existence. Janet Reno took charge by announcing she would require the FBI to change Carnivore\u2019s name.<\/p>\n

Nonviolent machine guns<\/b><\/p>\n

The highlight of Reno\u2019s final year in power was an immigration raid by 130 federal agents in Miami\u2019s Little Havana section on April 22. The raid went pretty much as planned \u2014 the agents seized six-year-old Eli\u00e1n Gonzalez and left shattered doors, a broken bed, roughed-up Cuban-Americans, and two NBC cameramen writhing in pain from stomach kicks or rifle-butts to the head. The only problem: Associated Press stringer Alan Diaz snapped a photo of a Border Patrol agent pointing his submachine gun towards the terrified boy being held by the fisherman who initially rescued the boy out of the Atlantic Ocean.<\/p>\n

Reno called a press conference a few hours after the raid and, when asked about the photo, replied, \u201cOne of the beauties of television is that it shows exactly what the facts are. And as I understand it, if you look at it carefully, it shows that the gun was pointed to the side, and that the finger was not on the trigger.\u201d Yet, the photo clearly shows a gun pointed towards the fisherman; admittedly, the muzzle of the gun was not in the boy\u2019s mouth. The Heckler and Koch MP-5 submachine gun sprays 800 rounds a minute \u2014 and a finger a half-inch away from the trigger means nothing. The agent did not even have both hands on the machine gun: if the weapon had fired, he would have had no control over where the bullets sprayed. Two days later, during a puff-piece interview on NBC Today,<\/i> Reno declared, \u201cOne of the things that is so very important is that the force was not used. It was a show of force that prevented people from getting hurt.\u201d That would be news to the NBC cameraman who was hospitalized after the raid after being smashed in the head with a rifle-butt.<\/p>\n

The reaction to the raid epitomized the media\u2019s coverage of Reno\u2019s term as Attorney General. The Washington Post<\/i> ran a laudatory article on how Reno had supposedly personally ensured that not all journalists would be beaten during the raid. New York Times<\/i> columnist Thomas Friedman, in an article headlined, \u201cReno for President,\u201d declared that the machine-gun photo \u201cwarmed my heart\u201d and that it should be put \u201cup in every visa line in every U.S. consulate around the world, with a caption that reads: \u2018America is a country where the rule of law rules. This picture illustrates what happens to those who defy the rule of law and how far our government and people will go to preserve it.\u2019\u201d But the feds\u2019 mandate to seize Eli\u00e1n and send him back to Cuba was legally shaky and they pretty much ignored the \u201cknock and announce\u201d rule for carrying out a search warrant.<\/p>\n

Justice incarnate<\/b><\/p>\n

For Reno, government was always the good guy. In a 1996 speech to government prosecutors, she declared, \u201cAll of you public lawyers are but little lower than the angels, and I salute you.\u201d Reno showed her belief in angels in 1994 when she decreed that federal prosecutors would no longer be bound by the ethics guidelines issued by state bar associations prohibiting lawyers from contacting adverse parties directly without their lawyers\u2019 being \u00a0present. Reno\u2019s power grab for federal prosecutors was unanimously condemned by the Conference of Chief Justices, representing all the state supreme courts.<\/p>\n

Reno\u2019s greatest achievement was to teach Americans that \u201cJustice Department\u201d is an oxymoron. She proved that the federal government cannot be trusted to police itself. Unfortunately, that seems to be the same lesson that every attorney general teaches \u2014 and the media and most Americans ignore.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published in the June 2017 edition of<\/em> Future of Freedom<\/a>.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Janet Reno: Saint or Tyrant? by James Bovard September 13, 2017 When former Attorney General Janet Reno died last November, the media heaped praise on her as if she had been justice incarnate. Reno had long enjoyed sainthood inside the Beltway; the Women\u2019s Bar Association of the District of Columbia even created a Janet Reno […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[391,15,1136,47,1135,565,30,102],"class_list":["post-10585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-censorship","tag-congress","tag-elian-gonzalez","tag-fbi","tag-gun-confiscation","tag-janet-reno","tag-surveillance","tag-waco"],"yoast_head":"\nFFF: Janet Reno - Tyrant or Saint? - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Attorney General Janet Reno sent the tanks in at Waco but is best known for teaching Americans that "Justice Dept." is an oxymoron\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2017\/09\/13\/fff-janet-reno-tyrant-or-saint\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"FFF: Janet Reno - Tyrant or Saint? 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","https:\/\/x.com\/jimbovard"],"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10585"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12108,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10585\/revisions\/12108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}