[BOBT12]

Originally Posted by PeterFreedom

Dec 7 2006, 09:32 PM

Yeah, well ... huge difference is that the technology was utilized for crime bosses, i.e. lawbreakers, evildoers. Are we who petition for redress of grievance in that same class? I think not. Does/would the FBI think so? I think doubly not. [IMHO]

update The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone's microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations.

The technique is called a "roving bug," and was approved by top U.S. Department of Justice officials for use against members of a New York organized crime family who were wary of conventional surveillance techniques such as tailing a suspect or wiretapping him.

Have you ever heard of the FBI's COINTELPRO program?

In the Final Report of the Select Committee COINTELPRO was castigated in no uncertain terms:

"Many of the techniques used would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity, but COINTELPRO went far beyond that...the Bureau conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association, on the theory that preventing the growth of dangerous groups and the propagation of dangerous ideas would protect the national security and deter violence."[2]

The Church Committee documented a history of the FBI being used for purposes of political repression as far back as World War I [In other words, since the begining of the FBI], through the 1920s, when they were charged with rounding up "anarchists and revolutionaries" for deportation, and then building from 1936 through 1976.

The FBI claims that it no longer undertakes COINTELPRO or COINTELPRO-like operations. However, critics claim that agency programs in the spirit of COINTELPRO target groups like the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, Earth First! and the Anti-Globalization Movement.

[...]

4. "Extralegal Force and Violence: The FBI and police threatened, instigated, and themselves conducted break-ins, vandalism, assaults, and beatings. The object was to frighten dissidents and disrupt their movements. In the case of radical Black and Puerto Rican activists (and later Native Americans), these attacks—including political assassinations—were so extensive, vicious, and calculated that they can accurately be termed a form of official 'terrorism.'" [think 9-11]. [5]

The FBI also conducted "black bag jobs", warrantless surreptitious entries, against the targeted groups and their members.[6]

Emphasis added.

So much for the FBI.