Fifteen Steps to take to Reform U.S. Intelligence Agencies
[This is a summary of WorldConsel’s White Paper on Reform of the Intelligence Community in post-Trump America. Please see the end of the summary for how to obtain the full 22 page report.]
Just as the murder of George Floyd has triggered a larger social protest movement against police brutality, an examination of systemic racism, and a call to reform policing, the public also need to look at reforming the Intelligence Community (IC). The United States intelligence services are no less susceptible to systemic racism, Right-wing/partisan nationalism, white supremacist influence, and abuse of power, than the criminal justice system. In fact, since they arguably have more power, and less accountability, transparency, and oversight than the police, IC officers may be even more susceptible to these abuses than traditional law enforcement.
In light of the deployment of counter-terrorist tactical teams to Portland and other cities on a political pretext (a “political errand”) against the Left months ahead of the election, reform is especially critical to public safety and security because Intel Agencies and their many contractors and informants operate both as our country’s international face, but increasingly in domestic intelligence and “crime prevention” operations against U.S. citizens. For example, the FBI, under it’s new Director Christopher Wray, sees itself as foremost an intelligence agency, and is increasingly engaged not in law enforcement, but in “preventing crime”- clandestine Executive branch intelligence operations- outside of the normal review and Constitutional protections of the judicial system, or Congressional oversight and public approval via the free press and the electoral process.1
As the voting base, and therefore the democratic legitimacy of the GOP and the Right shrinks, Republicans have increasingly turned to Intelligence-style operations domestically to gain, and retain power. The same power dynamic happened in the aftermath of the Civil War, and to the Eastern elites under pressure from immigrants, workers, and unions a generation later. Domestic employees, former officers, retirees, contractors, special operators, informants, foreign agents and proxies, vigilantes, veterans, special operators, security clearance holders, defense contractors, government security forces- and police through fusion centers- must cease use of intelligence-style operations against the Left as a means to seize and exercise political power for the Right apart from the legitimate political system- against the Constitutional system of limited, co-equal branches of government- including a democratically elected Representatives and the Judicial system. Nothing is more important to our national security than securing the legitimacy of our democracy, and upholding the rule of law, and Constitutional principles and civil rights.
Examples of this corrupt partisan influence include the Black, Stone, Manafort “lobbying firm’s” 30-year-long use of dirty tricks, foreign actors, foreign money, and most recently facilitating the use of data stolen from the DNC to interfere in the legitimate political process. Michael Cohen and AMI international/David Pecker prevented evidence of illegal payments to prostitutes from being published prior to the Presidential election. Robert Mercer and GOP operative Steve Bannon funded the propaganda outlet Breitbart and Cambridge Analytica’s use of Facebook data and SCI Elections election influence technology used in the 2016 Presidential election and the Brexit vote- “taken” from the IC. Other recent intelligence-style interference in elections includes sophisticated foreign influence operations and solicitation of funds from competitive foreign powers such as Russia, China, Iran, and the Saudis. Intel ops also include sophisticated voter suppression techniques like purging voter rolls, targeted closure of polling places, dark corporate money, and sophisticated modeling and targeting of swing voters through hacked social media like Facebook and Twitter.
Other examples: Millionaire U.S. Government contractor Eric Prince is funding a private partisan espionage service against Democrats.2 Congressman Nunes misused classified intelligence to protect political allies.3 The Right-wing oligarch-funded Koch “Network” demanded massive tax cuts in a clear quid pro quo for political contributions, after using intel-style money laundering operations via interlocking trusts and shell corporations, to obscure funding, including surreptitious- possibly illegal- “non-profit” sponsorship of the “Tea Party” and other so-called “grass roots” political organizations (the Freedom Caucus), to facilitate political favors and tax breaks, and shift politics to the Right.4 Finally, DHS Secretary Tom Ridge manipulated the “national security threat level” to orange before George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election, to push fearful (via terror) voters, to the “war time” President, (a war engaged on pretext).5
Just as the police have adopted a militarized, occupying forces model6, including escalation of violence and permissive misuse of overwhelming, even deadly force to solve routine civil and minor criminal problems, and to “disrupt” potential crime, the Intel Community also misuses its authority to escalate and use overwhelming, even deadly force- including torture (see TAB)- against “anyone who threatens the security of the Us or an agent or the United States”, including U.S. citizens. Of course, what counts as a “potential or actual threat” is an ever-widening list of targets. Under the rapidly expanding “national security” system/mission (as opposed to the justice system), the IC’s mandate expanded from defending the country from severe and catastrophic disasters and threats, to securing an wide array of “national interests” including U.S. economic and commercial global superiority, GOP partisan advantage, and institutional loyalty, self-preservation and power. Intelligence operations/ counterinsurgency warfare goes as far as orchestrating pretextual threats, while ignoring until recently the real threats of Right-wing terrorism, political corruption, anti-capitalist oligarchy, or white collar and corporate crime- like the Chinese opiate crisis or January 6 insurrection- at least in public.7
Under Bush/Cheney, post 9/11, the “national security” mandate expanded to maintaining Global Supremacy, under a secret doctrine leading journalist Nicholas Lemann refers to as “threatism”- a false-flag operation authorizing the elimination of “actual or potential threats” to “U.S. interests” using violent means, where “national security” is conflated with global dominance. Dominance including preventing other nations from competing with the U.S., and targeting the majority of US citizens/voters;8 this megalomaniacal goal of international domination is ultimately tied to controlling domestic political opposition- targeting anyone who opposes this aggressive foreign policy, and exploitation of domestic workers by the anti-competitive rich, corporations. It also operates against domestic progressive activism, by declaring opponents to the supremacist ideology “dissidents, obstructionists, agitators, anarchists, instigators, threats9” (as J Edgar Hoover did as long as 100 years ago against “Bolsheviks” and unions) – and thus enemies of the state- and thus ”potential” terrorists- subject to the same counter-threat, counter-terrorist operations as the nations worst, most violent foreign adversaries and actual terrorists. Merely daring to oppose “threatist” ideology makes one a threat; the same “witch hunt” circular reasoning used by all authoritarian regimes.
How did the IC develop as an alternative system of social control -an extra-judicial system of secret state sponsored violence and congtrol- to the Constitutionally prescribed system of justice, and the rule of law? The U.S. developed a large professionalized intelligence cadre during World War II under the instruction of British imperial intelligence. This cadre adopted a great power, imperialist counterinsurgency warfare ideology, developed to suppress threats to monarchs and Czars from democratizing, liberal forces. Rather than disband after the war, as the military had in previous generations, the IC gained even more institutional power during the Cold War under Truman’s globalization, Eisenhower’s military/civilian fusion governance. Morally injured from two world wars, and weapons of mass destruction use against civilians, the IC conducted horrific research to develop powerful asymmetric weapons targeting individuals and groups, as well as other nations’ militaries. After victory against the Axis Powers, the Right-leaning IC immediately switched to operations against the Left, internationally and domestically- (resuming “Red-scare” politics”, union busting, anti-civil rights activity, violence against “subversives, agitators, instigators”). Just as in the 1880’s when the first “professional” police officer, NY Superintendent Thomas Byrnes “regularly engaged in the ruthless, often brutal, suppression of immigrants, minoirities, unions and political dissent.”10 Like J Edgar Hoover in 1919, after WWI, as “special assistant to Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, heading the General Intelligence Division, also known as the Radical Division, overseeing mass roundups and deportations of suspected Bolsheviks after World War I. Or under COINTELPRO/ the Cold War, where Hoover’s FBI once again targeted MLK and civil rights leaders, and the progressive Left ”11
The IC’s misuse of power was briefly brought in check after the notorious abuses of the Nixon administration made many of these secret partisan programs public: evidence of assassinations, mass human experimentation in Operation MKUltra, the use of CIA contractors to break into Watergate (against the DNC), for dirty trick operations against Nixon’s enemies, and against anti-war protesters- including MLK- with COINTELPRO and Operation Chaos. Jimmy Carter’s efforts to reform the CIA ended when George H.W. Bush, a former CIA Director, became Vice President12 through alleged foreign-sponsored election interference and campaign sabotage13, later as President, then with his son in power, the CIA budget, scope of operations, and power grew to unprecedented proportions in the U.S., and internationally, including large paramilitary special forces, on the back of two Gulf Wars. Just as with modern police, U.S. security has not necessarily improved with this vast increase in funding, resources, and power- indeed there is evidence that the vast IC “Deep State” (see TAB) is actually an increasing insider threat to U.S. security, like the historical Praetorian Guard, or just as police are now viewed by many, including scholars and policy makers, as a serious threat to justice and the rule of law.
Bush/Cheney “Threatism” and the “War on Terror”
Professor of the Columbia School of Journsalism Nicholas Lemann describes Cheney’s unitary executive theory of politics like this:
“Powerful, determined, immensely destructive forces—the Soviet Union, radical Islam, the domestic left—want to destroy American freedom and democracy. Complacent politicians, especially liberal ones, are incapable either of understanding this or of summoning the will to combat it. For the small cadre who do understand, it is imperative to use power unusually quietly, expertly, and aggressively.”14
In other words, the Left is viewed as both an existential threat to the U.S., and- circular reasoning-a force of complacency against such threats, and must be treated as a dangerous enemy equal to any international threat, with similar force- for its weakness. Again, circular reasoning, “witch hunt” scapegoating of the opponent as enemy, to rationalize a will to power and its subsequent abuse. Lemann calls this false-flag authoritarian strategy against political opponents “threatism”. Against “threats”, counterintelligence doctrine is to”divide, discredit, degrade, disrupt, destroy” “actual and potential threats” to “neutralize” them. While the goal of the justice system is justice, and deterrence, rehabilitation, incarceration, and punishment of crime, the goal of “threatism” is to violently, and secretly, neutralize threats. What is “disruption”? In a word, control, often via torture:15 Secret operations that “disrupt” or disable a target’s ability to function, establish control over them, or “threaten” them into compliance (terror), inside or outside of detention, while creating minimal forensic evidence (deniable).16
Disruption Strategy of Intelligence Agencies versus law enforcement
“The 2009 FBI memorandum states that when “the risk to public safety is too great, or if all significant intelligence has been collected, and/or the threat is resolved,” (emphasis added) agents may employ a disruption strategy “including arrests, interviews, or source-driven operations to effectively disrupt subject’s activities” https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/discriminatory-profiling/manufacturing-black-separatist-threat-and-other
Former FBI whistle-blower and former ACLU chief Counsel Michael German says this about FBI “disruption” operations:
“By transforming itself into a domestic intelligence agency, however, the FBI slips these constitutional restraints. Intelligence agencies by their nature operate in near-impenetrable secrecy, mask their sources and methods, and collect information against people not even suspected of wrongdoing. They use deception as a primary tool and seek to disrupt the activities [emphasis added] of those they perceive as enemies of the state, rather than prosecute them. Often their victims never know how their fortunes changed and, even if they suspect government interference, don’t have a legal means to challenge it.
The FBI has a long history of abusing its claimed intelligence authorities to impede Americans’ First Amendment rights. And a 2010 Inspector General audit revealed this inclination to view political activism as a potential threat has recently resurfaced in today’s FBI. Indeed, FBI training materials state that “the FBI has the ability to bend or suspend the law and impinge on freedoms of others” when using its intelligence authorities.”17
Of course, our Founders were willing to give their lives to fight against an unchecked, authoritarian, morally deranged Sovereign. And against colonialism/ imperialism. An unchecked Executive- particularly one determined to achieve global superiority- is the very definition of megalomania and abuse of power, and naturally leads to contempt for human and civil rights, the rule of law, and Constitutional checks and balances on power; every abuse forsworn by our Founders and rebuffed by the blood of subsequent generations of patriots. An all powerful, unchecked Praetorian authority is the very definition of the most grave “insider threat” to national security the system was created to protect our nation and her people against, and which Lincoln warned against in his Lyceum Address.18
Steps for Reform
Recent calls for reform focus on new technology, better methods to gather information, and organizational adjustments, rather than to re-assess the entire enterprise of national security, (which is a fairly recent social construction, after all, as opposed to justice, or defense); its impact on society (violent, militant, aggressive, partisan, corrupting, anti-democratic), its fundamental lack of success (the US, and world are less secure, the IC has missed many critical threats and experienced excessive mission creep away from defense and security, toward accumulation of institutional power, violence, the mass surveillance state, authoritarianism, partisanship.) Right-wing bias creates instability, insecurity, corrupts society, and threatens to become the very “insider threat” to the Constitution the IC was created to defend against, while the revolving door and self-dealing corrupts the mission of defense against critical threats towards economic “interests” and “national prosperity”.
1. The FBI shouldn’t be an intelligence agency. The dual mission of law enforcement and intelligence agency are incompatible, and leads to a violations of human and civil rights, illegal activity, abuse of power, and violation of Constitutional and legal norms, partisan bias, and operations against political opponents. End domestic spying and intelligence-style operations (which are based on the law of war) against U.S. citizens, as the Constitution requires, and the pretext of “predictive policing” which is simply authoritarian power grab, like “order” in “law and order” is used to justify white supremacy and racism..19 https://www.nationalreview.com/the-agenda/how-fix-fbi-it-shouldnt-be-intelligence-agency-michael-german/
2. End partisan and ideological staffing. HR must act to create institutions that resemble the U.S. population- more minorities, liberals, women. Limits to Deep State cronyism, nepotism, incumbency, and the revolving door with Intel and security, defense industry. End group think, increase diversity. Expand Intel/ National Security Staff membership to citizen, NGOs, academics as well as IC and military; civilian oversight boards.20 Eliminate mentally ill and criminal candidates, especially candidates with character and personality disorder (psychological/ethical) problems. End recruitment of officers by retired officers based on ideology, end psychiatrists’ recruitment based on capacity for skullduggery and criminal activity. End torture. End disabling enemies. End assassination programs of all types.
3. End the IC community’s monopoly on secret information. Sources and methods need protection, but important information, intelligence does not need such tight hold. Policy makers, scholars, and the voting public need information for policy making and informed voting. Excessive secrecy and over-classification deprives public, decision makers from oversight, creates a bottleneck for oversight, collaboration, dissent and creates and a means whereby a cadre of insiders controls and manipulates other co-equal branches of government. Control of information quickly becomes control over decisions, control over people, “ambitious” use of power, and authoritarianism. Secret information is bought dearly with taxpayer money as well as IC staff risk. The IC makes money off of intel for its contractors, retirees, insiders, and barters it for control of its budget, oversight, and accountability. Operational control is too often achieved through bottle-necking information, credentialing, abuse of “control officers” over critical information.21
4. End impunity, qualified immunity, for Officers engaged in illegal activity, end requirement for officers to obey illegal orders or quit; create support for dissent, whistleblowers, end the code of silence, loyalty oaths aside from Constitution.22 Impunity leads directly to abuse of power, corruption, mission creep, mission failure.
5. Reduce the need for illegal activity, recruitment of agents and informants through corrupt practices like blackmail or bribery. End wholesale use of criminal informants, individuals with backgrounds in illegal activity, violence, covert operations, especially against democratic governments, domestic targets, activists, whistleblowers, minorities, the Left. Operations against serious and severe threats- true and actual risks, not “potential risks” in name only, or against “interests” to maintain national and corporate superiority.23
Develop legal, non-coercive methods of developing and confirming intelligence, like most countries do, with great success. Current methods often rely on illegal activity, encourage corruption and use violence and coercion gratuitously.24
One study estimated the IC committed “hundreds of thousands of crimes per year”. The association of IC officers with illegal activity and criminal informants cannot help but have a corrupting influence on officers, who the public and policy makers count on for their truthfulness, respect for law, and loyalty to the Constitution.25
6. End torture. The CIA and FBI allegedly stopped assassinations, now the IC must stop torture (including so called “disruption”, use of coercive psy-ops, domestic disinformation- including foreign partners to evade domestic laws and accountability- and no-touch psychological torture, torture outside detention, “control”) stop war crimes (pretextual use of laws of war and aggression against “enemies, “terrorists” war on drugs, “socialists”, “extremists”, “Bolsheviks” etc.), crimes against humanity, interfering in democratic elections, provocation and escalation of violence to justify use of violence, “interrogations and investigations” (torture), mass COIN operations to “predict” and “”disrupt” threats. End reliance on “security partners” and third countries who do use torture and cruel and inhumane treatment of suspects, “threats”, and detainees. 26
7. Reduce the militarization of the IC, escalation of violence, use of torture, counterintelligence operations, “disruption”, counter-terrorism, counter-threat, para-military operations, especially against non-violent protesters.27 End IC fielding and control over paramilitary forces (domestic and international), stop militarizing police through fusion centers, stop domestic operations through domestic staff and contractors, end deployment of control officers over other branches of government, media, NGO’s, civil society, religion, in the name of “security advisers”, control through use of mass incarceration and extensive use and recruitment of agents, informants, especially criminals, in the misleading name of “predictive policing” or “crime prevention”. End infiltration and subversion of domestic sectors, mass surveillance, support of mass detention methods of social control, and other militarization, treatment of U.S. citizens as the enemy, especially whole classes of people like minorities and “the Left”.28
8. End systemic/institutionalized (white) supremacist foreign policy- Cheney’s “threatism”, Supremacist Nationalism. End recruitment of officers by retired officers based on ideology. Investigate the extent to which the U.S., IC have been infiltrated by far-Right nationalists, like other parts of government (Congress, military, police), U.S. society, like other authoritarians movements in Europe and beyond? End supremacist ideology- imperialism, dominance, aggression. End the IC domestic role, influence in politics, especially partisan/militarized operations against the Left, minorities.
9.Truth and Reconciliation Commission for addressing harm that partisanship, abuses of power, violence, torture, assassinations have caused. End to torture, “disruption”, mass surveillance, and incarceration of minorities, End operations against minorities, Left as “threats”, enemies.29
10. Institute real and effective oversight, co-equal branches of government, checks and balances. Reform, reject doctrines of expansion of Executive power and sovereignty, unitary executive; democratization of the IC. The IC- as exemplified by AG Barr and Bush Sr., has tried to put itself above and beyond oversight and limitation on Executive power- in some ways they have effectively overthrown the U.S. government as a democratic and representative institution; a national commission for reform may be necessary to pick up where the 9/11 Commission left off.30
10. End revolving door to National Security council, security agencies, and private industry. After working as an intelligence professional, many officers monetize their skills and information by working for private security and intelligence companies, and also recycle to the Government. This creates severe conflicts of interest and a gray market for Officers’ who can conduct “private sector” operations against individuals and governments, mercenary activity, and the army of “contractors” available for hire, often impacting domestic politics like Manafort-Stone, Steve Bannon (former Navy Intel), or Eric Prince, as well as foreign governments and institutions.
11. Funding based on performance. The IC is overfunded, receiving many times as much money as all other intel agencies in the world combined, like the U.S. military, in part to pursue the illegitimate goal of national supremacy. IS the IC really providing only critically necessary intelligence, or are they engaged in widespread operations in support of partisan and corporate/elite agendas? How are they doing with their core mission of national security? Are we more secure? Or is the IC creating security vulnerabilities by overemphasis on Supremacy, group think, and mission creep? Is their over-aggression itself a threat? Reduce war-time, cold war levels of funding, tie funding to transparent, measurable, achievable core results of security, safety, like U.S. aid funding is. Argentina, Yemen, and Somalia are not real threats to US security; the U.S. must stop doing the dirty work of the world’s authoritarian regimes.
Defund Cold-war, War on Terror levels of militarized funding before a new Chinese Cold war can be started to legitimize the next level of institutional power growth. Studies, and whistleblowers, show IC operations are often not effective. Torture doesn’t generate reliable intelligence, and aggressive counter-terrorism creates terrorists, not eliminates them, and destroys U.S. prestige and reputation.31
12. Adopt a new model for Officers- as defenders of Constitution, not spies and assassins. End influence of imperialist-style or authoritarian intelligence services (MI-6, KGB, Mossad) started to keep aristocrats in power against labor reformers. End emulation of enemy operations: Stasi, KGB, Vietnamese and Korean War torturers, assassinations, overthrowing governments, skullduggery, political intrigue, Machiavellian realpolitik, “supremacist ambitions”, sexual exploitation, lying, cheating, stealing. Raise up ethics, soft power, reputation, internationalism, aid, leadership, moral example, values, human rights, just societies, “shining city on the hill”, “1,000 points of lights”, liberal post-WWII ideals and values that made the U.S. great- not its power, aggression, cover operations, “dominance of the battlespace” and global supremacy.32
13. Adopt a new model for intelligence. End the conceit, that like diamonds, sparkling, truthful, trustworthy “intelligence” can be based on the equivalent of blood diamond practices of extraction and cartel exploitation, “domination”, imperial-era skullduggery, black ops, and Great Game politics. Analysts are no more innocent than their operation colleagues, nor is their product less tainted. The corrupt practices of operators has blown back into the U.S. system, via retirees, “consultants”, contractors, agents, and compromised organizations, to become the very “insider threat” to the Constitution the system was designed to protect against. Officers serving to advance U.S. “interests” and “global dominance” in many cases undermine national security. A 70-page PDB is only necessary to- offensively- achieve “dominance of the battlespace”, not defend against true, serious and severe security threats. The methods are the message- used to gather, and confirm, that “intelligence”. Block chain information. End sweatshop intel, metaphorically stitched by hungry orphan children. Corporatism, elites, and oligarchy aren’t legitimate outcomes of successful United States intelligence programs.
14. End intel operations domestically- spying, and mass surveillance on U.S. citizens. Restore Constitutional protections and civil rights including privacy rights. End war-based, occupation-style and predictive policing, mass informant, agent infiltration of public meetings, organization, domestic politics, control of domestic government officials and civil society, mass surveillance, use of spies and informants. This isn’t Czarist Russia, Soviet East Germany, or Her Majesty’s Secret Service – where the public, or the majority/labor party is the enemy-at least it’s not supposed to be. End intel sponsored journalism and misinformation, including by third party states.33
15. Moral leadership. As discussed, current leadership either becomes or creates the conditions for corrupt influence and abuse of power in the nine factors or issue areas illustrated by current top IC leadership discussed above. Soft power, respect, moral leadership, cooperation, development, developing justice, jobs and prospects for the world’s disaffected, diplomacy, peacemaking, deescalation, vision, leadership and rejection of sociopathy, abuse of power, corruption, self dealing, partisanship, and violence in our institutions and institutional leaders.
Epilogue on Intelligence Community Reform
A social science analysis of violent radicalization reveals “terrorists” want what all of us want: a job and prospects for success for the future, justice and a sense that their grievances will be dealt with fairly. These things are in short supply in the areas where superpower conflict is waged via authoritarian proxy regimes, or in areas of conflict under U.S. occupation. There is no excuse for indiscriminant violence. However, attacking disaffected young men- especially those that haven’t actually committed violent acts- with (preemptive) counterterrorist warfare- abroad or at home, is counterproductive, increases grievance, destroys already fragile economies, and requires ever escalating suppression and violence.
There is no virus of violent radicalization which must be exterminated. Nor does suppression and counter-terrorism work as a domestic strategy for dealing with racism, minorities, and civil rights. Unless the real agenda is not really defense and security, but white supremacy and national global domination. Discussing reform of the IC is not an attack on Agents and the Nation, and advocating change of current policy, agencies, agents, and programs isn’t terrorism.
The United States is not automatically good. It is good if it does good, and holds to good values, not just by virtue of inherent goodness. Our founders knew power corrupts. If our country acts badly- wears a black hat- and does bad things for bad reasons- “We lied, We Cheated, We Stole”, torture, mass surveillance, war crimes- for global domination and to benefit elite self-seeking- it has become bad, and reform has to start there.
Michelle Obama has this to say about moral reform of the government- she is hopefully not a “suspected terrorist” and target for disruption:
“Empathy: that’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. The ability to walk in someone else’s shoes; the recognition that someone else’s experience has value, too. Most of us practice this without a second thought. If we see someone suffering or struggling, we don’t stand in judgment. We reach out because, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” It is not a hard concept to grasp. It’s what we teach our children….
…They see an entitlement that says only certain people belong here, that greed is good, and winning is everything because as long as you come out on top, it doesn’t matter what happens to everyone else. And they see what happens when that lack of empathy is ginned up into outright disdain.
They see our leaders labeling fellow citizens enemies of the state while emboldening torch-bearing white supremacists. They watch in horror as children are torn from their families and thrown into cages, and pepper spray and rubber bullets are used on peaceful protesters for a photo op.
Sadly, this is the America that is on display for the next generation. A nation that’s under-performing not simply on matters of policy but on matters of character. And that’s not just disappointing; it’s downright infuriating, because I know the goodness and the grace that is out there in households and neighborhoods all across this nation.
And I know that regardless of our race, age, religion, or politics, when we close out the noise and the fear and truly open our hearts, we know that what’s going on in this country is just not right. This is not who we want to be.
…“When others are going so low, does going high still really work?” My answer: going high is the only thing that works, because when we go low, when we use those same tactics of degrading and dehumanizing others, we just become part of the ugly noise that’s drowning out everything else. We degrade ourselves. We degrade the very causes for which we fight.
But let’s be clear: going high does not mean putting on a smile and saying nice things when confronted by viciousness and cruelty. Going high means taking the harder path. It means scraping and clawing our way to that mountain top. Going high means standing fierce against hatred while remembering that we are one nation under God, and if we want to survive, we’ve got to find a way to live together and work together across our differences.
And going high means unlocking the shackles of lies and mistrust with the only thing that can truly set us free: the cold, hard truth.” Michelle Obama: The truth will set us free: the cold, hard truth.”, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/17/us/politics/Michelle-Obama-speech-transcript-video.html
1https://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/fbi-oversight-020520
2https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/07/us/politics/erik-prince-project-veritas.html
3https://www.lawfareblog.com/timeline-house-intelligence-committee-chairman-all-nunes-thats-fit-print
4https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/27/koch-brothers-network-to-spend-400-million-in-midterm-election-cycle.html
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a15844720/paul-ryan-tax-bill-koch-donation/
5https://theintercept.com/2017/12/04/trump-white-house-weighing-plans-for-private-spies-to-counter-deep-state-enemies/ https://qz.com/1239762/cambridge-analytica-scandal-all-the-countries-where-scl-elections-claims-to-have-worked/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nunes-subpoena-to-justice-dept-requested-all-documents-about-individual-described-as-longtime-intelligence-source/2018/05/09/93fbc154-53c2-11e8-9c91-7dab596e8252_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/politics/paul-manafort-roger-stone/
6https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/08/yes-american-police-act-like-occupying-armies-they-literally-studied-their-tactics
7https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/21/government-agents-directly-involved-us-terror-plots-report
The FBI investigates four categories of domestic violent extremism: racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism; anarchism and anti-government extremism; abortion violent extremism; and environmental extremism.
https://www.voanews.com/usa/2019-deadliest-year-domestic-terrorism-says-fbi-director
https://time.com/5647304/white-nationalist-terrorism-united-states/
8https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/vice-vs-the-real-dick-cheney
9https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2020/06/02/nypd-on-outside-anarchist-groups-intentionally-instigating-violence
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/30/william-barr-george-floyd-protests-290792
10The city’s stockbrokers, bankers, real estate developers, merchants and hoteliers cared little about police corruption as long as the cops kept their boots firmly on the neck of organized labor and radical activists.” https://time.com/4384963/nypd-scandal-history/ Daniel Czitrom.
11https://www.britannica.com/biography/J-Edgar-Hoover
12https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/05/23/stefan-halper-didnt-steal-carters-debate-prep-books-for-reagan-a-democrat-did/ , https://theintercept.com/2018/12/07/george-h-w-bush-iran-contra/
13https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/05/23/stefan-halper-didnt-steal-carters-debate-prep-books-for-reagan-a-democrat-did/
Let’s Talk About George H.W. Bush’s Role in the Iran-Contra Scandal
14 https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/vice-vs-the-real-dick-cheney
15https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2017-43722-002 Control as a defining characteristic of torture: A learning theory analysis of the Kubark Interrogation manual.
16https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/07/21/illusion-justice/human-rights-abuses-us-terrorism-prosecutions
https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/docs/guidelines.pdf , See TAB 2
The 2009 AG (Eric Holder) guidelines for FBI operations- “even if not charged and threat resolved, disruption operations are allowed”
“The FBI’s disruption strategy is laid out in a 2009 memorandum from the Counterterrorism Division to all field offices instituting a “baseline collection plan,” which itemizes the types of information that FBI agents should seek during investigations of suspected terrorists. The plan describes implementation of a “disruption strategy” that is eerily reminiscent of the COINTELPRO-era disruption activities that were specifically designed to suppress First Amendment activity.
The 2009 FBI memorandum states that when “the risk to public safety is too great, or if all significant intelligence has been collected, and/or the threat is resolved,” agents may employ a disruption strategy “including arrests, interviews, or source-driven operations to effectively disrupt subject’s activities” [emphasis added]. This means that groups the FBI believes, but cannot prove, are involved in terrorism (perhaps because they aren’t) can still be investigated and targeted for sting operations or other invasive techniques, not to mitigate a threat, but to disrupt their activities.”
From Manufacturing a “Black Separatist” Threat and Other Dubious Claims: Bias in Newly Released FBI Terrorism Training Materials, Michael German, Senior Policy Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office, 2012 https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/discriminatory-profiling/manufacturing-black-separatist-threat-and-other
17https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/how-fix-fbi-it-shouldnt-be-intelligence-agency https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/standards-opening-fbi-investigation-so-low-they-make-statistic
18http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/lyceum.htm
19https://www.aclu.org/other/more-about-fbi-spying
20https://theintercept.com/2019/09/14/fbi-mike-german-book/
21https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/30/opinion/the-cias-misuse-of-secrecy.html
22http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/3/cia-torture-feinsteininterrogationimpunity.html
CRIMES AND IMPUNITY FULL SENATE COMMITTEE REPORT ON CIA SECRET DETENTIONS MUST BE RELEASED, AND ACCOUNTABILITY FOR CRIMES UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW ENSURED, Amnesty International, 2015
23https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2014/12/us-needs-new-church-committee/101046/?oref=d-channelriver
24 https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/protect-liberty-security/transparency-oversight/rethinking-intelligence\ The Brennan Center https://www.brennancenter.org/
25https://ips-dc.org/human_rights_and_intelligence_reform/
26 President Trump appears to be promoting torturers and pro-torture officials to high office:
Secretary of State Pompeo has expressed po-torture beliefs. Gina Haspel, CIA Director, ran a secret torture prison in Thailand. Marshall Billingslea was responsible for special operations at the Department of Defense after 9/11, then later responsible for the Guantanimo Bay torture prison, and has recently been appointed as an Under Secretary of State. Elliott Abrams reportedly oversaw U.S. Kubark counter-insurgency operations (torture) in Central and South America, and was appointed as a special representative on Venezuela. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/an-actual-american-war-criminal-may-become-our-second-ranking-diplomat/
Elliott Abrams, Trump’s Pick to Bring “Democracy” to Venezuela, Has Spent His Life Crushing Democracy
27https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/may/14/iraq.usa1
28https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/09/trump-ice/565772/
https://phr.org/our-work/resources/leave-no-marks
29https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/06/07/floyd-killing-truth-reconciliation-commission-race-police-column/3147541001/
https://jfkfacts.org/tag/american-truth-and-reconciliation-committee/
30https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/reforming-intelligence-democracy-and-effectiveness/
31https://www.start.umd.edu/publication/effectiveness-counter-terrorism-strategies-campbell-systematic-review
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/30/socialism-investors-capitalism-everyone-else/
32One minor- and perhaps bad example as it relies on a Nazi interrogator- the non-coercive Schaff technique has evidence based efficacy in eliciting information. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1068316X.2019.1669600
33https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/protect-liberty-security/transparency-oversight/rethinking-intelligence\
WorldConsul 