So. Do we conclude that the situation has gotten worse -- or do we simply shrug our shoulders and say that the Bureau has finally become more honest? When J. Edgar was alive, the FBI refused to admit that the mafia was real -- in fact, we were told that the very concept of "organized crime" was no more than commie propaganda. But the Bureau did have agents at every meeting of the Communist Party.
And now...
Whatever the reason, the agency's increased focus on national security over the last decade has not occurred without consequence. Between 2001 and 2009, the FBI doubled the amount of agents dedicated to counterterrorism, according to a 2010 Inspector's General report. That period coincided with a steady decline in the overall number of criminal cases investigated nationally and a steep decline in the number of white-collar crime investigations.Nevertheless, if you plug "FBI" into the Google News search engine, most of the links will go to stories about law enforcement. So, like, there's that.
"Violent crime, property crime and white-collar crime: All those things had reductions in the number of people available to investigate them," former FBI agent Brad Garrett told Foreign Policy. "Are there cases they missed? Probably."
Last month, Robert Holley, the special agent in charge in Chicago, said the agency's focus on terrorism and other crimes continued to affect the level of resources available to combat the violent crime plaguing the city. "If I put more resources on violent crime, I'd have to take away from other things," he told The Chicago Tribune.
4 comments:
Early in 2008 Bush's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) refused to create a US Task Force to investigate mortgage fraud. The FBI had been unable to investigate serious cases of fraud, often involving millions of dollars, simply because of staff cuts made to meet the burgeoning security and terrorism industry. Since 2004 FBI officials had warned Bush that mortgage fraud -- of the type that lead directly to the sub prime mortgage meltdown --posed a looming threat and repeatedly asked the Bush administration for more money but were refused. Billions were wasted on corrupt, no-bid Iraqi contracts for the likes of Haliburton but nothing to stem mortgage fraud and corporate scams.
Moreover, it wasn't as if the Bush administration hadn't been warned. In 2003, 50 US state Governors, Republican and Democrat, collectively sought to legislate against predatory bank lending practices of the type that subsequently gave rise to the collapse of the US housing market and the GFC. They were blocked by the US Treasury Department’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency using an arcane law from after the Civil War with the result that banks were able to engage in wholesale predatory mortgage lending practices right up to the GFC.
And yes, the police state has been normalized. Do people remember how US intelligence, in conference with big business, shut down the US Occupy Movement in Nov 2012?
The agency supervising that shut down process was the US Domestic Security Alliance Council (DSAC), a council of US military and intelligence agencies, the FBI, Homeland Security, US Naval Intelligence, and major US corporations set up to monitor "domestic terrorists" -- you know, environmentalists, trade union officials and the like. DSAC had surveilled peaceful Occupy movement protestors in over 50 US cities and gave confidential briefings to corporations. They then shut down the movement in a nationally coordinated exercise while Pres.Obama was out of the country visiting South East Asia. US corporations and policing services are now a seamless entity with the same goal: domestic population control. Civil protestors are now 'domestic terrorists.'
The FBI is now fully integrated into the national security apparatus.
Thank you for the information, Gavan. Please continue to post here or at least notify me where else you post and dialogue. I had formerly worked for the US Occupy movement and allied movements in the same milieu as Occupy Wall Street. Unfortunately I was separated from the movement, and during that separation, I was left out of the loop. When I returned, the Occupy movement (including OWS) seemed to have disappeared and possibly been smashed and obliterated. I've been trying to find out what happened to the Occupy movements. Interesting that the Tea Party movement has had no such opposition or oppression as my Occupy movements. As another commentator on here pointed it, this probably indicates which group the State actually prefers. I wish I could resurrect the Occupy movement, but I cannot do it alone. Besides, if I am 'renditioned', the word used for when the Authority kidnaps you (as opposed to calling it kidnapping and therefore equating it with a criminal act), then I can at least expect the DSAC had something to do with silencing me permanently. Such a wonderful world and happenstance I find myself in /satire.
Jay
Jay, the Occupy movement still exists, mostly on a state/city level. Look for a local chapter.
Jay, there is a typo error in my previous comment. The Occupy Movement was shut down in Nov 2011, not 2012. Fifty US state governors conducted a nationwide campaign backed by the intelligence agencies to do this in a week. The fabricated excuses were along the lines of public health and safety. Notably Obama was out of the country while all this was happening. It could only have taken place in the way it did with his full knowledge and approval. The administration shut them down because while they weren't effective in defining realizable political goals they were raising real questions in the minds of the general public about who exactly is running our societies (US, UK, Euro, Anglos, Israel, Western, friendly Asian). The answer of course is a coalition of corporations and high finance along with the US military. So Occupy had to be shut down. This was a real turning point by the counter-revolutionary economic forces, a steel fist in a velvet glove that passed without murmur by our servile media and political commentariat.
Notably also the shut downs happened at the same time globally, including places like Canada, Australia and in the UK where the resistance dragged on till mid 2012 by some adroit legal challenges. But the outcome was never in any real doubt.
Do not be confused. The 2011 shut down of the Occupy Movement was a watershed event, a firm declaration by the established political and financial forces of economic and police state control in the theme park holiday land they sell as "democracy".
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy
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