(LifeSiteNews) — It is an unfortunate reality in America that one must distinguish between a justice system for common Americans who are non-government employees and a different justice system for the “elites” who are mostly government employees (including politicians). The non-government American clearly does not have access to what is necessary to receive proper justice, whereas many government employees have sovereign immunity and access to almost unlimited money and time, lawyers, favors from their co-elites, and secret information.
Specifically, many local and federal government employees have access to secret information on the methods, sources, techniques, surveillance technologies, and other remotely operated and secret crowd controlling technologies that may be used by law enforcement and other government employees. This especially includes those employed in government Prosecutors’ and Attorneys’ Offices, the FBI, other undercover investigative entities, and the intelligence community.
Additionally, there is a law enforcement exemption (18 U.S. Code § 1038(d)) which apparently permits such entities to engage in
conduct with intent to convey false or misleading information under circumstances where such information may reasonably be believed and where such information indicates that an activity has taken, is taking, or will take place […]
Such activities are also referred to as “hoaxes” in the law section’s title. In other words, the non-government American does not have access to information on local police or federal government hoaxes and other “false or misleading information” propagated by those entities
It has to be said that law enforcement employees, including FBI employees, have secretly and intentionally committed harmful actions against Americans in the past. This was accurately described during the 1970s in a document from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Activities:
[I]ntelligence activity in the past decades has, all too often, exceeded the restraints on the exercise of governmental power which are imposed by our country’s Constitution, laws, and traditions […]
Intelligence activity […] is generally covert. It is concealed from its victims and is seldom described in statutes or explicit executive orders. The victim may never suspect that his misfortunes are the intended result of activities undertaken by his government, and accordingly may have no opportunity to challenge the actions taken against him. (Pages 2-3)
The emphasis should be on “the victim may never suspect that his misfortunes are the intended result of activities undertaken by his government, and accordingly may have no opportunity to challenge the actions taken against him.” Government employees have harmed Americans – caused them “misfortunes” – in the past. American citizens did not even know such harm was intentionally done to them, nor did they know it was government employees who secretly harmed them. Could current government employees do such things at the present time?
One might reasonably suggest that such actions could happen again, including during law enforcement hoaxes. But, of course, the common American cannot receive proper justice for crimes committed during those hoaxes without the necessary information on those secret activities. Thus, there are at least two different “justice systems” in America – one which hides secret government employee information from the common American, and another which allows government employees to know the secret information.
Technologies and methods have only been advanced enough to be more secret, more remotely controlled, and invisible since the 1970s Senate document describing harm secretly done to Americans by the FBI and other undercover investigative entities. In other words, it is likely that most Americans not employed by government directly or indirectly should want to know the secret actions (including previous actions) of the FBI and police; most Americans, at least those who are not employed as secret employees in the community by the FBI and police, might demand that those entities not be permitted to keep secrets.
Law enforcement exemption in Freedom of Information Act
Apparently, the main argument which law enforcement uses to support keeping their technologies secret is that if they were to publish their technologies or procedures, then it would make it easier for criminals to commit crimes. One scholarly article describes this argument and then provides some opposition to police and FBI secrecy. It is entitled “Secrecy & Evasion in Police Surveillance Technology” and
examines the primary argument offered by law enforcement in the United States: that disclosure of police technologies would allow criminals to evade the law. Without secrecy, the argument goes, criminals could circumvent law enforcement’s tools, crime would go undetected, and society would suffer the consequences. (Page 503)
The author labels this argument as the “anti-circumvention argument for secrecy.” The article cannot be completely described here; however, it is necessary to summarize some good points in the article and then mention other significant points which are either missed by the author or are not clearly explained.
The author looks at how U.S. federal law protects the secrecy of law enforcement techniques and explains, “The principal sources of law in this area at the federal level are Exemption 7(E) of FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] and the law enforcement evidentiary privilege.” (Page 546) The author continues:
FOIA imposes a presumptive requirement on the government to disclose any records in its possession upon request, including in theory records that might disclose law enforcement capabilities or techniques. Of course, this disclosure mandate is not absolute; FOIA contains exemptions. Key among these is the law enforcement exemption. (Page 546)
As the author explains, Exemption (7E) of FOIA permits federal agencies to withhold
records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes, but only to the extent that the production of such law enforcement records or information . . . would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions, or would disclose guidelines for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions if such disclosure could reasonably be expected to risk circumvention of the law. (Pages 546-547, quoting 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(E))
The exemption is significant, as the author explains, because
[t]he scope of this exemption determines, to a great extent, how much official information the public can obtain about the capabilities of law enforcement technologies and how they are used. (Page 547)
As the author explains throughout the article, many claim that “sophisticated criminals” will be able to evade law enforcement technologies if they know what is possible:
The anti-circumvention argument begins from the premise that if law enforcement discloses certain information about its technological capabilities or how it uses them, then lawbreakers—particularly terrorists, drug trafficking organizations, and other sophisticated criminals—will learn how to avoid detection, interdiction, and prosecution. Such criminals will be able to exploit the gaps in both the capabilities of law enforcement’s technologies and the manner in which they are deployed. They will, as a result, be able to wreak havoc unimpeded and evade apprehension at will. (Page 508)
The author describes the FBI using such an argument in support of keeping their technologies secret:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has made this argument in particularly stark and ominous terms, raising the specter of large numbers of kidnappings and murders going unpunished. A sworn affidavit from the head of its Tracking Technology Unit made the case for secrecy with respect to information about cell-site simulator devices. The FBI official warned, “discussion of the capabilities and use of the equipment . . . could easily lead to the development and employment of countermeasures” and ‘completely disarm law enforcement’s ability to obtain technology-based surveillance data in criminal investigations,’ thereby ‘completely prevent[ing] the successful prosecution of a wide variety of criminal cases involving terrorism, kidnappings, murder, and other conspiracies where cellular location is frequently used.’ (Page 508)
A significant fact which might be obvious to many but is completely ignored in the above quotation and will be mentioned again in a moment is that FBI employees and local police employees are just as capable, if not more capable, of being “sophisticated criminals.” Yet, the “capabilities and use of equipment” of the FBI and local police are known by FBI and local police employees. The “anti-circumvention argument for secrecy” is arbitrarily used against the common American but not FBI employees.
In other words, thousands (if not millions) of government employees (and “informants” who cooperate with the FBI) might have the knowledge of FBI and police technologies, methods, and procedures. According to the U.S. federal government’s argument, this makes the employees of both the FBI and the police capable of committing conspiracies and evading detection or prosecution.
Or, because they know the capabilities and use of FBI or police equipment, FBI and local police employees could wreak havoc unimpeded and evade apprehension at will, according to the FBI’s reasoning quoted above. Yet, FBI and police employees are still permitted to know the technologies and procedures but the common American is not. This is absurd, arbitrary, and potentially blatant dishonesty.
Throughout “Secrecy & Evasion in Police Surveillance Technology,” the author provides reasons why law enforcement transparency is necessary and secrecy is harmful. Specifically, he contends that
secrecy undermines institutional checks on the police by other branches of government. Secrecy impedes the ability of the courts to consider and adjudicate compliance with constitutional and statutory limitations because litigants will frequently be unable to mount court challenges to concealed techniques. Secret techniques are also largely immune from legislative oversight and regulation. Even if legislators themselves learn about the police’s technologies and the policies that govern them—which is not always a given—oversight is severely weakened in the absence of public disclosure. Indeed, secrecy undermines the accountability of police technologies to the public at large, limiting the ability of citizens to use the levers of democracy to control their law enforcement agencies. (Page 509)
A point in the previous quotation to emphasize is that American citizens should have the ability to control their law enforcement agencies. The author does not state this, but for whatever reason, it seems that many Americans almost necessarily submit to and obey local secret police – specifically the investigating and other secret entities of the local police – and the FBI as if these entities can do whatever they want. Of course, in a country such as America, that is not how law enforcement should operate. There is such a thing as “illegitimate authority.” Secret operations and entities might be such false authorities which one can, and might have a duty to, disobey.
(A related argument was provided in a few recent articles – this article and this article – with regards to law enforcement secrecy and voting in America. The FBI, local police, and other law enforcement secrecy almost necessarily interfere with elections in America, almost necessarily cause falsified election results, and prevent Americans from controlling law enforcement operations, technologies, surveillance, etc.)
Again, potentially one of the most significant arguments in opposition to the U.S. government’s flawed or dishonest reasoning in support of police and FBI secrecy (which is apparently not mentioned by the author of “Secrecy & Evasion in Police Surveillance Technology”) is that FBI employees, intelligence community employees, police employees, and likely many other government employees know the technologies and procedures used by the FBI, intelligence community, and local police. According to the U.S. government’s reasoning, this makes those government employees significant risks in the “circumvention of the law” and able to cause unimpeded harm. Thus, the U.S. government’s argument supporting FBI and police secrecy is absurd.
Not only are FBI and local police employees, specifically secret police or investigators (because they do not wear a uniform and are nearly impossible to identify), able to circumvent the law due to their knowledge of secret government surveillance technologies and other procedures, but they have the potential to be even more dangerous than the common American.
There are several reasons why secret government employees like those in the FBI or secret police could become more dangerous than the common American. First, the FBI and local police are funded by the U.S. government which can provide almost endless amounts of money to a potential criminal conspiracy of the FBI or local secret police. (The author describes state and local police being provided billions in funding by the U.S. government on Page 566.) The common American is not typically funded by the government (or at least not funded with an almost endless amount of money).
Next, FBI and local police have access to many weapons, potentially as many weapons as can be manufactured. Local police even have military weapons. The common American, no matter how “sophisticated” he or she might be, probably does not own and operate a tank which shoots rockets or has machine guns mounted on it. (One might support local police owning military weapons; if so, one might still likely oppose government secrecy, especially due to military weapons being more remotely operated, secret, and invisible, possibly including “directed-energy weapons.”)
FBI and local police employees necessarily already have a sophisticated group of thousands, or potentially millions, of networked people – their co-workers – who could, almost in an instant, turn against one American or many Americans and commit the worst of the worst crimes using their military weapons and tactics. The common American does not have such a group of networked co-workers with military weapons and other secret weapons. (No matter how much one supports what is purported to be a conservative ideology of arguably almost negligent support for law enforcement, one has to remember that liberals work in many government positions, including local police, the FBI, Prosecutors’ Offices, etc.)
There is more. Some, if not many, FBI and police employees are former U.S. military members; thus, they have knowledge of military tactics or how to coordinate, plan, and perform harmful operations that the common American does not have.
(This is not to say that such American veterans who become uniformed police officers are bad people; nor is it saying that non-veteran uniformed police are bad people. Indeed, many American veterans were seriously injured in their efforts for freedom; government secrecy, including FBI and police secrecy, is anti-freedom and contrary to the sacrifices of those brave Americans.)
The points being made here are to explain the absurdity of the U.S. government’s arguments in favor of secrecy. Their argument basically claims that secrecy is required to prevent crime, yet it is obvious that their secrecy is itself a potential weapon which could aid and abet the worst conspiracies imaginable. Simply observe what reportedly occurs in other countries where the military is the police. The common American cannot do those things but a group of people like the FBI or local secret police could do those things.
Knowledge of almost every action of every FBI, state police, local police, intelligence community, and similar government employees is one of the few ways in which Americans might be able to protect themselves from such coordinated crimes. (This article cannot elaborate, but knowledge of every FBI and police employee or “source” is likely also necessary; secret police entities, secret investigative entities, and anything similar should likely be illegal or unlawful in America.)
There is more. The “sophisticated” criminal organizations often bribe police—take the drug cartels in Mexico as an example. And (apparently if they are just sophisticated enough) they might get their gang members, drug dealers, or drug cartel members employed in the police or FBI. Yet, the police and FBI still know the technologies and procedures of the FBI and police, but the common American does not.
Again, one of the few ways in which common Americans can protect themselves is by requiring government entities to publish almost every action and definitely every technology which they use, have used, or could possibly use.
Basically, the law enforcement Exemption 7(E) of the Freedom of Information Act not only likely does not prevent the circumvention that it purports to prevent but actually might provide for easier secret circumvention by government employees; such secrecy might provide for easier conspiracies committed by secret government employees in the FBI, local police, intelligence community, etc. These are, again, crimes which have occurred in the past which Americans did not even realize were committed by government employees, crimes that Americans “have no opportunity to challenge the actions taken against him.” (Pages 2-3)
Thus, the U.S. government’s reasons for FBI and police secrecy, and at least one federal law which supports them, are arbitrary and absurd.