The Federal Bureau of Investigation has quietly developed a new way to measure its success in the war on terror: counting the number of terror threats it has “disrupted” in a year.
But good luck trying to figure out what that number means, how it was derived, or why it doesn’t jibe with any other law enforcement statistic, most notably, the number of terror suspects actually charged or arrested.
In the section on “Performance Measures” in the FBI’s latest financial statement, the bureau reports 440 “terror disruptions” in the 12-month period ending on September 30, 2015. That’s compared to 214 in fiscal year 2014. And it’s more than three times the 2015 “target” of 125.
In a vacuum, that would appear to suggest that the FBI’s terror-fighting mission — which sucked up $5.3 billion, or 54 percent of the bureau’s $9.8 billion budget in 2015 — is exceeding expectations.
But that number — 440 — is much higher than the number of arrests reported by the FBI. The Washington Post counted about 60 terror-related arrests in 2015; a study by George Washington University found 71 arrests related to the Islamic State from March 2014 to the end of 2015.
Of those arrests, many were of people trying to travel abroad or trying to help others do so. Many more involved people planning attacks that were essentially imaginary, often goaded by FBI informants.
And according to a document from the Department of Homeland Security obtained by The Intercept in November, there was only one genuinely “foiled attack” in the United States between January 2014 and September 2015. And that one, involving would-be shooters in Garland, Texas, targeting a cartoon-drawing event inspired by the Prophet Muhammad, was stopped by the local police department.
The FBI didn’t respond to emails asking basic questions such as what qualifies as a disruption, why the number is so much higher than the bureau’s recorded arrests, or how it comes up with its annual “target.”
In a January 2015 Performance Report, Justice Department officials explained that the “targets reflect the number of expected disruptions based on the estimated threat, yet account for potential fluctuations.”
The officials acknowledged that “disruptions can be a challenge to quantify for future years” because the number of potential plots is “outside of FBI control.” Nevertheless, they wrote: “Based on past data trends, coupled with current and emerging threat pictures, the FBI expects to achieve its FY 2015 and FY 2016 targets.”
A strange way to provide transparency
The “terrorism threat disruptions” metric is a relatively new arbiter of success for the FBI. In a 2013 Department of Justice document about strategic goals, fighting terrorism is identified as Strategic Goal 1, and “number of terrorism disruptions” is Strategic Objective 1.1.
“To provide transparency to its work in the area of counterterrorism, the Department will disclose a key statistic: the number of terrorism disruptions,” the department announced.
But the definition was vague: “A disruption is defined as interrupting or inhibiting a threat actor from engaging in criminal or national security related activity. A disruption is the result of direct actions and may include but is not limited to the arrest; seizure of assets; or impairing the operational capabilities of key threat actors.”
And the department’s idea of transparency was problematic. Because the FBI’s “operational priorities are classified,” the document noted, “it is only possible to report aggregate data that lacks significant detail.”
Experts interviewed by The Intercept suggested two possible explanations for the high number of terror disruptions.
Gold stars
One possibility, they said, is that the number is just a subjective way to make people at the FBI look good, or to rationalize the cost.
“This is how the whole career system works in the FBI — statistics, performance,” said Coleen Rowley, a former FBI agent and whistleblower. Individuals use statistics to advance their careers, and the agency, in turn, uses them to justify its budget, she said. “In the agency, this is the way to advance.”
The fact that the agency establishes a target for terrorism disruptions is also troubling, said Michael German, a former FBI agent and fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice. “That the FBI actually sets a performance goal stating the specific number of terrorist disruptions it wants to accomplish over the year would seem to create an incentive to gin up cases where no real threat might exist.”
And if the number is inflated, it wouldn’t be the first time the Department of Justice or the FBI had been criticized for inaccurately estimating the impact of their counterterrorism efforts.
In 2007, an inspector general investigation found that the entire Department of Justice — the FBI included — had messed up its bookkeeping efforts on terrorism. The FBI mistakenly included marriage fraud, immigration cases, and others in their records of anti-terror cases.
And in 2013, Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz called out the office that oversees U.S. attorney’s offices for shoddy reporting that significantly overstated the number of terrorism convictions, counting cases that actually dealt with narcotics or money laundering or including defendants who had their charges dismissed.
“These inaccuracies are important in part because DOJ management and Congress need accurate terrorism-related statistics to make informed operational and budgetary decisions,” Horowitz said in a statement accompanying the 2013 report.
Easier to disrupt than arrest
Another possible explanation for such a big number, however, is that it accurately reflects a new FBI approach to fighting terror that is occurring outside of public view — where the bureau decides someone is a threat and disrupts his or her life in some way that isn’t nearly as subject to oversight and accountability as an indictment or an arrest.
“I’m sensing a significant change in counterterrorism policy in the U.S., where we’ve gone from ‘watch and report,’ to ‘let’s just disrupt them any way we can,’” David Gomez, a former FBI agent and profiler, as well as a former LAPD officer, told The Intercept. “This has cut short the way the FBI does long-term investigations. … They’re not doing that anymore.”
The FBI has indeed been going through some changes.
As a 2013 Congressional Research Service report explains, “Since the September 11, 2001 (9/11) attacks, the FBI has implemented a series of reforms intended to transform itself from a largely reactive law enforcement agency focused on investigations of criminal activity into a more proactive, agile, flexible, and intelligence-driven agency that can prevent acts of terrorism.”
This has led law enforcement agencies to use aggressive, proactive techniques to catch potential terrorists before a crime is committed. According to the CRS report, one technique is the “Al Capone” approach — putting people in jail for a minor crime rather than sticking around and waiting for evidence of a serious violent threat.
Another method is the informant, or “agent provocateur,” who starts communicating with potential suspects, goading them into committing an act of terrorism in order to catch them in the act.
“Where the person targeted really is a terrorist, that might make sense,” said German. “But often when evidence that a person is a terrorist is lacking — that’s because he isn’t a terrorist.”
German, in an email, asked: “Has the FBI secretly prevented people from getting jobs, hazmat licenses, gun permits, security clearances, or barred their travel where no charges were brought, providing no opportunity for them to challenge the accusations against them or prove their innocence? And then chalked that up as a successful ‘disruption’ so they would get a pat on the back and more resources from Congress, regardless of whether the person was actually guilty?”
A 2009 FBI document obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union explicitly allows field offices to engage in “disruption strategies” at the conclusion of a terror assessment or investigation, after “all significant intelligence has been collected, and/or the threat is otherwise resolved.” Disruption strategy involves “a range of tools including arrests, interviews, or source-directed operations to effectively disrupt subject’s activities.”
“The FBI’s overbroad and aggressive use of its investigative and surveillance powers, and its willingness to employ ‘disruption strategies’ against subjects not charged with crimes can have serious, adverse impacts on innocent Americans,” the ACLU concluded.
“Being placed under investigation creates an intense psychological, and often financial, burden on the people under the microscope and their families, even when they are never charged with a crime,” it continued. “All the more so when a heinous crime like terrorism is alleged, and when the investigators are convinced the subject of their investigation is guilty but they just don’t have the evidence necessary for arrest.”
The Congressional Research Service report noted that such methods are reminiscent of the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover, and particularly the COINTELPRO program, which engaged in “preventive, covert, intelligence-based efforts to target and contain people, groups, or movements suspected by the Bureau to be ‘rabble rousers,’ ‘agitators,’ ‘key activists,’ or ‘key black extremists.’” The FBI “relied on illegal means to curb constitutionally protected activity it deemed threatening to national security.”
The goal of “disruption” has typically been reserved for FBI agents pursuing people like drug traffickers — where “impeding the normal and effective operation of the targeted organization, as indicated by changes in the organizational leadership and/or changes in methods of operation,” counts as disruption.
But that standard doesn’t really apply to the “lone wolves” or small groups that make up most of the FBI’s terror suspects.
Great expectations
The FBI is under a lot of pressure these days — charged with preventing every possible terrorist attack before it happens, while withstanding public scrutiny of its methods.
Gomez, the former FBI agent, cuts the bureau some slack. “As a policeman, we used to have a saying about local drug dealers — we put them in jail for everything, use of heroin, a misdemeanor,” Gomez said. “They’re doing life in prison 60 days at a time.”
The FBI is “going to be under severe criticism” one way or the other, he said. “You can’t win.”
Rowley, though critical of the strategy, said she was also sympathetic. “It’s a bad position of, oh, you better prevent every act of terrorism,” she said.
For all these cowardly FBI DHS trolls below who mockingly refer to the innocence of victims of their Organized Stalking – what kind of narcissism/sociopathy drives you?
On that note-here are thousands of your email addies courtesy of p*wned CthuluSec- but we are working hard on getting your home addresses, license plate numbers, and much more so the people can return the favor-of stalking and harassing you and raping your aononymity in return for what you do every day.
https://fbidhs.thecthulhu.com/
Be aware that we will be photographing you through your windows, taking snaps of your wives in the shower, your kids playing in the yard-and posting YOUR grandmothers #SS numbers if we get the chance-( all parts of what you do in your gangstaljing campaigns)-learned empathy goes a long way with your type of official sociopathy. Privacy rape is like a bullet in your head.
ToodleOoo and see you online
FBI May Already Be Using Predictive FOIA Search Software To Prevent Ryan Shapiro and Jason Leopold Impersonators From Proliferating…
“…Predictive coding is the use of software to review the majority of electronic documents in a disclosure exercise, instead of human beings. The software is programmed to account for findings made by senior lawyers who have reviewed a sample of the documents; those lawyers ‘train’ the document review platform as to what documents are likely to be relevant. Having been ‘trained’, the software then analyses the remaining documents and identifies their relevance to issues in the case,. The senior reviewers subsequently review further samples as a quality control process, determining whether the software has correctly identified relevant documents. This process will iteratively improve the quality of the ‘training’ until an acceptable level of accuracy is reached…”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/22/uk_court_approves_use_of_predictive_coding_as_basis_for_edisclosure_for_the_first_time/
ON THE EFFICACY OF FILING PUBLIC INFORMATION REQUESTS ABOUT PUBLIC INFORMATION REQUESTS ON ANY GOVERNMENT ENTITY WILLFULLY NON COMPLIANT WITH THE FINDINGS OF THEIR RESPECTIVE INSPECTOR GENERALS OFFICES OR CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT BODIES: …the FBI claims that Shapiro’s multitudinous requests, taken together, constitute a “mosaic” of information whose release could “significantly and irreparably damage national security” and would have “significant deleterious effects” on the bureau’s “ongoing efforts to investigate and combat domestic terrorism.”
So-called mosaic theory has been used in the past to stop the release of specific documents, but it has never been applied so broadly. “It’s designed to be retrospective,” explains Kel McClanahan, a DC-based lawyer who specializes in national security and FOIA law. “You can’t say, ‘What information, if combined with future information, could paint a mosaic?’ because that would include all information!”…
I have personally prevented 547 dinosaur attacks in the United States just this year. Want proof? There haven’t been ANY dinosaur attacks since I’ve been on the job, have there?
Don’t bother thanking me — Wait til you get my bill!
By the way, thank you Jenna McLaughlin, for reporting on this. Bit by bit this is being exposed. You cannot imagine what it’s like to be subjected to this torture–yes, torture, STATE-SPONSORED TORTURE.
As a target, you question your own sanity. To see bits and pieces coming out in the press is vindicating. Keep digging. There’s more. Expose the bastards–FBI, NSA, and whoever else is involved.
Jenna:
The most recent case of #OrganizedStalking that has solid hard evidence of ‘electronic methods and duration of investigation’ is that of #JohnLang in Fresno Calfornia, who died in a fire days after claiming cops were going to kill him.
While his case could easily be dismissed as 1) a local police investigation 2) possibly motivated by the victim as a cover for ‘crime'(petty crime) and 3) a high likelihood a coroner will rule it a suicide-it displays every element of gang stalking.
Most notably: the duration of time that these ‘black ops’ faux- investigations take. In Langs case alone, he noted interactions of increasing psychological brutality for over 7( seven) YEARS.
Many/most of thes cases of gang stalking share similar features: claims of mysterious harassment;documentation of harassment;then, said documentation being ‘stolen’ during nefarious unwarranted ‘sneak and perks’ and so on.
In the case of John Lang-we see that pattern too. But with a major difference: he documented it with excellent quality video. AND he got great snapshots of ‘mysterious’ figures in a van wearing cavalary hats shooting his house with what appears to be a thermal/microwave image device.
This is not insignificant: in the frames he captured, it is clearly a ‘drive by’ in nature: too brief to be effective, but obvious enough to terrorize a vocal opponent of a city/county police department known to have rapists and heroin dealers in its ranks; with endemic corruption and ‘strange suicides’ as a hallmark. And a chief of police that Lang once criticized for cavorting with teenaged girls!
So-proving FBI involvement is nearly impossible-but we know based in the burning if the SOD database, and in the revelations of Ed Snowden, that wherever dirt is going on-the FBI is the MAIN benefactor of said dirt.
And in terms of what ‘dirt’ is in the Lang case at least -the FBI was invoked BY Lang to investigate.
So to wrap: the FBI in these cases of organized stalking has the budgets, and the historical cowardice to feed iff activists, whistleblowers, and petty crime as an excuse to wage COINTELPRO jihad. They also historically act as the ‘shot callers’invoking lesser state and local agencies ti do dirty work once they target individuals with illegal/ grey tactics.
And so far, we know that they ARE doing this. We know it is in the great numbers stated in this article. And we know these cases are as stated: highly organized multi agency tax dollar sucking harassment of American citizens BY the FBI and it most cowardly bottom feeders.
So, Intercept-what do you reccomend we ask for in our FOIAs?
Jenna:
The most recent case of #OrganizedStalking that has solid hard evidence of ‘electronic methods and duration of investigation’ is that of #JohnLang in Fresno Calfornia, who died in a fire days after claiming cops were going to kill him.
While his case could easily be dismissed as 1) a local police investigation 2) possibly motivated by the victim as a cover for ‘crime'(petty crime) and 3) a high likelihood a coroner will rule it a suicide-it displays every element of gang stalking.
Most notably: the duration of time that these ‘black ops’ faux- investigations take. In Langs case alone, he noted interactions of increasing psychological brutality for over 7( seven) YEARS.
Many/most of thes cases of gang stalking share similar features: claims of mysterious harassment;documentation of harassment;then, said documentation being ‘stolen’ during nefarious unwarranted ‘sneak and perks’ and so on.
In the case of John Lang-we see that pattern too. But with a major difference: he documented it with excellent quality video. AND he got great snapshots of ‘mysterious’ figures in a van wearing cavalary hats shooting his house with what appears to be a thermal/microwave image device.
This is not insignificant: in the frames he captured, it is clearly a ‘drive by’ in nature: too brief to be effective, but obvious enough to terrorize a vocal opponent of a city/county police department known to have rapists and heroin dealers in its ranks; with endemic corruption and ‘strange suicides’ as a hallmark.
And a chief of police that Lang once criticized for cavorting with teenaged girls!
So-proving FBI involvement is nearly impossible-what with the evidence above even being obfuscated by source privilege and the journalistic relationship to power-but we know based on the burning if the SOD database in 2013, and in the revelations of Ed Snowden, that wherever dirt is going on-the FBI is the MAIN benefactor of said dirt.
And in terms of what ‘dirt’ is in the Lang case at least -the FBI was invoked BY Lang to investigate the planting of child porn on his computer. Considering that the department targeting him has had multiple allegations of the chief and others cavorting with underaged girls-its not a stretch to imagine vengeance investigations.
So to wrap: the FBI in these cases of organized stalking has the budgets, and the historical cowardice to feed off activists-to tail actuvists, an critics, disrupt relationships ( this, the very human toll) on whistleblowers, and petty criminals as an excuse to wage COINTELPRO jihad.
It xannot be understated that a great number of suicides follow in the wake if these brutal ‘bullying on steroids’ that FBI online disinfo agents are fond of calling them.
They also historically act as the ‘shot callers’invoking lesser state and local agencies to do dirty work once they target individuals with illegal/ grey tactics.
And so far, we know that they ARE doing this. We know it is in the great numbers stated in this article. And we know these cases are as stated: highly organized multi agency tax dollar sucking harassment of American citizens BY the FBI and it most cowardly bottom feeders.
So, Intercept-what do you reccomend we ask for in our FOIAs?
Carver County Thank you from one who knows.
One who knows what leslieanon? Pray tell. But tell it to those who can eviscerate the narrative. That works better than keeping it locked up inside.
Oh- wait: I know you- you meant ??????? right?
Tailgunner Joe gives the FBI a big fat Commie-terror-hatin’ thumbs up!
He better articled some more
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/09/25/circuit-court-remands-terrorism-case-on-grounds-fbi-withheld-info-on-al-awlaki.html
Oh dear, that was a late night drunken autocorrect crime.
“Here’s a better example, see article for more.”
As you point out, the essentially subjective and qualitative metric invites abuse and misreporting in ways that keep the deceptive reporting within the black letter of the definition. A campaign of harassment could be a single disruption or it could be parsed down to every phone call or intimidation attempt.
I’m curious …did you come upon any data about how this would be, as a matter of measuring the Bureau’s effectiveness, a superior metric to arrests and convictions? God help us all if if the FBI doesn’t get enough legitimate disruptions (which arguably can’t be known or measured anyway) because we’ll all end up getting harassed for them to meet their budget requirements.
In fact if the power giving to the FBI using this metric is huge. They could run amok, Dressing up their conduct as “disruptions,” never be held accountable for the actions ( by defense attorneys) and meanwhile get the big annual budget.
I tend to believe that any power given will eventually be taken.
Mike German, in an email, asked: “Has the FBI secretly prevented people from getting jobs, hazmat licenses, gun permits, security clearances, or barred their travel where no charges were brought, providing no opportunity for them to challenge the accusations against them or prove their innocence?”
Yes, they have, Mike German. Indeed they have. Get caught in this Kafkaesque vortex and you will probably never recover psychologically, professionally, socially. They might as well just off you.
Yep. In a nutshell. Innocent lives destroyed.
McLaughlin’s piece on FBI gang stalking, or what the agency calls “terror disruptions”. I would say the FBI and their paramilitary contractors are illegally stalking and ruining the lives of a vast number higher than 440 Americans annually, a statement based on direct experience since I’ve been one of their targets.
If an accurate number of ‘terror disruptions’ ops against fraudulently targeted people could be discovered, I think we’d see a dirty war in progress. Keep digging, McLaughlin.
Give bureaucrats targets and they will invent ways to meet those targets. They can be quite inventive in this.
Articles about Government abuse have an undercurrent of reference to “active” measures such as “gang-stalking” even RF weapons used against citizens. There is also talk that the Intercept will not report on this subject. I personal and I believe the Intercept have no evidence of such activity and if it existed it must be rare or someone would reveal it. On the other hand if someone was a target they would not know if they just had a run of real bad luck.
It is hard for me to believe such actions could occur on a large scale without some “reveal.” If I am wrong and this program is ever discovered it would leave a few guilt and lot of innocent citizens feeling a little raw. The hunters would become the hunted. If you exist stalking victims might be fun actually catching-up not so much.
It exists. It is very covert so is easily deniable. That’s the whole point.
Targets go through exactly what the Muslim students in this article went through–isolation, paranoia about who may be involved, and fear of speaking about politics or religion at all. It is devastating personally, professionally, and socially.
I suspect it’s not that rare if you are Muslim or speak up on behalf of Muslims, a tiny percentage of U.S. society which, again, makes it easily deniable–and justifiable (terrorists!)
The Intercept is under no obligation to investigate it. Maybe that Pulitzer should go to fightgangstalking.com anyway.
Sorry, not this article. This one https://theintercept.com/2016/02/18/coming-of-age-under-surveillance-in-new-york/
“Maybe that Pulitzer should go to fightgangstalking.com anyway.”
It should. And maybe it will.
I suspect, got no proof, something funny, not funny Ha-Ha, gas been going on for some time. Programs like “Insider Threat” and FBI secret “measuring disruption” are tailor to generate abuse, an every increasing nets to encircle more enemies both real and mostly imagined. Opens the door to the worst failing of human nature.
I have heard that those who have undergone Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training are very resistant to gangstalking. I wonder where that little gem of knowledge came from? If you hold to your oath to the Constitution above the System’s Rulers do you become an enemy of the State? A lot of US in and outside Government are asking this question, and there are more of US than You. Bernie and Trump collectively cut deeper that you think. Abuse is a two way street best not traveled.
“COINTELPRO on steroids”
In all likelihood, the agency and its personnel CAN’T or WON’T explain either measuring OR success – because that’s not the business that they’re in. Truth is quite easy to explain, if at all even necessary, in that it always shows up, stays and everybody can see it – it’s hard to cover up. UN-truth, on the other hand… needs a BIG F’n budget, every year, and issues lots of bulletins, proliferates story after story, and needs a lot of refreshing, if not repetition to hammer a not-so-practical message home. Useta, as a paranoiac (now, today, it’s pronoia – people are tryna help me) think I otta have my friends ask the FBI to investigate if somethin’ strange caused my demise. Now, it’s a little more like if somethin’ kinda weird befalls so and so and such and such, well – maybe the FBI was in on the nefarious, sketchy little deed. Like the war machine the FBI seems to be a bigger and bigger part of, why don’t they just hold bake sales to get their funding… ? Really. A whole lotta other causes can use those billions and all that energy to much kinder, happier means and ends…
The FBI notably disrupted a series of terrorist attacks by meteor strike, in which rocky projectiles, some nearly the size of a city block, and moving at up to 12 miles /sec. , were targeted against major US governmental facilities around the world. The disruptions were completely successful due in great part to the agency’s unimpeded ability to target and collect full data from every cell phone and computer in the asteroid belt. The agency expects similar success in the future against such attacks and has asked for another $6.7 billion to upgrade and maintain the necessary systems. The agency’s anti-basilisk unit has reported comparable success, with a recent CNN broadcast pointing out the stunning absence of such malefactors in recent weeks, and 3 unicorns were recently detained with a dirty bomb, the components of which were obtained over the internets with the help and careful monitoring at all stages, by undercover agents assigned to the project. They are currently being held for interrogation in an undisclosed location pending indictment and trial.
I smell Agency Troll.
It must be working. I haven’t seen any monsters in this sector since Halloween.
As the user below (Stalked 562) stated, the US Government is now using NLWs (“Non-Lethal Weapons”) – similar to the ones deployed in Iraq by the US Military, as tools of their disruption campaign, right here in the USA.
And as that poster also commented, over a period of time, NLWs are lethal. The FBI and DHS are judge, jury, and executioner rolled into one.
They will put you on a watch list and target you and your family for slow destruction. This includes but is not limited to: warrantless entries of home and vehicle, cyber-harassment, covert and overt harassment in public locations, false accusations of crimes of moral turpitude (extreme defamation of character), destruction of careers and relationships, pet poisonings, theft, and vandalism of personal property.
All of these activities are done on the shadows to allow for “Plausible Deniability,” but in reality equate to (1) outrageous government conduct, (2) extra-judicial punishment, (3) state-sponsored terrorism, and (4) violations of the RICO Act.
The ACLUs article – “Unleashed and Unaccountable: The FBI’s Unchecked Abuse of Authority,” describes some of the methodologies the FBI (and also DHS) employs in its destruction of the lives and futures of innocent Americans and their families.
There are tens of thousands of videos on Youtube which describe a phenomenon known on the street-level as “Gangstalking.” Many (not all but many) of these people are actually targets of this extra-judicial harassment program run out of the DoJ, but simply do not have the background to know why their lives are being destroyed.
In many cases, they come off as mentally unbalanced, but that is actually part of the FBI’s goal – to discredit and ruin the target. Many of these tactics were developed and used by the East German Stasi before the fall of the Iron Curtain. They had a name for this shadowy operation which destroyed innocent people: Zersetzung.
Unfortunately this communist program has been in operation in the US since before 2000, and is more effective than the East German’s program due to the technology at the disposal of the FBI, DHS, and NSA.
The ACLU is right. They are out of control and have no accountability.
To get an even more detailed analysis of illegal FBI, DHS and NSA operations (AKA – Post-9/11 COINTELPRO) check out this DISQUS channel:
https://disqus.com/home/channel/illegalgovernmentsurveillancefbidhsnsa/
As the user below (Stalked 562) stated, the US Government is now using NLWs (“Non-Lethal Weapons”) – similar to the ones deployed in Iraq by the US Military, as tools of their disruption campaign, right here in the USA.
And as that poster also commented, over a period of time, NLWs are lethal. The FBI and DHS are judge, jury, and executioner rolled into one.
They will put you on a watch list and target you and your family for slow destruction. This includes but is not limited to: warrantless entries of home and vehicle, cyber-harassment, covert and overt harassment in public locations, false accusations of crimes of moral turpitude (extreme defamation of character), destruction of careers and relationships, pet poisonings, theft, and vandalism of personal property.
All of these activities are done on the shadows to allow for “Plausible Deniability,” but in reality equate to (1) outrageous government conduct, (2) extra-judicial punishment, (3) state-sponsored terrorism, and (4) violations of the RICO Act.
The ACLUs article – “Unleashed and Unaccountable: The FBI’s Unchecked Abuse of Authority,” describes some of the methodologies the FBI (and also DHS) employs in its destruction of the lives and futures of innocent Americans and their families.
There are tens of thousands of videos on Youtube which describe a phenomenon known on the street-level as “Gangstalking.” Many (not all but many) of these people are actually targets of this extra-judicial harassment program run out of the DoJ, but simply do not have the background to know why their lives are being destroyed.
In many cases, they come off as mentally unbalanced, but that is actually part of the FBI’s goal – to discredit and ruin the target. Many of these tactics were developed and used by the East German Stasi before the fall of the Iron Curtain. They had a name for this shadowy operation which destroyed innocent people: Zersetzung.
Unfortunately this communist program has been in operation in the US since before 2000, and is more effective than the East German’s program due to the technology at the disposal of the FBI, DHS, and NSA.
The ACLU is right. They are out of control and have no accountability.
Yep. “Unleashed and unaccountable.” And a lot of good lives ruined, as a result.
September 2013
UNLEASHED AND UNACCOUNTABLE
The FBI’s Unchecked Abuse of Authority
https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/unleashed-and-unaccountable-fbi-report.pdf
To the point!
No trick is too dirty if someone is your chosen enemey -jedgar hoover…….as you can see if the police do not even want to find someone who has physically assaulted someone even with a video of the assaulter face and this in the land of the free. A fact i can prove it.
“In 2007, an inspector general investigation found that the entire Department of Justice — the FBI included — had messed up its bookkeeping efforts on terrorism. The FBI mistakenly included marriage fraud, immigration cases, and others in their records of anti-terror cases.”
Sounds like the FBI needs another visit from the inspector general
You can learn all you need to know about the FBI by looking at the name on the front of their building – J Edgar Hoover. No trick is too dirty if someone is your chosen enemy.
$5.3 B is the tip of the iceberg for FBI shadow budget. The use InfagGard & community snitches. Anyone can can be watch listed, innocent civilians. This is the gravy train for the agency and contractors. Government Organized Stalking. CO INTEL PRO no touch torture techniques. RF weapons are over time lethal.
You’re of course correct, but you do your argument a disservice by writing in fragmented sentences. Instead consider composing something in advance that can be copy-pasted in message boards and forums. Borrow appropriate text from the fightgangstalking website, which is both eloquent and credible.
Yes, the FBI is running gang stalking operations against whomever they want, especially if they’re liberal, leftist, non-white, women, and not voting for Trump. Seriously.
Wow. So-called welfare recipients, the poor, working moms and parents generally, the sick, elderly, children, hospitals, schools and the arts should be so lucky, all them billions every fiscal year. Interestingly, the agency, if this is indeed their first attachment or exhibit above makes this look very much indeed like a quota system… Full employment act for bigots, power junkies and sociopaths. Increasingly difficult to see how the agency is actually this person’s, your, or anybody’s, friend…
Let’s consider two of the biggest failures of the FBI in terms of investigating domestic terrorism: the 9/11/2001 terror attacks, and the anthrax letters mailed on 9/18/2001 and 10/09/2001. Obviously, other agencies were involved in these events, but the FBI’s role should be examined.
In the case of 9/11, multiple warnings from FBI field agents were ignored, including Coleen Rowley’s request to get approval to search Zacarias Moussaoui’s computer and run wiretaps, as well as a Phoenix FBI agent who raised concerns about flight schools training potential hijackers. Curiously, though, the Presidential Daily Briefing of Aug 06 2001 included a warning about “preparations consistent with airline hijackings” – so, what it looks like is senior FBI executives did warn the President but refused to take action at the local level. At this time, by the way, the FBI and Justice (Ashcroft, etc.) were claiming that ‘eco-terrorism’ and ‘WTO protesters’ were the #1 domestic terror threat facing the country. Notice also, that the Bush Administration had received warnings from the CIA in July 2001 about impending ‘spectacular attacks.’ So, on one hand, you have the FBI and CIA delivering warnings to the Bush Administration that were not acted on – the Bush Administration didn’t even warn the airlines to be on the lookout – they took no action, just a ‘wait and see approach’. This is hard to explain – unless perhaps the Bush Administration though that a terror hijacking incident, resulting in planes parked on an airport tarmac in the United States surrounded by police & military, would be something politically useful? It would take attention away from the looming Bush-linked Enron scandal, as well as from the growing investigation of the rigged 2000 election (which Gore actually won?).
However, just looking at the FBI role – would a major targeted investigation based on the FBI field agent’s warnings have disrupted the plot and prevented any hijackings? Let’s say, probably yes.
Now, let’s consider the post-event FBI investigation – we have a whole planeload of Saudis being flown out of the country, including bin Laden relatives, without any FBI interviews or questions asked. This was a Bush Administration decision, but the FBI executives didn’t exactly raise any protests. Nor was there much cooperation from the Saudi government regarding tracking the funds used by the hijackers to buy first class tickets, pay for apartments and food and flight school training. A pretty suspicious set of circumstances, all told – both before and after the 9/11 attacks.
Now, let’s consider the 9/18 and 10/9 anthrax mailings – here, it’s all after, there were no warnings that anyone knows about. The initial investigation, which really only began around 10/15/2001, after letters with nano-tech weaponized anthrax spores were opened in Senator Daschle’s office, was led by one FBI team, who appeared to be making real progress – until pulled off the case sometime around January 2002. There team leader was investigated for fund misappropriation and pushed into early retirement (Van Harp). The second FBI team led an investigation that dragged on and on, and which falsely targeted Steven Hatfill as the culprit – who later won a multi-million dollar settlement against the FBI for false accusation. The third FBI team, targeted one Bruce Ivins in 2008, which can be seen as a desperate effort to close the case before the 2008 elections. Despite a massive media PR effort by the FBI, anthrax biowarfare experts have stated that the evidence pointing to Ivins was highly flawed; many other people and labs had access to the same spores used in the attacks, and most tellingly, Ivins had no access to the kind of high-tech equipment needed to prepare the weaponized spores that were found in the Daschle letter. Never mind, said the FBI – case closed.
Now, do you think the FBI would stoop to harassing and investigating people who pointed to their abject failures both before and after 9/11, as well as their disastrously flubbed investigation of the worst biological terrorism event to ever take place in the United States, an attack which killed five people, sickened dozens, shut down the Congress (right as the Patriot Act was being debated, by the way), shut down the postal service, and sparked a nation-wide panic, with a total cost of at least $1 billion dollars? Well, yes they would – in Hoover style, in an effort to protect the reputation of their agency.
Of course, the FBI is made up of thousands of people – but as they say, the fish rots from the head down. What you see with the FBI is a persistent pattern of political operatives at the top of the agency putting their loyalty to large corporate interests and political leaders well ahead of their mandate to investigate crimes against the American people, and they routinely sabotage the careers of FBI field agents who don’t go along with this corrupt agenda.
Yup! But I was not the case agent of the Moussaoui investigation. I only had a peripheral legal role. The Special Agent Harry Samit, although he only had 3 years of experience as an agent, was an astute investigator and figured it all out very quickly, then sent pages of probable cause facts to FBIHQ as an emergency request. Afterwards he testified in Moussaoui trial that FBIHQ was criminally negligent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Samit . My memo in May, 2002 about the cover-up did lead to a two year long 300 plus page Inspector General Report about the FBI failures. But the CIA and NSA were allowed to skate. To this day, no one knows why the CIA refused to tell the FBI that two of the terrorist suspects had entered the U.S. See this important new New Yorker TV documentary based on Lawrence Wright’s research and featuring former FBI agents Ali Soufan and Mark Rossini: http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/our-new-television-show
What? They can’t count that kid who brought the box with the radio or alarm clock or what ever the F*ck it was? He might have been dangerous. Someday.
That kid which has left the country for Qatar, which may not of been dangerous then, after a taste of US (in)justice, will now probably hold a grudge and would be much easier to recruit for nefarious actions against the US. Yeah
The IT organization I work for used to be lead by an incompetent person who ‘happened’ (not really) to be both a woman and a ‘minority’ so she had no option but to spectacularly exceed all expectations and shine like a supernova.
Before she was reluctantly fired and replaced because of her running everything down into the never-neverland, I remember the quarterly meetings where totally phony savings of ‘hundreds of millions’ were always reported and all her bootlickers were singing songs of praise and amazement.
Race and sex aside, this is the current model for a what use to be a Public servants but are now just servants, your tax dollars at work. In the end stages they see Butt Kissing as a job skill.
And so, once again, one of our law enforcement entities is caught with its pants down. Way to go FBI!
Just like the new terms and measures that were used to gauge the economic “recovery?”
Exactly. Filled with rubrics, metrics, optics, quantitative analytics, goalposts, lines of regression, lines of repression etc. etc.
All local, state and federal officials take a supreme loyalty oath, the oath of office, to follow the U.S. Constitution – which includes the Bill of Rights.
To serve in a position of public trust and authority over their employers, the American people, they must accept this loyalty oath as a condition of employment. If they don’t take the oath they can’t become employed in a position of authority.
Alas this was the “old” model I served under, Civil/Public Servants. The New model removes the public from public servant leveling only servants. The few old school are removed or retired. True Public Servants are now “Insider Threats” to the current rulers.
Cointelpro, then. Cointelpro, now. The name may have changed, but the activities remain the same, or worse.
Who will expose it this time?
Somebody at FBI has a subscription to Fortune Magazine. “Disruption” is lately this irritatingly trendy business word meaning….whatever the last business magic word meant.
“Creative destruction”? That’s not far off.
A lot of people, including myself, voted for President Obama because he seemed like a reasonable person. To his credit he immediately passed a ban on torture against prisoners of war as soon as he took office. I can’t believe Donald Trump wants to bring this back?!? Surely my fellow Americans aren’t going to vote for a guy who says this?
But President Obama’s failure to reign in other flagrant violations of human rights and the US constitution that you are hinting at in this article is a total disgrace. The Intercept should do more to expose what exactly you mean by “disruption”. To Jenna McLaughlin’s credit, this article seems to go farther than any article I have seen thus far. It would be nice if The Intercept took it a step farther and discussed what it does to people wrongly investigated as terrorists after the government realizes they are not a terrorist and can’t trick them into agreeing to go along with the “agent provocateur”‘s fake terrorism event. This “disruption” includes the government’s unconstitutional use of demonstrative surveillance, group stalking, and off-the-record blacklisting.
This “disruption” includes the government’s unconstitutional use of demonstrative surveillance, group stalking, and off-the-record blacklisting, which increased during Obama’s terms.
The Intercept is comfortable with that, which explains its journalistic negligence regarding the undeniably newsworthy issue.
An interesting article on the continuation of FBI efforts from the Bush era into the Obama era to investigate environmental groups as ‘eco-terrorists’ on behalf of corporations and their Wall Street investors can be found here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/as-eco-terrorism-wanes-governments-still-target-activist-groups-seen-as-threat/2012/02/28/gIQAA4Ay3R_story.html
Again, this points to the Bezhnev-Soviet nature of the federal bureaucracy, or at least its desire to move in that direction. A good example of how that worked can be seen by comparing how environmental activists in California saved Mono Lake – a key wildlife refuge and bird migration stop – from being sucked dry by the Los Angeles Water District.
In comparison, the Soviet system destroyed the Aral Sea by taking water out of the rivers that fed it for thirty years – and protesters? Well, environmental protesters in the Soviet era would have been investigated by the Soviet KGB (their version of the FBI and CIA, sort of rolled into one), i.e. they’d have been declared ‘enemies of the people’ and been shipped without trial to a Siberian gulag – which is precisely the kind of system people like the Koch Brothers and their pet, R-Ted Cruz, would like to install in the United States.
Blaming it all on Obama doesn’t really fly, though – recall that Cheney, Mr. Bureaucratic Insider, stuffed these federal agencies with apparatchiks and functionaries during his time in office, and Richard S. Mueller, the FBI head under Cheney, went right along with that agenda. Obama’s record is not that great here, though – it does seem like basically a continuation of previous policies, but I don’t think you could call it an expansion of those policies.
Tom Roche,
We have only to look at history to see that one doesn’t have to pose any *actual* threat to get watch-listed.
Behold the watch-listed of yore–
*Doris Lessing, who posed a “threat” for speaking up for black people and being a socialist
*James Baldwin, ditto
*Jackie Robinson, ditto
*Helen Keller, for being a “radical”
*Rock Hudson (whose FBI file includes this gem: “in view of the information that Hudson has homosexual tendencies, interview will be conducted
by two mature, experienced Special Agents.”
*Truman Capote (for suggesting that J. Edgar Hoover was homosexual)
*Charlie Chaplin, who fled the Land o’ the Free to escape the harassment
(http://www.rd.com/culture/13-celebrities-you-didnt-know-had-fbi-files/)
Also,
*Jean Seaburg, who donated to the Black Panthers (and whose suicide has been attributed to never-ending FBI harassment)
*Pete Seeger, for being a commie (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/12/pete-seeger-fbi-file) and for hanging out with people “who wore lumber jackets and blue denim trousers” (the “hoodie” of their generation apparently)
Programs and methods have gotten worse. General population is enlisted to engage in conspicuous surveillance and covert harassment of targets, many of whom may have done nothing more wrong than speaking out against corruption. Non lethal weapons also employed for disruption and discrediting. Unofficial blacklisting, financial sabotage, long-term (decade plus) harassment.
I was wondering if The Intercept could please publish a report of the target number of Snowden files you guys were planning to publish versus the number that you have on a monthly or even yearly basis? It’s been a long time since I have seen any Snowden document, and instead of them we are forced to read and comment on the great qualities of Bernie Sanders and the really stupid articles on Russian censorship. If you hold anyone accountable, does it not make sense to begin with yourselves?
Please release all remaining JTRIG related documents ASAP. Redact the hell out of them if you must but please include “redaction notations” briefly stating the reason or cause those redactions.
Algorithm Derived Predictions of Your Future Behavior Are Constantly Being Mined From Your Ever Expanding Real Time Digital Dossier. This (“Collect It All”) Digital Dossier Represents What’s Called Your “Digital Doppleganger”.
TPTB use predictive analytics on this “Digital Doppleganger” (digital representation of you) both to Determine Your Ongoing Threat Assessment and Model Your Most Likely Future Behavioral Responses to future life events (external stimuli) both random (naturally occuring) or contrived (as with those manufactured By TPTB as part of some carefully tailored “Disruption Campaign” to sideline effective advocates from some general public debate).
If your “Digital Doppleganger” is being targeted (JTRIG Style) for “Disruption” by TPTB and their constant data mining fails to provide THEIR ALGORITHMS with the inputs (data) necessary for THEIR ALGORITHMS TO SPECIFY YOU as the genuine threat they intend you to be THEY WILL “SALT THE MINE.”
ADDITIONALLY PER THE GENERALS REQUEST: “…please publish a report of the target number of Snowden files you guys were planning to publish versus the number that you have on a monthly or even yearly basis?”
After I read only one genuine arrest I could not stop laughing.
Sophomoric
Huckster
Those are the best words at the moment that come to mind.
The only real Performance Measure that matters is how many lies our Gov/Pols tell the citizens every day. It’s become their Modus operandi.
“The officials acknowledged that “disruptions can be a challenge to quantify for future years” because the number of potential plots is “outside of FBI control.” ”
But, they said, they are working hard to bring that number up, and, if possible, to ensure that its annual rise matches planned increases in funding of the antiterrorism program.
This article well discussed one uncertainty (or deception) regarding “terrorism threat disruptions.” But there are 2: in addition to the question of what constitutes “disruption,” there is the separate and very real question of what constitutes a “terror threat.” Is it an attempt to bomb a bus? Or an “agroterrorist” attempt to photograph abuse of animals? Or the unauthorized (and therefore “ecoterroristic”) taking of environmental samples (i.e., “resource data”) to prove pollution?
If you are passing out praise for terrorist disruptions, please don’t overlook Chris Christie and his heroic efforts to prevent terrorists from crossing the George Washington Bridge. Tipped off that terrorists were plotting to enter New York, he directed his appointees (although he modestly denies this) to create traffic jams in Fort Lee, New Jersey, by closing lanes at the main toll plaza.
His heroic act began on Monday, September 9, 2013, when two of three toll lanes for a local street entrance were closed during morning rush hour. The resulting back-ups and gridlock on local streets disrupted scores of terrorists. Technically, he may have violated federal and state laws, but this should only serve as an inspiration to the FBI to do the same in pursuit of a higher cause. Like the FBI, he was widely criticized at the time for his excessive zeal, but I’m sure he’s content, knowing that he has foiled the terrorists.
Great questioning and writing, Jenna. Thank You. I shared this.
Thank YOU for sharing and reading!
In a way you have to sympathize with them. They have no control whatsoever over the policies that encourage terrorists, foreign and domestic, to plot against innocents. At the same time, those policy makers who do have control over those policies are so dogmatic or myopic that they cannot see how the policies they implement contribute to the problem, while at the same time demanding that agencies like the FBI fully justify their budgets.
It is not dissimilar to the way government operations in general are handled. First you cut the X-agency budget, then you complain that the X-agency is ineffective, justifying further cuts to their budgets. (While simultaneously appointing incompetent political hacks to Senior Executive Service (SES) positions within those agencies.) I cite a hypothetical example, but there are many: the US embassy in Baghdad after our 2003 invasion is one; the lack of security at the US embassy in Benghazi is another.
That having been said, it is lamentable that the leadership of the FBI has lost sight of their primary mission, which is to protect the rights of all citizens. By trampling on the rights of a single citizen, they diminish the rights of all of us.
Don’t forget the VA.
Don’t get me started on the VA. If ever there was an organization that deserved a good house cleaning, the VA is it. The administration of that agency is totally unaccountable to anyone; money intended to help veterans disappears down rat holes, and the internecine fighting is truly breathtaking. Yes, there are people in the trenches trying their best to do a good job, but the agency as a whole is a disaster.
The logical thing to do would be to hand the functions of the VA over to the services, but the services do not want them. A total disgrace: it is ok by them to put people in harm’s way, but once they are out of the service they absolve themselves of any responsibility.
>They have no control whatsoever over the policies that encourage terrorists, foreign and domestic, to plot against innocents.
Well, the FBI could *at least* whine about them… Comey has proved that the FBI can at least influence debate about an issue they have no control over (*cough* encryption *cough**cough*)
When I say I sympathize with the FBI whose employees are put into the untenable position of having to prevent all acts of terrorism, no matter how much the US wars and destabilization policies in the Middle East has produced more hatred and increased terrorism, I don’t mean that I sympathize with the FBI directors and leadership who have gone along with the neoconservative war hawk policies that have increased world-wide terrorism.
For instance former FBI Director Mueller knew there was documentary proof that 9-11 terrorist leader Mohammed Atta had not met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague, which Dick Cheney constantly lied about. Why didn’t Mueller tell the truth about this? Instead he got the FBI to go along with attacking Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with 9-11 and was actually a bulwark against Wahabi type extremism. ISIS later arises from the destruction of Iraq. FBI Directors should tell the truth, that it’s simply not possible to accurately prevent terrorism nor defend against terrorists when US foreign policy insists upon destabilizations of foreign governments and increasing the hatred of the U.S. worldwide. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/28/bigger-haystack-harder-terrorist-communication-future-attacks