🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Oct28.152443.1589@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu> denning@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu writes:
[portion deleted]
>I stand corrected on "unauthorized taps."  At the time I wrote it, I
>was thinking more of the current situation than the past.  Practices
>in the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have changed 
>considerably since the days of COINTELPRO and Watergate, but they
>seldom get any credit for their reforms or any of the things they
>do well.  
[heart wrenching stories deleted]
Well, I seldom give the FBI credit on curbing COINTELPRO because they are
still doing it.  (Look into the history of the FBI, it started
during the Palmer Red Raids of 1919, it's purpose since the beginning
has been political repression).  At least 2/3's of the FBI's files
in DC are devoted to domestic survelliance of political activists, the
rest, to "organized crim" and the like.  Throughout it's history, the
FBI's main purpose has been domestic political repression.  We wouldn't
even know about COINTELPRO, save for the breaking in of a regional
FBI office and the few times something good has gotten out from a
FOIA request.  In 1971, the FBI officialy ended COINTELPRO, yet the
major thinkers and planners on it were simply put in new departments
and told to use new language (a 1975 teletype, from the FBI Director,
Clarence Kelley, to all regional SACs, asked/mentioned: "Department
is reviewing activities conducted under presidential authority for use of
warrantless electronic survelliance for...counterintelligence purposes...
canvass your personnel for any such types of activities conducted in your
office and not whether used in orgnazied crime, general criminal, foreign
intelligence, or *domestic intelligence* (emphasis added).").  Two
examples of post-COINTELPRO COINTELPRO behavior are AIM in 70s
and CISPES in the 80s (And these are the ones we know about through
luck or other means.  There are doubtless hundreds others that are still
secret).  AIM, American INdian Movement, was continually targeted,
harrassed, it's members were killed (Either by the FBI or by goons
hired by the FBI) and falsely imprisoned (Leonard Peltier is STILL
in prison for a crime he didn't commit.  If the FBI has truly
reformed, how come they haven't corrected this injustice), among other
things.  For an excellent account of this and other FBI activities,
read _The COINTELPRO Papers_ by Ward Churchil and Jim Vander Wall,
publsihed 1990, South End Press, Boston.  It uses tons of 
documentation (including facsimiles of FBI documents) to prove
its points, and is a soberand fascinating read for anyone
who trusts the FBI.  In the 1980s, under the cover of a
"counter-terroriest investigation", the FBI systemitically worked to
undermine CISPES and other central American solidatrity organizations,
trhough wire tapping, burglaring, harrasing phone calls, INS harrasment,
preventing donations, etc...  Ross Gelbspan has a book on it
called "Break-Ins, Death Threats, and the FBI", also from South
End Press, 1991.

I raise this in response, because I think your "government is great"
attitude is part of the flaw with the protocol you suggest, and
the assumptions you make about domestic "security" organizations
are fundementally flawed.  Does the FBI occasionally stop child porno
rings?  Yes.  Is this good?  Yes.  Does the FBI routinely (now in
conjunction with other federal, state and local agencies (for
instance, look at the history of SWAT teams) aim to destory domestic leftist political dissent?  Yes.  Are they likely to stop?  No.  Would this
proposal help them in quelching first-amendment protected activities
as their 70 year history indicates they would do?  Yes.

>I don't think anyone is even contemplating saving all communications.
>The volume would be horrendous.  The Digital Telephony legislation,
>as well as existing law, only calls for real-time access.
>
>Dorothy Denning
This ignores that those who they target would hjave many gigs of
storage allocated for their communications (Martin Luther King's
file was 100,000s pages long).

jason
(mail to this account is forwarded to jyanowitz@hamp.hampshire.edu).

ps: well if nothing else had done it already, this post insures I have
my own FBI file, congratulations please.

-- 

jason
(thhis account forwards to jyanowitz@hamp.hampshire.edu)