FBI Lets Informants Commit Crimes

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Stephen Lendman
Activist Post

Evidence mounts. America’s a rogue police state. NSA is Stasi’s new incarnation. Lawless spying is official policy. Virtually everyone’s illegally monitored all the time everywhere.

Homeland Security and FBI operate like Gestapo. They menace freedom. They terrorize. They don’t protect. They do so for wealth, power, privilege and unchallenged dominance.

FBI calls itself “an intelligence-driven and a threat-focused national security organization with both intelligence and law enforcement responsibilities.”

Its mission “is to protect and defend the United States against terrorist and foreign intelligence threats, to uphold and enforce the criminal laws of the United States, and to provide leadership and criminal justice services to federal, state, municipal, and international agencies and partners.”

Its 10 functions include:

1. Protect(ing) the United States from terrorist attack

2. Protect(ing) the United States against foreign intelligence operations and espionage

3. Protect(ing) the United States against cyber-based attacks and high-technology crimes

4. Combat(ting) public corruption at all levels

5. Protect(ing) civil rights

6. Combat(ting) transnational/national criminal organizations and enterprises

7. Combat(ting) major white-collar crime

8. Combat(ting) significant violent crime

9. Support(ing) federal, state, local and international partners

10. Upgrad(ing) technology to successfully perform the FBI’s mission

It says one thing. It does another. It’s a rogue agency. It’s a repressive police state apparatus. It’s been so throughout its history.

It’s far worse than ever now. It threatens fundamental freedoms. They’re on the chopping block for elimination. FBI’s mandated to destroy them. They’re practically gone already.

FBI operatives are responsible for so-called US terror plots. Sting operations entrap innocent victims. It happens repeatedly.

Thousands of undercover FBI informants do so. They target law abiding people. They do it to hype fear. They do it for political advantage. They do it to advance destructive policies. They do it for  what harms millions most.

They’re well paid. They earn about $100,000 or more per assignment. They get to keep all they can steal. They take full advantage. FBI complicity facilitates crime.

America operates extrajudicially. It’s longstanding practice. Post-9/11, it’s off the charts. International, constitutional and US statute laws are ignored. They repeatedly spurned. It’s done with impunity.

Advancing Washington’s imperium alone matters. Mounting body counts are a small price to pay. Lawlessness is longstanding US policy. It’s deep-rooted at home and abroad.

On August 4, USA Today headlined “Exclusive: FBI allowed informants to commit 5,600 crimes,” saying:

Heavily redacted FBI documents show “(t)he FBI gave its informants permission to break the law at least 5,658 times in a single year.”

Over a decade ago, the Justice Department “ordered the FBI to begin tracking crimes by its informants.”

It did so after agency officials admitted letting Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger “operate a brutal crime ring in exchange for information about the Mafia.”

Annual reports are prepared. They’re submitted to Justice Department officials. Until now, they never were made public.

FOIA-obtained 2011 documents beg the question. How much worse are things than acknowledged? Perhaps too lawless to release.

Vital questions demand answers. They’re not forthcoming. Just enough to show agency officials operate extrajudicially.

They’re not law enforcers. They’re law breakers. They claim doing so’s essential to fight crime. How does state-sanctioned criminal activity prevent it?

How does breaking the law make things right? How does operating extrajudicially preserve law and order?

According to USA Today, FBI agents “authorized 15 crimes a day, on average.”

They’re not pretty. They include “everything from buying and selling illegal drugs to bribing government officials and plotting robberies.”

For sure they include murder. Working with mob bosses like Bulger assures it. Contract killings are standard practice.

FOIA-obtained document exclude “what types of crimes (FBI) agents authorized, or how serious they were.”

They included no information “about crimes the bureau’s sources were known to have committed without the government’s permission.”

They’re included under so-called Tier I and II classifications. Tier I crimes are most serious. They include:

…any activity that would constitute a misdemeanor or felony under federal, state, or local law if engaged in by a person acting without authorization and that involves the commission or the significant risk of the commission of certain offenses, including acts of violence; corrupt conduct by senior federal, state, or local public officials; or the manufacture, importing, exporting, possession, or trafficking in controlled substances of certain quantities.

Tier II includes similar crimes. They’re committed by informants acting without federal prosecutor permission. Authorization’s only from a senior agency field manager.

FBI authorized crimes comprise “a tiny fraction of the total number of offenses committed by informants for local, state and federal agencies each year.”

FBI operatives are responsible for only about 10% of federally prosecuted 2011 crimes.

“(F)ederal prosecutions are vastly outnumbered by criminal cases filed by state and local authorities.” They have “their own network” of crooks and other type lawbreakers.

According to Law Professor Alexandra Natapoff:

The million-dollar question is: How much crime is the government tolerating from its informants? I’m sure that if we really knew that number, we would all be shocked.

FBI spokeswoman Denise Ballew declined to give USA Today further information. She said only that ways informants are allowed to operate lawlessly are “situational (and) tightly controlled.”

Much goes on secretly. Otherwise imagine the uproar. Imagine the consequences.

If America’s premier crime fighting agency operates extrajudicially, it practically invites widespread lawlessness nationwide.

So-called Justice Department rules don’t wash. Allegedly they put tight limits on what FBI operatives call “otherwise illegal activity.”

Activity’s either legal or illegal. There’s no ambiguity. There’s nothing in between. There’s nothing “otherwise” about it.

Claiming agents aren’t allowed to authorize violent crimes rings hollow. Working with mobsters proves it.

Rules they obey are their own. They reflect anything goes. They don’t ask permission to do what they want.

Power and bottom line priorities alone matter. America operates the same way. Rogue states do what they please.

According to FBI’s 2005 Inspector General report, the agency routinely fails to follow alleged rules. It makes things up as conditions warrant. It does whatever it wants.

It says one thing. It does another. Its public comments lack credibility. It’s a longstanding rogue agency. It’s one of many in Washington.

It operates by its own rules. It invents them to suit policy. Out-of-control agencies operate that way. It doesn’t surprise.

USA Today asked FBI officials for all reports since 2006. They claimed they could only locate one. They lied.

Documents released for 2011 “redact(ed) nearly all of the details.” The damning stuff was omitted.

AFT, DEA, and other federal agencies told USA Today “they cannot determine how often their informants are allowed to break the law.”

False! They keep detailed records. They’re required to do so. They claim otherwise.

According to Rep. Stephen Lynch (D. MA):

This is all being operated clandestinely. Congress doesn’t even have the information. I think there’s a problem here, and we should have full disclosure to Congress.

Lynch sponsored a bill requiring federal agencies to notify lawmakers about the most serious crimes their informants commit.

It hardly matters. It bears repeating. FBI, CIA and other federal agencies operate their own way. They do so extrajudicially. Their rules alone matter.

They’re beholden to no one but themselves. They operate with impunity. Congress facilitates crimes.

It’s complicit with the worst of what goes on at home and abroad. So is Obama and administration officials.

Law and order’s a quaint artifact. It works only on TV. It doesn’t reflect what goes on. Dirty underside reality’s too ugly to reveal.

It’s the American way. It’s always been that way. It by far worse than ever now.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected]. His new book is titled How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening. http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/