Mike Landry August 4, 2021 at 3:30pm
It’s long been evident that there is something wrong with the FBI.
Republicans have been pointing it out for a while, and now even some Democrats are raising objections.
It used to be that Republicans wrapped themselves in the law-and-order banner and supported agencies like the FBI, while left-leaning outfits like the American Civil Liberties Union criticized them.
Now, of course, the sides have switched.
It’s easy to see how that could have happened, given the bureau’s attempts to undermine former President Donald Trump and the federal swamp’s view of the FBI as its own political weapon.
But some Democrats are beginning to recognize the danger of the FBI’s actions.
Members of both parties on the House Judiciary Committee wrote a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Monday seeking a meeting with him to discuss the FBI’s misuse of data collected under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act.
Section 702 allows the government to spy on people outside the country “to protect the United States and its allies from hostile foreign adversaries, including terrorists, proliferators, and spies, and to inform cybersecurity efforts.”
It is not to be used on U.S. citizens anywhere in the world nor on anyone inside U.S. borders.
Do you think the FBI is corrupt?
But the representatives said in their letter to Wray that “the FBI has repeatedly violated the civil liberties of Americans through widespread misuse of Section 702 data.”
“This statute was enacted in 2008,” the lawmakers continued. “Thirteen years later the FBI has yet to show consistent compliance with Section 702’s restrictions or its own regulations.”
The letter cites the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court as having “serious concern about ‘the apparent widespread violations.’
“These failures signal to our constituents that the nation’s top law enforcement agency is not committed to the privacy and due process protections guaranteed to them by the U.S. Constitution.”
Five of the seventeen signatories to the letter are Democrats: Zoe Lofgren of California, Lou Correa of California, Ted Lieu of California, Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Mondaire Jones of New York.
This, at least, is a start.
Some Democrats and leftist media outlets have raised questions about the FBI in recent years.
Sort of.
There was, for example, a 2018 article in Time, a faithful carrier of Democratic water.
After shielding the bureau from what it considered unfair criticism from Trump supporters, the magazine did note the problems plaguing the FBI, including its failure to prevent the Parkland, Florida, mass shooting and its delay in investigating sexual molestation allegations against Olympic gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar.
Yet, true to form, Time swung for the Democratic fences and struck out: “Then there’s potentially the widest-reaching failure of all: the FBI’s miss of the Russian influence operation against the 2016 election, which went largely undetected for more than two years.”
With so much controversy swirling around the FBI, some are calling for the bureau to be disbanded. Others want it to be folded into the U.S. Marshals Service.
Whatever the solution may be, it’s good to see that some Democrats have finally had enough.
Because there is something seriously wrong with the FBI.
Mike Landry, PhD, is a retired business professor. He has been a journalist, broadcaster and church pastor. He writes from Northwest Arkansas on current events and business history.
Mike Landry, PhD, is a retired business professor. He has been a journalist, broadcaster and church pastor. He writes from Northwest Arkansas on current events and business history.