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href="https://theintercept.com/2017/01/31/secret-docs-reveal-president-trump-has-inherited-an-fbi-with-vast-hidden-powers/">https://theintercept.com/2017/01/31/secret-docs-reveal-president-trump-has-inherited-an-fbi-with-vast-hidden-powers/</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">Secret Docs Reveal: President Trump Has
Inherited an FBI With Vast Hidden Powers</h1>
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href="https://theintercept.com/staff/glenn-greenwald/"
data-reactid=".ti.1.0.0.2.0.1.0.1.1.2.$7"><span
itemprop="name"
data-reactid=".ti.1.0.0.2.0.1.0.1.1.2.$7.0">Glenn
Greenwald</span></a><span
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href="https://theintercept.com/staff/betsyreed/"
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data-reactid=".ti.1.0.0.2.0.1.0.1.1.2.$52.0">Betsy Reed</span></a></div>
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<span class="PostByline-date"
data-reactid=".ti.1.0.0.2.0.1.0.1.1.4">January 31 2017</span></div>
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<p><u>In the wake</u> of President Donald Trump’s
inauguration, the FBI assumes an importance and
influence it has not wielded since J. Edgar Hoover’s
death in 1972. That is what makes today’s batch of
stories from The Intercept, <a
href="https://theintercept.com/series/the-fbis-secret-rules/">The
FBI’s Secret Rules</a>, based on a trove of
long-sought confidential FBI documents, so critical:
It shines a bright light on the vast powers of this law
enforcement agency, particularly when it comes to its
ability to monitor dissent and carry out a domestic war
on terror, at the beginning of an era highly likely to
be marked by vociferous protest and reactionary state
repression.</p>
<p>In order to understand how the FBI makes decisions
about matters such as infiltrating religious or
political organizations, civil liberties advocates have
sued the government for access to crucial FBI manuals —
but thanks to a <a
href="http://www.salon.com/2012/05/04/more_federal_judge_abdication/">federal
judiciary highly subservient to government interests</a>,
those attempts have been largely unsuccessful. Because
their disclosure is squarely in the public interest, The
Intercept is publishing this series of reports along
with annotated versions of the documents we obtained.</p>
<p>Trump values loyalty to himself above all other traits,
so it is surely not lost on him that few entities were
as devoted to his victory, or played as critical a role
in helping to achieve it, as the FBI. One of the
more unusual aspects of the 2016 election, perhaps the
one that will prove to be most consequential, was the
covert political war waged between the CIA and FBI.
While the top echelon of the CIA community was <a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/05/opinion/campaign-stops/i-ran-the-cia-now-im-endorsing-hillary-clinton.html">vehemently</a>
<a
href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/former-cia-chief-trump-is-russias-useful-fool/2016/11/03/cda42ffe-a1d5-11e6-8d63-3e0a660f1f04_story.html?utm_term=.fd5c80751242">pro-Clinton</a>,
certain factions within the FBI were aggressively
supportive of Trump. Hillary Clinton herself <a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/us/politics/hillary-clinton-james-comey.html">blames
James Comey</a> and his election-week letter for her
defeat. Elements within the powerful New York field
office were furious that Comey refused to indict
Clinton, and embittered agents reportedly <a
href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/03/meet-donald-trump-s-top-fbi-fanboy.html?via=desktop&source=twitter">shoveled anti-Clinton
leaks to Rudy Giuliani</a>. The FBI’s 35,000
employees across the country are therefore likely to be
protected and empowered. Trump’s decision to retain
Comey — while jettisoning all other top government
officials — suggests that this has already begun to
happen.</p>
<p>When married to Trump’s clear disdain for domestic
dissent — he venerates strongman authoritarians, called
for a crackdown on free press protections, and suggested
citizenship-stripping for flag-burning — the
authorities vested in the FBI with regard to domestic
political activism are among the most menacing threats
Americans face. Trump is also poised to expand the
powers of law enforcement to surveil populations deemed
suspicious and deny their rights in the name of fighting
terrorism, as he has already done with his odious
restrictions on immigration from seven Muslim-majority
countries. Understanding how the federal government’s
law enforcement agency interprets the legal limits on
its own powers is, in this context, more essential than
ever. Until now, however, the rules governing the FBI
have largely been kept secret.<br>
</p>
<p>Today’s publication is the result of months of
investigation by our staff, and we planned to publish
these articles and documents regardless of the outcome
of the 2016 election. The public has an interest in
understanding the FBI’s practices no matter who occupies
the White House. But in the wake of Trump’s victory, and
the unique circumstances that follow from it, these
revelations take on even more urgency.</p>
<p>After Congress’s 1976 Church Committee investigated the
excesses of Hoover’s FBI, in particular the infamous
COINTELPRO program — in which agents targeted and
subverted any political groups the government deemed
threatening, including anti-war protesters, black
nationalists, and civil rights activists — a series of
reforms were enacted to rein in the FBI’s domestic
powers. As The Intercept and other news outlets have <a
href="https://theintercept.com/2016/11/19/infamous-post-911-california-sleeper-cell-case-continues-to-unravel/">amply
documented</a>, in the guise of the war on terror the
FBI has engaged in a variety of tactics that are
redolent of the <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/19/preemptive-prosecution-muslims-cointelpro">COINTELPRO
abuses</a> — including, for example, repeatedly <a
href="https://theintercept.com/2015/06/25/fort-dix-five-terror-plot-the-real-story/">enticing
innocent Muslims into fake terror schemes</a>
concocted by the bureau’s own informants. What The
Intercept’s reporting on this new trove of documents
shows is how the FBI has quietly transformed the system
of rules and restraints put in place after the scandals
of the ’70s, opening the door for a new wave of civil
liberties violations. When asked to respond to this
critique, the FBI provided the following statement:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>All FBI policies are written to ensure that the FBI
consistently and appropriately applies the lawful
tools we use to assess and investigate criminal and
national security threats to our nation. All of our
authorities and techniques are founded in the
Constitution, U.S. law, and Attorney General
Guidelines. FBI policies and rules are audited and
enforced through a rigorous internal compliance
mechanism, as well as robust oversight from the
Inspector General and Congress. FBI assessments and
investigations are subject to responsible review and
are designed to protect the rights of all Americans
and the safety of our agents and sources, acting
within the bounds of the Constitution.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Absent these documents and the facts of how the bureau
actually operates, this may sound reassuring. But to
judge how well the bureau is living up to these abstract
commitments, it is necessary to read the fine print of
its byzantine rules and regulations — which the FBI’s
secrecy has heretofore made it impossible for outsiders
to do. Now, thanks to our access to these documents —
which include the FBI’s governing rulebook, known as the
DIOG, and classified policy guides for counterterrorism
cases and handling confidential informants — The
Intercept is able to share a vital glimpse of how the
FBI understands and wields its enormous power.</p>
<p>For example, the bureau’s agents can decide that a
campus organization is <a
href="https://theintercept.com/2017/01/31/hidden-loopholes-allow-fbi-agents-to-infiltrate-political-and-religious-groups">not
“legitimate”</a> and therefore not entitled to robust
protections for free speech; dig for derogatory
information on <a
href="https://theintercept.com/2017/01/31/the-fbi-gives-itself-lots-of-rope-to-pull-in-informants">potential
informants</a> without any basis for believing they
are implicated in unlawful activity; use a
person’s immigration status to pressure them to
collaborate and then <a
href="https://theintercept.com/2017/01/31/when-informants-are-no-longer-useful-the-fbi-can-help-deport-them/">help
deport them</a> when they are no longer useful;
conduct <a
href="https://theintercept.com/2017/01/31/based-on-a-vague-tip-the-feds-can-surveil-anyone/">invasive
“assessments”</a> without any reason for suspecting
the targets of wrongdoing; demand that companies provide
the bureau with personal data about their users in
broadly worded <a
href="https://theintercept.com/2017/01/31/national-security-letters-demand-data-that-companies-arent-obligated-to-provide/">national
security letters</a> without actual legal authority to
do so; <a
href="https://theintercept.com/2017/01/31/undercover-fbi-agents-swarm-the-internet-seeking-contact-with-terrorists/">fan
out across the internet</a> along with a vast army of
informants, infiltrating countless online chat rooms;
peer through the walls of private homes; and more. The
FBI offered various justifications of these tactics to
our reporters. But the documents and our reporting on
them ultimately reveal a bureaucracy in dire need
of greater transparency and accountability.</p>
<p>One of the documents contains an <a
href="https://theintercept.com/2017/01/31/the-fbi-has-quietly-investigated-white-supremacist-infiltration-of-law-enforcement">alarming
observation</a> about the nation’s police forces, even
as perceived by the FBI. Officials of the bureau were
so concerned that many of these police forces are linked
to, at times even populated by, overt white nationalists
and white supremacists, that they have deemed it
necessary to take that into account in crafting policies
for sharing information with them. This news arrives in
an ominous context, as the nation’s law enforcement
agencies are among the few institutional factions in the
U.S. that supported Trump, and they <a
href="https://theintercept.com/2016/10/09/police-unions-reject-charges-of-bias-find-a-hero-in-donald-trump/">did
so</a> with virtual <a
href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2016/09/16/fraternal-order-of-police-union-endorses-trump/">unanimity</a>. Trump
ran on a platform of unleashing an already
out-of-control police — “I will restore law and order to
our country,” he thundered when accepting the Republican
nomination — and now the groups most loyal to Trump are
those that possess a state monopoly over the use of
force, many of which are infused with racial animus.</p>
<p>The Church Committee reforms were publicly debated and
democratically enacted, based on the widespread fears
of sustained FBI overreach brought to light by
aggressive reporters like Seymour Hersh. It is simply
inexcusable to erode those protections in the dark, with
no democratic debate.</p>
<p>As we enter the Trump era, with a nominated attorney
general who has not hidden his contempt for press
freedoms and a president who has made the news media the
primary target of his vitriol, one of the most vital
weapons for safeguarding basic liberties and imposing
indispensable transparency is journalism that
exposes information the government wants to keep
suppressed. For exactly that reason, it is certain to be
under even more concerted assault than it has been
during the last 15 years. The revealing, once-secret FBI
documents The Intercept is today reporting on, and
publishing, demonstrate why protecting press freedom is
more critical than ever.</p>
<p><strong><a
href="https://theintercept.com/series/the-fbis-secret-rules/">READ
OUR INVESTIGATION ON THE FBI’S SECRET RULES.</a></strong></p>
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