Zer dakigu lakota herriaz? Zer dakigu sioux-ez? Zer dakigu haien borrokaz, haien autodeterminazio grinaz? Zer dakigu AIMz? Zer dakigu Leonard Peltier-ez?
Txikitatik miretsi dut lakota herria, eta berorien gerlak, Custer jeneralari emandako jipoia batez ere. Zaldi Eroa, Zezen Eseria, Hodei Gorria, izen handiak… Geronimo handia zen bezalaxe… Horiek ziren nire haurtzaroko heroiak.
Sarrera gisa:
Leonard Peltier-ez:
Aspaldian, oso aspaldian, jakin nuen Leonard Peltier-ez1
2005eko idazkia, Leonard Peltier-en 61. urtebetetzea zoriontzeko:
Prison Writings (Leonard Peltier)
Segida:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky-4NFZ-_Ao)
The first FBI agent close to the Leonard Peltier case is calling for his freedom. Coleen Rowley recounts, in this wide-ranging and exclusive interview, her time as an agent in the Minneapolis field office. For nearly 50 years, the FBI has indoctrinated its agents on a specific version of events that led to Leonard Peltier’s arrest, conviction, and imprisonment. The mentality then, Rowley argues, is little different than the mentality today. That’s why she decided to break the silence and is calling on President Joe Biden to grant Leonard Peltier executive clemency.
Rowley gives us an insider’s view of the FBI and how the dark and violent history of COINTELPRO, which targeted civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and social movements like the Black Panthers and AIM, didn’t end in 1971. It morphed and evolved over the years and continued well into the U.S. war on terror. Despite attempts at reform and accountability, the FBI continues its ongoing persecution of political prisoners like Leonard Peltier and the unarmed Water Protectors at Standing Rock.
Transkripzioa:
0:00
well first of all thanks for joining us Colleen um it was quite a surprise for me to
0:06
read the letter that you wrote In support of Leonard peltier’s clemency but before we get into that can you just
0:13
introduce yourself uh who you are and how you came to be an FBI agent
0:20
okay well I’m a long retired FBI agent now I retired at the end of 2004 but
0:28
before that I served nearly 24 years in the FBI I you know basically tried to
0:35
join the FBI at the end of law school I was trying to get into the Foreign
0:40
Service or the FBI I was a French major and in in the FBI they have legal
0:46
attache offices in french-speaking countries namely Paris so I thought this
0:53
will work too it’s kind of the similar thing now with with the United States having embassies all over of course
1:00
military bases as well but embassies they have FBI agents in 60 some
1:06
embassies now at the time I joined there was only 13. so anyway I was good at the
1:11
same time I was doing parallel I took the test to get into the Foreign Service at state department and I took the test
1:17
and it’s it’s a couple years it takes you a couple years to get in and I joined then after I got out of law
1:24
school pretty much uh we had some odd jobs but I joined um you know why I joined the FBI
1:30
um besides the fact of you know I kind of fit with my background and everything but besides that the reason was
1:38
um justice so and I think it’s me the same thing that people get caught up in
1:44
in a little bit the same as joining the military you want to be a part of good
1:49
versus evil so every little kids you know we they’re teaching this in school you know who doesn’t who is not for
1:56
justice so if you have people murdering you know that’s your prime example or
2:02
kidnapping all these egregious crimes you would like to serve the public by
2:09
being a part of that in in seeking accountability for Crime you know it’s a very appealing type thing and we we saw
2:16
this of course in old TV shows even going back to the 50s with
2:22
um with Jimmy Stewart playing the FBI agent and then uh Ephraim Zimbalist Jr I
2:28
mean they’re always the net as I later found out the National Security State is
2:33
always working with Hollywood and uh to produce um you know good TV shows actually
2:41
um when I was a little kid I and this is in the Time Magazine um I watched mission impossible so there
2:48
were good guys doing these Mission Impossibles for Noble causes that was my
2:54
uh you know Mission Impossible and Man from Uncle so those were the two shows and it turns out I later kind of became
3:01
a recruiter for the FBI and I was on interview boards that where we determined if people had a high enough
3:09
interviews you know to join the FBI and lots of people are induced to join the
3:16
FBI by having watched television shows I was not the only one so you have have
3:21
this idea of you know working for justice well so when I was in the FBI though of course you know nothing’s
3:27
perfect and you start to see little flaws one you know one thing after another and especially in systemic
3:33
policies that you know make good people do dumb or bad things and
3:40
um so after 9 11 especially you know when Mueller the FBI director at the
3:46
time was not telling the truth about the fact that it could have been prevented no one knows for sure of course but it
3:54
at least could have been reduced and now that’s not me saying that that’s
3:59
actually the 911 commission’s conclusion that if the if the government if the FBI
4:06
had shared information about what they knew at the time and they knew a lot all
4:12
of they were sending out memos you know saying that Bin Laden was going to
4:17
attack there had been a memos in the earlier in the spring saying that Bin Laden and the Chechen terrorists were
4:24
connected I mean on and on so there was lots of information and there was and locally here in Minneapolis our FBI
4:31
agents had arrested a terrorist suspect who was learning to fly so if that had been the 911 Commission actually
4:38
concluded that if that had been shared 911 could have been prevented so of
4:44
course Mueller didn’t want this to be known afterwards and so he was uh he was saying that there was nothing we could
4:51
have done to stop this you know I even made calls up to his office to say no no we had a terrorist here nobody in the
4:58
FBI even knew this I’m not going to go into that because it gets off track but so you really see how organizationally
5:07
um you know groups can get really get on the wrong track and I became I wrote a
5:13
memo during the joint intelligence committee that then was leaked to the
5:18
media and landed me on the cover of Time Magazine seen a couple of times and then
5:23
also I was asked to testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee about flaws
5:29
in the FBI lack of sharing of information Etc and um and then yeah so then I then
5:36
I spoke then I did I went the next step and this is another long story a few
5:41
months after being on the cover of a Time person of the year Mueller was lying again and he said that he was
5:49
lying about Iraq he was you know trying to help Bush launch the attack of Iraq
5:55
based on 911 how that’s it was not connected at all but saying you know
6:00
we’re fighting terrorism and we have to we have to uh uh launch a war in Iraq so
6:07
Mueller had told me anytime you know when he first talked to me before I testified to the Senate Judiciary
6:13
Committee he had said anytime you spot something like this Colleen please call me first you know so uh I wrote him him
6:22
a email no answer so 10 days or so pass
6:27
and no answer from Mueller because he’s going he’s part of it and then I
6:32
actually did give give that to the New York Times and it was a front page on
6:38
February March let’s see March 7th I think one of the very few
6:45
uh pieces in corporate media that was against the war in Iraq to this day I
6:50
have had almost nobody tell me I turned out to be right that the war in Iraq was based on a lie in the FBI I was shunned
6:58
and hated after that a war fever so then I just tried to make it to retirement and I had to do I don’t go on
7:06
it go into it but I did I was lucky enough you know a lot of people are not I was lucky enough to make it to be able
7:14
to get a pension my pension got reduced because I had to step down from my legal
7:19
position I had been the legal counsel in the Minneapolis office for the last 13
7:25
years of my career are actually the 13 before that last
7:30
year which I had to step down and um so yeah that’s my background
7:36
it’s quite a storied uh career I mean there’s there’s a lot to get in there and maybe we’ll have some time after I
7:43
get through these questions to talk a little bit more about that because that was 20 years ago you know this this is
7:48
2022 and that was 20 years ago yeah it’s hard to imagine but and very few people
7:54
now even know I mean again it’s not part of the conversation no accountability for any of this there’s never been an
8:01
official in fact Bush now who ordered torture did everything illegal
8:06
rehabilitated lied about everything and now he’s back in power yep so
8:11
um and it’s interesting too that you also talk about uh getting retirement you know and and
8:17
that’s that it gets to the the kind of questions that I have because Jack Ryan who was a former FBI agent and also
8:25
somebody who refused to investigate a non-violent uh uh political group
8:31
um he was he has been the only FBI agent to come out in support of Leonard
8:36
Peltier uh but you know Ryan wasn’t as close to the Peltier case as you were being
8:43
stationed here in Minneapolis in the field office which historically was the office that led most of the FBI
8:50
surveillance and investigations on the American Indian movement since the organization of course was founded here
8:56
and headquartered here in the Twin Cities so you’re the first FBI agent
9:02
close to the case to advocate for peltier’s Freedom that’s quite significant and you’ve had a long career
9:08
in the FBI and you’ve seen the agency from the inside so why now why come out
9:15
in support of Leonard peltier’s clemency now Well Jack Ryan and I have a little bit
9:20
in common um he was closer to cointelpro his career was during the period when it was
9:28
at its apex I actually got exposed to those cointel profiles
9:34
in my second office because the national lawyers Guild had won a lawsuit a foia
9:42
lawsuit after seven years in all of the files on the national lawyers Guild that
9:49
the FBI had been spying on and in each office there were Stacks and stacks and
9:54
stacks of these files that had to be reviewed and you know redacted with names redacted so the the poor legal
10:02
counsel in that office had this big stack and he asked for help and I started you know looking this is after I
10:08
only had like two years in the FBI and I started reading those you know I had to I was going to helping them we’ll go
10:15
through it and so yeah you realize that I realized oh my goodness did they get
10:21
carried away I mean you read about cointelpro I mean spying on Pete Seeger
10:27
and and Burl Ives I mean this is is it goes to ridiculous links I then of
10:33
course had the opportunity to talk to agents that were old agents that were
10:39
had had worked during that period of time and a lot of them actually warned
10:45
you never to do this again I was warned by one one eight uh never to do cointel
10:50
yeah well you know what happens he says things get carried away and this is an
10:56
agent who who uh actually he was already retired he was working in security and
11:01
someplace and I was talking to him and he goes you know just a piece of advice young lady uh you know what what we went
11:08
through during this period we really went off the thing don’t ever do that again and he goes there will be times so
11:16
he was giving me a warning one of his supervisors had actually been up on
11:21
charges and I don’t know for what maybe something with Fred Hampton or something
11:26
I’m not sure what but it was something like that so he was close to people
11:31
later getting into trouble for having followed orders and at the time all of
11:38
the FBI offices were engaged in this so nobody thought anything of it you know until later on when things come up and
11:45
there’s an inquiry or something the church committee and then you you start to worry and say oh my gosh we shouldn’t
11:52
have done this I was warned by a retired agents of that and old agents you know
11:57
and and mostly people just laughed about it because at the time this was easy
12:03
work one of the the spine operations what do you mean easy work it was very easy okay
12:09
in the FBI you have 300 some different uh different categories of federal
12:15
crimes everything from violent crime could be violent gangs all you know
12:21
fugitive matters you know people that have already killed a couple of people dangerous work anytime you’re working
12:27
violent crime it’s very very dangerous okay so spine on Pete Seeger the
12:34
Communists meeting in a house you drove by and got their license plates and if
12:39
you ever go through those files in foia you’ll see that this is how it was it was called post and Float so the agents
12:47
laughed this is why they laughed because if they just posted a surveillance or
12:52
some other document in the file then they were fine they didn’t even have to
12:58
do any you know that this was easy work and it was not dangerous so it was just kind of driving around looking at people
13:04
following a lit maybe even following but but and then Gathering background of
13:10
course uh if you were uh an undercover or something and actually infiltrated I suppose it could be a little bit
13:15
different but but there was maybe some of that but most of it was uh you know
13:21
that kind of thing so most most of the agents just laughed about have this having gotten carried away unless they
13:27
somehow had gotten into trouble and you know and as the FBI always
13:32
chooses a certain crime program to be their priority uh you know people know
13:38
that before 9 11 um Ashcroft the Attorney General Ashcroft chose violent crime to be his
13:45
priority the reason he chose it is because he wanted to reinstate the death penalty and and he put terrorism as the
13:53
lowest priority so you know people that are kind of conspiracy-minded think that was deliberate no he didn’t realize that
14:00
the terrorism would become such a big thing and that he could get death penalties through terrorism prosecutions
14:07
so it in August a month before 9 11 he ranked terrorism as the lowest priority
14:13
of the FBI and violent crime is the highest priority so every AG is is a
14:19
political figure and they do this and usually the FBI directors obviously follow along and and Washington DC is
14:26
very politicized that way okay so going back to um
14:32
the the question of uh um why now why why now okay so so
14:39
uh a couple of reasons um I someone sent me Ray’s letter
14:45
um which had either leaked out or something because it was not intended to
14:51
be made public it’s my understanding and of course when I read that letter and he
14:56
cites the FBI family at least two or three times in that letter you know it
15:01
it brings back the fact that we were all very indoctrinated you know even in
15:08
1981 January February of 1981 when I went through FBI training school there
15:15
were lectures on that re-viewed the the FBI’s version of The
15:21
Facts of the Leonard Peltier case and and uh in in gory detail with slides so this
15:30
was a formal curriculum well you know the formal curriculum at
15:35
Quantico is just three things firearms training uh academic like legal training
15:42
and physical fitness but like in firearms training so this
15:47
was actually during firearms training and I think it came up in others and you know in the maybe some others as well
15:53
but in firearms training um like if it was too cold or sleeting or something we couldn’t go outside to practice shooting
16:01
um they spent hours going through the Leonard Peltier case more than once and
16:08
um and I said with with actually gory slides because you know was a very very
16:13
sad Ambush and uh you know there’s you know horrible pictures about you know
16:18
the whole thing so yeah so that goes all the way back to training school and then you know throughout the years the FBI
16:25
family it sounds good you know everybody you know people make up nice euphemistic
16:31
terms like a family for something that really is pretty dangerous which um
16:36
Hannah Arendt you know came up with the theory of the banality of evil
16:41
um how did otherwise good Germans become these monsters and when you’re involved
16:47
with group loyalty nothing closer than a family of course this is the same thing
16:52
in police work so you know the blue Code of Silence so you you get group loyalty
16:58
we think of it as a good thing loyalty to your friends to your family but it also can be the thing that blinds people
17:06
emotionally to being objective and to basically to right and wrong I mean it
17:13
it’s all throughout history this is the case and so Hoover going back to J Edgar
17:18
Hoover which is way before my time when I was a whistleblower people sent me
17:24
Hoover’s loyalty poem Hoover had plastered this Elliot Hubbard
17:31
I think is the author of it but it’s called the Loyalty it’s you know the
17:36
Nazis had this similar thing and it’s about loyalty above everything okay so
17:42
that that poem was on the walls of FBI headquarters during Hoover’s terms and
17:48
when I spoke out about 9 11 and you’re not telling the truth about 9 11 I was sent the poem The loyalty poem so I mean
17:57
I’m only touching on the surface of this problem of group think group loyalty and
18:04
of course citing the FBI family is a main way that this is done it bonds
18:10
everybody into an Us Versus Them mode of thinking like when police happens all
18:17
the time in the police we’re the good guys we have a noble cause maybe we can cut some Corners if we if we can’t prove
18:25
the case I mean there are books written by about the blue Code of Silence and maybe if somebody in our group loses
18:31
their temper and uses violence we’re all going to keep quiet about it because we’re in a Quasi War and we’re the good
18:39
guys and they’re the bad guys well this pervades this absolutely pervades police work it’s obviously it pervades military
18:46
and so I thought it was that’s that jumped out at me that’s one of the reasons why I thought then the other
18:53
thing of course is just the passage of time you know I’ve I’ve been retired now
18:58
for um uh 18 years so towards the end of
19:04
when I was the legal counsel in 1990s I mean Leonard Peltier had been in jail
19:09
for what 30 years or something like that 25 30. I mean but now it’s nearly 50 years
19:16
and um because of that you know it really
19:21
is not in sync with any other murder prosecution most of you know it’s an
19:28
average convictions now carry an average prison term of about 16 years
19:35
and I was well aware of this horrible case of the FBI agent who murdered his
19:40
informant female informant and drove with her body and his FBI trunk for for
19:47
two or three days that was putting them yeah Mark Putnam I was aware of that case that was also talked about quite a
19:53
bit and he only served 10 years so you have this contrast and and you know I
19:59
thought well this is this is about the time where mercy and the the real
20:04
um reasons for having criminal justice of course the reason I joined the FBI that I learned in law school four
20:11
reasons one one is accountability which is kind of a Revenge accountability
20:17
thing the other one is um to prevent recidivism uh to to create an example so
20:25
people know so that there’s less other crime people don’t follow that example
20:30
because there’s accountability and the last one is Rehabilitation and so if there there’s no danger to the public
20:37
from a from recividus and certainly when people become when their health deteriorates and their
20:44
whatever it’s almost always the case that they are able to Pardon and so when
20:50
you see this letter and it kind of jumps out you all after all nearly 50 years and there’s no mercy in these other and
20:58
basically it is just now very vindictive uh case which of course was you know
21:04
which began on an emotional level at the time of the murders but you know it by
21:10
now it should have faded to the background and we should have be more objective in that
21:19
so those are the reasons why now but basically because I saw that letter and by um and it just it’s Max of i t i uh
21:28
taught ethics in the FBI along with legal constitutional issues and stuff that
21:34
affect criminal procedure but um then I kind of after after I became a whistleblower I got even more into the
21:40
ethics and spoke at numerous colleges and different groups and one of the main
21:45
things I was always saying is why do good people you know FBI is made up of good people just as Nazi Germany was why
21:53
do good people do the wrong thing that’s that’s the number one thing thing of ethics and why do good people that join
22:01
the police departments you know end up you’re coming at this like from a normative kind of framework of Criminal
22:07
Justice you’re not like coming from this from a point of view of like a left or a
22:13
progressive movement thing and that’s that’s what stuck out to me when I read the letter at least yeah yeah and you
22:19
know I’m not coming at it from a change in the facts I honestly don’t think I think the facts remain murky they’ve
22:26
changed the narrative the prosecutorial theory has has changed a little over the years honestly uh and we and I don’t
22:33
think anyone is really knows unless you were on the scene uh that really knows the full thing so I’m not going to go go
22:40
into the facts I think they remain the same from day one but I think what’s changed is um you know is the the fact
22:48
that I’ve I’ve had the horrible horrible thing of seeing this cointelpro
22:54
era repeat that’s another problem here since 9 11 this whole thing started to
23:00
happen again things that I knew happened before and then you know with Mueller
23:06
and and and then uh call me it even torture for heaven’s sakes things that
23:11
you never would have thought possible not to mention entrapment infiltration uh all of these things that happened
23:17
after and here it is repeating and there’s a reason it’s repeating because they took off all the church committees
23:25
um restrictions on the FBI after 9 11. the Attorney General guidelines on the
23:31
use of informants and infiltrating all were taken down the even starting investigations they were all so that’ll
23:38
that’ll is another thing here which you see this this bad history uh you know repeating and we’ll get and
23:46
we’ll get to that because I have that ever because this is in the news right now this idea of a new church committee but I want to get back to the letter and
23:53
and some of the things you said before you you wrote in your letter to President Biden quote from my earliest
23:58
training days at the FBI Academy in Quantico I like thousands of other FBI
24:04
agents was steeped in the FBI’s version of the tragedy that took uh two young
24:10
agents lives and has imprisoned Leonard Peltier for nearly five decades and quote you you mentioned this before uh
24:18
in the in this interview that FBI trainees at Quantico received lectures on the Peltier case and you kind of have
24:25
mentioned that this wasn’t really a formal part of the the training process um but describe what you mean by being
24:33
steeped in in the FBI FBI’s version of events on that particular day
24:39
okay so I’ve mentioned I’ve talked about uh already on early days during training
24:45
school okay so that continued so when I came to the office here in Minneapolis
24:51
in 1990 um already there had been an appeal
24:57
there’s more than one appeal but uh one of the more significant appeals was occurring then so I read the eighth
25:03
circuit uh you know decisions on this and it was part of legal training okay
25:09
so we’re supposed to train on First Amendment fourth and fifth and sixth amendments primarily maybe Eighth
25:14
Amendment two but those are the main ones for criminal procedure even including the First Amendment which is
25:20
about the infiltration and stuff and um and so um
25:26
uh I had bosses that were always writing op-eds not only that the the FBI
25:34
director when a call for clemency would occur the FBI director would often time
25:40
send out uh memos written documents uh for circulation about the position of
25:46
the FBI okay again this is kind of a bonding thing to keep everybody so when I said steeped it wasn’t just that first
25:55
presentation and in locally here yeah it wasn’t the first you know whatever but
26:00
and locally in Minneapolis uh uh prosecutors would give us presentations
26:06
uh of the of the prosecutorial Theory so yes we had these for conferences the
26:13
retired agents had these types of things so yes it was very much a cause it was a
26:19
cause and um you know there are there are some restrictions there even were on writing
26:26
you know lobbying so appointed officials uh agency officials are not supposed to
26:34
under the I’m trying to remember what the laws are now but the you’re not supposed to be able to use appointed
26:40
officials for political causes if you remember every everybody thought it was
26:46
kind of bad that Bush Administration was using those generals to you know go in
26:53
front of cameras and talk about Iraq you know try to Gin up the war on Iraq so that was all part of it but agencies are
26:59
not supposed to spend taxpayers money on lobbying Congress it’s very there’s some
27:05
fine lines involved in that but it was allowed to write op-eds my bosses were
27:12
allowed to ride op-eds and maybe they had to put a caveat in there I don’t remember that if they did or not or they
27:19
just said special agent in charge of the Minneapolis office and I actually reviewed those op-eds in some cases and
27:26
I think in some I even helped draft parts of those you know because I was very familiar with the appeals you’re
27:32
talking about the specifically op-ed’s kind of urging against any kind of Pardon or
27:39
Peltier absolutely so were agents writing op-eds about anything other than that not too much
27:47
not too much occasionally there would be um you know I was for a period of time
27:53
the public uh uh Affairs I guess you call it at
27:58
headquarters they call them public affairs so like really uh newsworthy uh
28:04
cases like we had a mass murderer Andrew cunan and who went through this the
28:09
whatever and I was the I was the spokesperson for the Minneapolis office on that so you could be allowed to speak
28:16
with a press and whatever um I was trying to defend the FBI that he was on the loose for two months and
28:23
they just knew he was in a red car so I’d say well everybody thinks you can find somebody in a red car somewhere in the United States you know so I was so
28:30
you are allowed there’s some leeway there’s more leeway with fugitives because that’s kind of cut and dry
28:35
you’re just given the description that’s another thing I’ve noticed over the years that got relaxed more and more so
28:42
in the you know in the FBI to the point where the the uh McCabe the guy who was
28:49
second in command got fired by Trump for speaking out on a case so so it got uh
28:56
the people in Washington would have a lot more discretion than
29:01
the people in the field for people in the field to write out beds it was not common it was not common but it was you
29:08
know done in the Leonard you know to to try to argue against clemency for Leonard Peltier absolutely it was an
29:15
exceptional case it was pretty yeah I would say that was you know not done very frequently every once in a while
29:22
there might be a very important thing that they might let you write a not all
29:27
there I remember an issue about something an issue about digital Communications and our headquarters
29:34
actually encouraged us to write and talk to the media about it so so there would be some
29:41
like that but definitely Leonard pelcher was was in those those cases very special times when they allowed yep
29:50
so in late 2000 President Clinton was about to leave office the campaign to
29:55
get peltier’s uh get Peltier presidential pardon appeared very close and and you know Clinton even suggested
30:02
that he’d reviewed pelter’s request for a pardon but on December 15th of of 2000
30:09
hundreds of FBI agents marched in front of the White House to protest the possibility of Clinton granting Peltier
30:16
a pardon agents carried banners that read never forget which is kind of
30:22
ironic that that happened just a year before 9 11 because that became the slogan for that but was this something that was widely
30:29
talked about in FBI field offices I mean you’ve kind of already answered that question but can you get more into the
30:35
attitudes of your superiors at that time specifically related to this case
30:41
uh you know I was yet I’m only Vaguely Familiar with that uh protest of the
30:47
White House um it it wasn’t talked about much in Minneapolis at least I didn’t hear much
30:52
about it I’m just Vaguely Familiar with it I’m guessing that it might have been
30:59
mostly organized by retired Agents Association and or that that it was retired agents
31:07
who re who took uh part in that and maybe if there was an active duty One
31:13
agent that they were had to take annual leave for a few hours because there
31:19
would be some times when that was the case although even in legal training we
31:24
always instructed agents that their personal beliefs would not be a defense
31:34
if the FBI fired you so if people had strong beliefs about abortion or I think
31:40
even in the case of I don’t know if it was the Jack Ryan case but there was an FBI agent who had taken his his matter
31:46
all the way to the Supreme Court claiming that his religious beliefs uh prohibited him from uh you know
31:55
investigating or infiltrating or doing something in and lost and so there’s no
32:00
in you know when you sign that dotted line to join the FBI and the way you stressed this in legal training because
32:06
we you know obviously you didn’t want agents to get into trouble so that they
32:12
if they had a personal belief on something that was not going to um over
32:17
that was not going to matter uh to the FBI and they wouldn’t be able to even uh
32:22
you know successfully challenge that people think oh I have First Amendment rights people have reduced First
32:29
Amendment rights very reduced when they’re working for the government and certainly in National Security
32:35
so again I don’t know for sure on that March but um I think that maybe people
32:40
did take annual leave or they look the other way and let them you know participate
32:47
and was was there what what else was part of that question oh just like what
32:52
were the like the attitudes of your superiors at the time I don’t know of anyone at you know who would have stood
32:59
up in uh like a Jack Ryan and said you know Leonard Peltier should be free I
33:05
didn’t you know when we wrote those op-eds there was nobody that voiced any dissent against that no absolutely not
33:11
that not that I know of you know again it’s it’s such a tragic thing and I said
33:16
in my letter to Biden that not only uh were the agents in the wrong place at
33:22
the wrong time but Leonard Peltier was in the wrong place at the wrong time you know the the tensions on the reservation
33:29
and this environment that had been going on for a long time made things very very
33:36
dangerous and it doesn’t take but just a mistaken identity or something like that
33:41
to trigger it off and I think even with the facts being very murky and I don’t want to weigh into the facts I think
33:48
that definitely was the case you had a long history and then you had this build up you know called the reign of terror
33:55
on the on the reservation and all it took was a spark and then you had that
34:00
shootout and and the agents and died you know a really bad death well I mean people aren’t going to parse that and
34:08
and be especially when you’re part of again go back to the group think when you’re part of the group how many agents
34:14
are going to parse that out and and whatever they’re they’re going to accept the the FBI narrative and also Joe
34:21
stunts who was a young man at the time was also killed that’s right he’s he
34:27
tends to not figure at all in the states or even the FBI’s Narrative of events
34:33
which is you know also kind of interesting but um I I have a kind of a question because
34:39
you talk about or you taught ethics and did legal training in the FBI
34:45
um and you join the agency uh during a time of transformation as as far as I
34:50
can tell you know the dark history of contelpro like loomed very large
34:56
um and officially the FBI claimed cointelpro was discontinued after 1971.
35:02
so first describe the cointel pro operations and who do they target and
35:08
why did they target those people um I think uh this if you had to go to
35:15
back to the house on American Activities Committee and Hoover himself who was
35:21
very paranoid of Communism so when you get this kind of um emotional he had
35:27
written a whole book about the Red Scare I think Hoover himself he collaborated with the house on American activities a
35:34
committee handing over information about people that so this goes back to the 50s
35:39
cointelpro as a program gets named later on during the Vietnam war and uh you
35:46
know I think on top of the fact that you had the cold war after World War II and
35:51
then whoack and the fear of Communism then Vietnam starts and that just adds
35:59
to this environment so people who are dissenting groups that are dissenting uh
36:05
you know and of course it was it’s silly things like you know starting with like a Pete Seeger singing folk songs
36:12
censored on some other brothers for heaven’s sakes I mean I’m not saying the FBI but that’s part of it okay so then
36:18
you get into Vietnam where anti-war so people that were and there was some uh
36:25
quasi violence taking place with occupying College buildings and but then
36:31
there’s the silver reaction and shootings at Kent State and Etc so it’s again it’s a period of tension huge
36:38
tension so they become a Target uh even feminists became targets uh and but you
36:45
know the left as a whole would be said to be aligned with Communism Martin Luther King was the the surveillance of
36:52
him was predicated on on uh some some remote connection uh to somebody that
36:58
was seen to be a communist or whatever so it doesn’t and back then you didn’t have to have these detailed affidavits
37:06
under the Fourth Amendment explaining probable cause um Kennedy the Attorney General Robert
37:13
Kennedy signs off on a paragraph and just alleging that there’s something communist in Martin Luther King so so
37:21
the Civil Rights the um trying to think of the other groups
37:26
involved student movements student movements because so you know it’s very
37:31
legitimate if there is even planning a violence and or actual violence I mean
37:38
actual violence it’s very legitimate to that’s what the old attorney general guidelines after church committee
37:45
allowed for that’s very fine to start your investigation if if a college College
37:54
thing is is ramsacked or whatever even even really serious physical damage but
38:00
certainly you know uh violence to people you know killing somebody there was
38:06
there was uh different groups during Vietnam you know weathermen Etc that got carried away so that’s fine but it
38:13
wasn’t limited it was then saying again this is what’s repeated it gets much
38:18
more broad so then you say we can prevent it if we you know infiltrate the groups then I would say the one extra
38:26
thing on cointelpro is they had the bright idea that they would disrupt that
38:32
they could if they got into the the group they would disrupt disrupt and prevent the group so by joining a group
38:39
early on even with no violence at all they could plant rumors okay the best
38:46
example is my Martin Luther King okay plant rumors about him you know threatened to tell his wife on and on
38:53
all of blackmail essentially blackmail so you you have all of these tactics
38:58
that go Way Beyond investigation of a crime in order to disrupt a group and I
39:06
think that is exactly what came back after 9 11 with with joining even groups
39:12
where there’s no no probable cause of violence and then they uh you know
39:17
saying they could prevent and Mueller was a big spoke to me everybody like like to prevent after 9 11 you’re so
39:22
terrified that when when a when an FBI director promises they can prevent the
39:28
next 9 11. you say fine do whatever you have to and that’s the the mode you
39:33
can’t prevent this is like you know these science fiction movies uh what is it called The Matrix or whatever I
39:40
forget the movie but saying that you could you could know what’s going to happen and therefore you know it’s not
39:45
possible it’s absolutely not possible if you get some a bit of a uh of a uh
39:52
notion that some factual I shouldn’t say notion some factual basis for knowing of
40:00
a group’s intended which almost would maybe never happen unless some somebody
40:05
comes to you and tells you ahead of time that there’s going to be a killing or something like that but otherwise you
40:10
can’t go out and round up uh right after 9 11 rounded up a thousand people and
40:17
you saw this all repeating from from uh from those cointel Pro period when they
40:22
actually were doing that they were they were infiltrating groups and to disrupt
40:27
them and and one other part of this is that uh part of the Attorney General
40:33
guidelines remedy for this overreaction and cointel pro a main a main remedy for
40:43
that was that the FBI could not become the leader of the group
40:48
okay so if you did have an undercover okay that you know this is again this is the fix that came in between 78 and 81
40:57
after the church committee going back to 71. I’m sorry I’m still thinking here
41:03
but 71 it’s great it’s absolutely completely wrong to say cointelpro
41:08
stopped in 1971. 1971 was the year that a group of
41:15
anti-war activists broke into an FBI office in Pennsylvania and stole and got
41:22
the file stole the files and and they didn’t even know what cointelpro was no one even knew what cointelpro was and it
41:30
took somebody later a year or two later to figure out oh my gosh those files were calling tell profiles so they
41:37
didn’t even know what was going on Frank Church didn’t know what was going on nobody knew what was going on until it
41:44
started to break loose and uh you know with the with the church committee hearings and and one of the FBI
41:51
high-level guys who had been a part of cointelpro spoke out William Sullivan
41:56
and that was about 75-76 okay that the these hearings were taking place so 71
42:04
is ridiculous they didn’t even know what was going on 75-76 it started to be exposed a little
42:11
and but the fixes for those it takes you know all this stuff takes time beginning
42:17
in 78 you had the foreign intelligence surveillance act which then fixed and said no you at least have to have
42:24
probable cause of a foreign agent you can’t just have Robert Kennedy signing
42:29
off he’s a communist you have to have a little bit you have to have factual justification so that was 1 in 78 then
42:36
the Attorney General guidelines that restricted FBI’s infiltration and and
42:42
supposedly um you know made it wrong and wrong to disrupt an actual you know group civil
42:50
rights you know with any group okay so those came on I think 80 79 80 81 Maybe
42:57
so then training to tell people this is what that you have to follow just
43:02
because they get written down and sent out that it doesn’t happen so really all through the 80s uh I think you know
43:10
there was some of it going on in one big case went on that did become known which
43:15
was the sispies group which is uh I didn’t have very much uh you know
43:20
involvement in that but I did see Communications about where they were infiltrating Church groups
43:27
that were helping some South American uh countries and cispies is the committee
43:32
in solidarity with the people of El Salvador yes yes and so and a lot of these were non-violent church-going
43:40
people that felt sorry for uh El Salvador you know whatever so they went
43:46
too far on it I remember seeing one where they wanted us to do something investigate and we just kind of ignored
43:53
it in our office later I got a call on this and then later An Inspector General
43:58
said oh oh you violated all of the Attorney General guidelines and there was a big inquiry on the sispies and I
44:06
get a call years later when I’m working in New York saying your name is on this
44:11
dot this uh this uh lead that was sent to your office and you were supposed to
44:16
have handled the sispies lead and um and I go oh gosh you know I’m in
44:22
trouble for something I did insist because and by the way the way you did the right thing you ignored it
44:28
there’s another thing you learn later on when there’s an inspector General investigation of the agents that were
44:35
involved in cispies and I had just signed it and not and not handled it and
44:40
the guy on from there who was looking into it said oh you did the right thing amazing amazing you never could tell the
44:47
public the stuff to be honest so um so anyways there was that case but then I
44:53
think even the Jack Ryan matter is pretty close I mean he was told to infiltrate and he said no I don’t want
44:59
to do that I can do some other job and then they fired him just for saying he wouldn’t do that so yeah I think things
45:04
continued however we were really pretty restricted and
45:09
after because you were supposed to have some level effectual justification
45:16
before you could even open a case that was for starters you were not if you did
45:22
have an undercover let’s say a violent you know something like the weatherman or something and you were infiltrating
45:28
the group they weren’t to become the leaders of the group because what think about it
45:34
the FBI would be leading the the the the terrorist group I mean that would make
45:39
no sense but before going Tempo they were they were rising up some of these that’s one of the the complaints right
45:45
now with a protest movement says that the FBI puts in people that take charge and become the leaders
45:52
yeah I wrote an article I’ve written an article about it but that all got erased all those attorney general guidelines
45:58
got erased after 9 11. little by little all got erased but they made sense and
46:04
they did I would say for the most part and especially in the 90s when I was giving legal training so for instance
46:10
one example was the sispy’s case was supposed was mandated part of legal
46:16
training we were supposed to cover that for First Amendment purposes you know whether it’s public because I don’t
46:22
think I don’t know if you did a foia for legal training or something I’ve never heard this before I never heard anything
46:28
about the sispy’s case becoming like the training for that yeah it was we were after the after the Inspector General
46:35
gave a black eye and there was bat press on it about the FBI had dis not followed
46:42
its own attorney general guidelines uh then yes they they then they tried to
46:49
you know obviously bureaucracies if they are really under some pressure and
46:54
whatever they do try to remedy and so one of the remedies was to put it into legal training and and I should just say
47:02
another example of that was after the Oklahoma bombing case uh there was a lot
47:07
of problems with um Discovery and not having given all of
47:12
the documentation because every office had documents on the uh mcveigh’s bombing of of uh Oklahoma City Federal
47:20
Building so that’s that summer before 9 11 they kept finding boxes of documents
47:27
in the oak bomb case one of the mandated responses from Louis free at the time
47:34
was that we had to give legal training on on
47:39
um on uh ethics we this is where the ethics training came in because then
47:46
they send it from headquarters mandated ethics training based on the fact that
47:51
the FBI had gotten a black eye during this Oklahoma bombing it delayed the the execution of McVay because they had
47:58
found these additional boxes of things so off so that happens there’s there’s knee-jerk type things but in some ways
48:05
that’s might be one of the ways you get a little bit of a remedy to it so anyways going back those restrictions I
48:12
know I argued this with a lot of people oh no the FBI’s never changed never you know that’s not true not exactly those
48:18
attorney general guidelines did have quite a bit of force and after the
48:24
Oklahoma bombing we had high level people that went to Congress and said now look see what you’ve done this is
48:30
why this McVay was able to do this because you restricted us too much we
48:36
had a high level person and then free went in and said oh no we can live with the attorney general guidelines but this
48:41
went into Congress at the time so um whenever you know the thing is it’s not realistic to think you can prevent all
48:48
acts of violence you can create cultures and you know non-violent leaders are
48:53
supposed should be doing this in fact they kind of do the opposite my opinion I think that’s one of the reasons is why
49:01
we have so many senseless mass shootings right now as we don’t have good leadership on trying to produce more
49:07
cultural instilled non-violence but but the other stuff about saying you can
49:14
infiltrate and prevent crimes whatever that’s very limited in what you can do you know even in organized crime we had
49:22
Undercovers that infiltrated the mob in New York well Whitey Bulger well also
49:28
Whitey Bulger was okay Whitey Bulger was an example all those years that we were
49:36
not supposed to be operating the boss of a group
49:41
they were operating the boss of the of the Boston organized crime family can
49:47
you imagine who was a murderer so for 20 years awful guys and it wasn’t just you
49:52
know that afterwards the FBI tried to make it some bad apples and Connolly the
49:57
one main uh handling agent at the end he did seven years in prison and I I think he I’m thinking he might be dead now I’m
50:03
not sure but he did seven years and I think even got some additional time in prison like he was the only one one
50:09
agent had died there were two or three others involved no it was a lot more widespread than that and in fact my
50:17
supervisor in New York even got prosecuted for having operated a top Echelon the the title for informants
50:25
um which again they they never made the connection between the restrictions on
50:32
operating the head the leader of a group with organized crime so you were
50:39
actually not only praised but promote did and rewarded for operating the
50:45
highest level organized criminal then it was called top Echelon so if you had
50:51
informant who was top echelon it could be a murderer look the other way this
50:57
happened this went on for a long time the Whitey Bulger and the Scarpa case which was my supervisor got into trouble
51:03
for were only two that are well are known but they were the tip of the iceberg they were the tip of the iceberg
51:09
and so you can see how intact the spinality of evil you can see our entire groups uh you know can get off base and
51:18
and it wasn’t just Opera the the restriction that all police departments about not
51:24
having sexual affairs with your informant okay we had a we had an agent who murdered his informant after he got
51:31
her pregnant you think it would Dawn on the people in uh at FBI headquarters
51:36
that maybe we should we should prohibit sex Affairs between the agent and their
51:43
informant you’d think that would be the case right no nothing
51:48
nothing no no glimmer and in fact I knew a number of of a agents supervisors
51:55
having sex Affairs we had two supervisors in California having sex affairs with the same Chinese spy and
52:03
she stole their documents and they and and both of the both of them she stole their documents their FBI stuff and they
52:11
got just a little thing on the wrist nothing this was all of course we had Spies Like Robert Hansen Etc so you see
52:19
that there’s very little incentive for systemic reform unless you have
52:25
something like a church committee um even bad examples sometimes they
52:31
trigger a little bit of a not sugar coating but you know what’s it
52:36
called when you you make a you come up with a uh remedy that is
52:42
just kind of uh you know it doesn’t serve much of a purpose like telling us to give legal training about CIS bees
52:49
which I don’t think very many people even did I mean things like that so
52:54
sometimes it’s like that so anyways it’s very difficult to turn any large group
53:01
and reform uh reform a large group like like especially in National Security
53:06
where secrecy prevails because the public doesn’t even know about it until you have a church committee so that gets
53:13
to my next question then it’s the Republican Freedom caucus is pushing uh for you know what they’re calling a
53:21
new church committee uh to investigate their surveillance uh arms of the U.S federal government such as the FBI and
53:27
the CIA and this is an interesting proposition uh for a variety of reasons
53:33
um and it’s received a little bipartisan support from Democrats I think ilhan Omar came out and supported no she
53:39
changed her mind no she changed her mind okay so so what was what was it the church committee I mean you’ve talked a
53:45
little bit about it and how did the findings of the church committee well we already talked about that but what do
53:51
you make of this this new push for a new church committee well I I again that’s
53:58
that did work to some Fair it took a while but it did work and uh you know it
54:06
took years and years to finally really be in place but you know I was trained
54:11
on the church committee and on the AG guidelines when I went through in 81 all
54:16
the offices were were kind of you know they saw what happened there were some FBI personnel who were skating on thin
54:24
ice um like I said I even got warned by a retired agent don’t ever do that my supervisor got into serious trouble okay
54:31
so when that happened and then it became public a serious black eye over it took
54:36
a while but eventually it put some good restrictions knowing this I’ve been
54:41
calling after 9 11. I’ve been calling all the time so as Mike German a
54:47
colleague of mine who was an FBI agent a lawyer lawyer as well joined the ACLU
54:52
afterwards and you know when we saw that the Attorney General guidelines were just being you know burned essentially
54:59
we have been calling for a church Community when torture all of these really significant entrapment things in
55:06
the FBI all of these very really terrible things that we were never
55:11
thought could happen again we’ve been calling for a church committee all along and now that it’s the thing is flipped
55:19
and it’s become a party situation situation now you’ve got Republicans uh calling
55:27
for it because they were the ones they were the ones that were their victims if you’re the victim of it if you’re not
55:33
the victim if you’re the perpetrator you’re not going to call for accountability George Bush is not
55:39
calling for accountability on ordering torture or Condi rice but in when Jane Harmon was she’s a
55:47
great example she wanted massive spine on everybody she was all in favor of the
55:52
NSA spine then she found out she was inadvertent I don’t know if it was inadvertently or what but she was
56:00
surveilled and had a tape recording of her that the FBI had of her trying to rig the uh APAC officials to get off as
56:09
long as she could get power in uh in the in the uh her committee okay so there
56:15
guess what why are they spying soon as as soon as it turns on her now she’s all
56:21
alarmed and the Republicans you know under um uh it turned on them uh in the in the
56:29
uh last a little bit so now they want a church committee I I say it should be
56:34
bipartisan obviously but the problem is the Democrats were in the last few years have been part of this they’ve been
56:40
doing all kinds of planting of misinformation the Russia Russia gate hoax that’s all planted misinformation
56:49
uh What uh what the FBI directors were doing uh uh I wouldn’t say it’s even
56:55
embellishing I mean they lied to the fisa court in those affidavits really pretty terrible stuff the Republicans
57:03
were the victims so now they’re the ones calling for the church committee and I and Ilan Omar you know naturally she
57:11
heard that there’s a church committee she gives an interview to on MS NBC and says yeah that would you know I think
57:17
that might be a good idea and then she was schooled and now they had a vote all
57:24
the Democrats voted against it including Ellen Omar including all of the so-called progressives
57:29
so you you see the polarization here nobody cares about the issue that you
57:35
know it goes back to what I’m saying it’s the problem here’s the group the group loyalty and that’s the problem
57:40
with the with the the parties George Washington warned against us he warned
57:45
against group loyalty uh Party Loyalty and that’s what you got going on now because people are not caring about the
57:51
underlying issue and the underlying issue is that they the FBI now
57:57
absolutely has come full circle they’ve repeated cointel Pro and it’s not going
58:02
to get better on its own without some accountability and uh whether that can be pulled off or
58:08
not I I’m probably pessimistic it can be right now just because of the Polaroid Washington DC is so polarized
58:16
in fact I was listening on on one of the news channels on the way here and it’s unbelievable how polarized all of the
58:23
all of this is nobody is talking as if you know they as an impartial person who
58:31
cares about the system improving the system you know First Amendment
58:37
everybody from the founding fathers realized if you don’t have freedom of Association freedom of press freedom of
58:44
speech that you don’t have democracy and yet the same people that are yelling
58:49
about bringing democracy to the world are the ones Prosecuting uh a publisher
58:57
Assange in Wikileaks I mean the contradictions are incredible and why do
59:03
those contradictions in hypocrisy exist because of part party and group loyalty
59:09
it’s loyalty over the the substance and that’s exactly what happened in Nazi
59:15
Germany it’s happened all throughout history you know it happens in police work it’s because and again this is one
59:22
of the reasons why in the Leonard Pelletier case it’s not you know I think Rey when he wrote this and he’s
59:29
hearkening to the FBI family just like a Hoover just like Jagger Hoover it’s to
59:36
bond us and keep people from thinking and keep people from speaking out
59:42
because I think other people would say hmm 50 years and deteriorating health
59:48
and you know put it in the context of the of the history of um of that tension
59:55
on Pine Ridge and aim and all the rest I think those would would Prevail but you
1:00:01
got to keep that that loyalty as your top thing and I think that’s what kind
1:00:07
of again it kind of spurred me to call for to join the the call for clemency and the FBI surveillance of of the
1:00:14
American Indian movement was largely ignored during uh the church the church hearings and investigations which you
1:00:20
know coincidentally took place the same year as the shootout in Oglala and the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in June of
1:00:27
1975. and this was at the height of the reign of terror which you mentioned
1:00:33
um so given what we know about the hostility towards uh Peltier and aim by
1:00:39
the FBI in the past but also today with you know Ray’s letter
1:00:45
um what needs to be done in this particular moment and what kinds of Investigations and inquiries would you
1:00:52
like to see um the reasons perhaps why the the
1:01:00
infiltration and disruption the cointel pro activities directed on American
1:01:06
Indian movement maybe one of the reasons why the church there might be more than one but one of the reasons why the
1:01:13
church committee nor that might have been the shootings so it was such an emotional hot uh you know politicians no
1:01:21
matter what don’t like to to wade into any kind of hot button issue so that
1:01:26
might have been it they knew the FBI would never at that point in time be able to see you know again very
1:01:32
emotional at that time so that might be a reason why it was kind of ignored I
1:01:38
know Frank Church himself was a target of the NSA so he would have been more motivated for all of this surveillance
1:01:45
during Vietnam that went crazy this is just project mineral right yeah the the
1:01:50
NSA had this project called project minaret the FBI had its cointelpro and
1:01:57
the CIA CIA had won I think the name was chaos just like in get smart and not very little is known about
1:02:04
minaret and Chaos because they did not have a a whistleblower type like William
1:02:10
Sullivan so William Sullivan ended up telling the church committee about some of these workings of the of cointel pro
1:02:17
because he was at the table I think he had a Fame uh Sullivan had a famous uh quote something like well we all sat
1:02:24
around the table coming up with these ideas one of which was to encourage Martin Luther King to commit suicide
1:02:31
letter um we all had these ideas and sat around and no one said is it right is it wrong
1:02:37
not a soul you know a handful of these high-level people so but there was nobody who talked about minaret and so
1:02:44
all to this day it’s it’s still classified somehow one little bit leaked
1:02:50
out that showed that had seven of the targets there were many many more targeted and one of them was senator
1:02:57
Frank church or whether he knew it or not there was columnists newspaper columnist humorist art
1:03:05
buckwald Ali Muhammad Ali of course which wouldn’t be surprising because he
1:03:10
was a opposed to Vietnam um so he went not surprised a couple of editors mainstream News newspaper
1:03:18
editors and another Senator so when you have when you know that these these were
1:03:24
the you know again if public knows that our national security agencies are
1:03:30
actually spying on our own uh Publishers journalists government officials I mean
1:03:39
you can’t have it I mean the the the we can’t that’s the rule of law completely breaking apart so
1:03:46
um so I think the church committee was more they had a lot to look at that’s the other thing they had a lot so they
1:03:54
probably looked at some of the things that were nearest and dearest to them at the time and uh I I don’t know why they didn’t uh
1:04:00
you know that those would be my guesses as to why they did they more or less ignored the AIM now if we had if we were
1:04:08
to get a new church committee and again this is a topic I have been oh by the way I forgot to mention not just my my
1:04:15
little nobody I’m a nobody retired grandma in Minnesota uh calling for a
1:04:20
church committee when I had an opportunity to speak or something I’ve called for a new church committee for for years now guess who else has called
1:04:27
for a new church committee uh Mondell our very famous Minnesotan vice
1:04:34
president Walter Mondale has called especially after the torture came to
1:04:39
light he said we need new church committee and actually he even got Senator Klobuchar once I forgot that he
1:04:47
got her uh one time in a in a uh not a conference but maybe a panel discussion
1:04:54
and he was with her and and you know he got hurt to nod her head of course she
1:04:59
she’ll vote against one now because she’s part of that Democrat manipulation whatever so she don’t want no church
1:05:05
committee no but just a few years ago Walter Mondale was in a public situation
1:05:11
with Klobuchar calling for a new church committee so now if Walter Mondale was
1:05:17
still alive it’d be interesting if he wouldn’t have to recant because this is a again it goes back to group well
1:05:24
there’s a lot to investigate count up there’s been almost zero accountability
1:05:29
for every or that where the pendulum after 9 11 because of the so-called War
1:05:35
so every time you have during World War during the Civil War
1:05:41
so during the Civil War you have sedition laws where Abraham Lincoln is
1:05:46
able to go out and Round Up editors that are against his War if they speak out in
1:05:53
the north even in the north he he delegated that power to generals they could imprison editors during the Civil
1:06:00
War for dissenting against Abraham Lincoln so that was you know of course we think
1:06:06
oh that would never happen again right put editors in prison for for publishing
1:06:11
well it’s how it’s happened again but that happened World War one that’s when
1:06:16
Wilson passes the Espionage Act that he wants to be a Sedition Act and he’s one
1:06:22
vote short of getting it to be a sedition but then after the Espionage Act passed in 1917 they still do it they
1:06:30
still start going after people they say well it’s hurting military morale and all this they put people in jail for
1:06:36
handing out Bible verses during World War One World War II this is where it you know
1:06:43
it all flares up again with the uh the Espionage Act is put into place and after during the Cold War that’s when
1:06:49
the huwac so when and then in Vietnam so so we had a lull a law between and I
1:06:56
think this is another reason why the Attorney General General guidelines worked pretty well is the law between
1:07:02
the end of the Vietnam War and the beginning of the war on terror there were some minor things you know Granada
1:07:10
and Panama and some other things but nothing that rose up to be war and so I
1:07:16
was lucky I look back lucky to work in the FBI during this period between Wars
1:07:23
major Wars and during the there’s there’s not as much pressure for this kind of uh looking at sedition you know
1:07:30
they’re looking at communism or whatever then terrorists okay so then when you
1:07:36
get to the new war on terror then the FBI you know erases the guidelines
1:07:41
starts joining into and and eventually even comes up with the idea that they can prevent acts of Terror of uh
1:07:48
terrorism and whatever and people accept it because he would love to believe that but it’s not possible and now yeah all
1:07:55
kinds of abuses and so I don’t know where they would start um you know and the Republicans don’t
1:08:01
have any incentive to do that they have an incentive uh maybe to correct uh how
1:08:08
did you manage to put all of this specious uh Crystal dossier into fisa
1:08:14
and uh and then afterwards defend it and have people in Congress continue to lie
1:08:20
and I mean what Etc so um how what about all the planting of misinformation we did have
1:08:27
that one that one uh little moment where they were trying to find out who was the
1:08:32
source for outing the CIA Valerie plain and it turned out to be
1:08:38
you know a bunch of them more than one one a scooter Libby was one but but all of them there’s a genie had told a bunch
1:08:44
of them to do it so there was a teeny little moment of accountability there of looking you know what there’s I never
1:08:53
have made a list but the number of times where people in Washington have been told to this isn’t leaking information
1:09:00
this is planting misinformation and and Cheney started that with and with
1:09:06
scooter Libby planting items in the New York Times in order to Gin up the war in
1:09:11
Iraq completely false information so I mean that’s that for starters I mean
1:09:18
they should and some of them are pretty obvious the the Russia gate lots and lots not leaks these aren’t leaks leaks
1:09:26
connote that it’s something true that you’re leaking this isn’t leaking this is planting false information and now
1:09:34
just the last few days we know that all of the the um all of our media that ran with uh with
1:09:41
leaks that they thought were leaks uh that of the of the Russia of the um
1:09:48
um manipulation of social media through Bots through Russian Bots and this research in Russian agency or whatever
1:09:56
all faults almost all faults and now the Washington Post said no that had no
1:10:01
impact on the on the uh but we’ve been terrified it’s it’s used as a propaganda
1:10:07
thing planting of misinformation is used as a propaganda thing to manipulate the public and now everybody hates Russia
1:10:15
because they’re trying to take away our democracy I mean and that’s the liberal side it’s the Democrat side because
1:10:20
they’re the ones that were the main pushers of that Russia gate hoax and again that may some of this may come out
1:10:27
maybe uh the the censorship of Twitter um part and parcel of all this too and
1:10:34
some of that’s come out because of of musk of saying open up the floodgates and getting good investigative reporters
1:10:42
um it’s going to be take a combination of real leadership and some corporate
1:10:48
some of the media has to see the light at this point and they have to say you know you know we can’t be can’t be we’re
1:10:56
supposed to be um challenging power um we’re not supposed to be having our
1:11:04
secret government Source whisper in our ear and then we go out and and write up
1:11:09
or transcribe nearly verbatim sometimes and then it’s it’s runs rampant throughout all the
1:11:16
media what what’s that doing to our country hopefully there’s somebody with a bigger in these media organizations
1:11:22
that has a bigger a view of things and realize is that no this might be a 1976
1:11:29
moment um I mean this might be wishful thinking because of of just how far we’ve come on this you know I’m I’m very
1:11:36
pessimistic that this current environment because it works so well to
1:11:42
manipulate public opinion Noam Chomsky wrote a book on this and you know
1:11:47
manufacturing consent works really well you you press people’s buttons emotional
1:11:55
vulnerabilities fear hate greed false pride and blind
1:12:00
loyalty well politicians are very Adept at doing that and and I you know the
1:12:06
last two people don’t think of the false pride in the blind loyalty as being so manipulative frankly they’re as
1:12:13
manipulative as Fierce because when you’re told that your group this is a social psychology experiment the
1:12:20
zimbardo experiment when you’re you’re told your group is in Superior and you’re the bosses you are capable of
1:12:27
really doing some bad things they had to stop these zimbardo experiments in classrooms amongst classmates because
1:12:35
people were turning so bad so quickly just by being told that they were Superior
1:12:41
and of course that’s what American exceptional exceptionalism is uh it’s
1:12:46
what you know religions are based on it’s why you had the the Crusades and you know these things that were you know
1:12:52
because you thought your religious group was Superior your ethnic group if you’re told that you’re Superior we’re really
1:12:59
Aryan Supremacy uh Israel The Chosen Nation I mean so when you’re told this
1:13:06
these things um it works and so it’s it’s so I I don’t know if we can ever cure that you
1:13:13
know I don’t know what the answer is but it the answer would be really really
1:13:18
stressing uh that this is so counterproductive that that manipulating public opinion
1:13:27
manufacturing consent is really okay might take a while to
1:13:33
show how bad the end result is but it’s always going to Boomerang back on you by
1:13:39
doing these these wrongful things all of Ethics you know we all religions have things like Karma or in a Christian
1:13:46
religion reap what you sow we all had this notion that violating made
1:13:53
murdering main ethics uh uh uh rules
1:13:58
principles would eventually come back to haunt you and I think we’re at a moment
1:14:04
where people haven’t quite understood that and especially in the United States but I think that’s that’s the fix here
1:14:10
that’s the that’s the root cause fix for people as a culture to hit to get more
1:14:16
of this old old-timey training reap what you sow Karma what goes around comes
1:14:22
around I mean all these we you ever hear this anymore you know I wrote combine
1:14:27
that with a low media and information literacy it’s it’s a recipe for I mean
1:14:35
it’s a recipe for increased violence yes and very difficult to make people understand
1:14:42
I’ve written articles about the boomerang of violence that we wrongful
1:14:49
violence that we do all over the world and how that is boomerang back into the
1:14:55
senseless mass shootings and other suicide and homicide it’s not just homicide it’s suicide too suicides off
1:15:03
the chart and so this is boomeranging back and it’s because we have culturally embraced this kind of violence but only
1:15:11
on others but we don’t understand that it’s come back now to take you know to
1:15:16
to overwhelm our ourselves and it’s very hard one thing is you know the the
1:15:22
shooters a high proportion of Shooters are former military because they’ve been
1:15:27
desensitized police were given all this military equipment and and you know
1:15:32
basically told you know you’re in a war you’re in a war on terrorism so it’s it’s you wonder why when you hit when
1:15:39
you posit a a an ends justify the means like a noble cause I was in I was in
1:15:47
discussions with professors law professors arguing that torture is is
1:15:53
ethical because it saves lives by finding the ticking time bomb and that
1:15:58
was the guy what was his name again that was here at Augsburg um uh or not Augsburg uh Saint Saint Thomas
1:16:05
Saint Thomas yeah well they had their Theory John you and Della Hunty their theory was um imperial presidency and
1:16:13
writing about Abraham if you wrote whole books about the that war presidents are
1:16:18
the only presidents that matter he’s very pro-war on all levels and and the
1:16:24
fact is and the title was called imperial presidency that was the title of the discussion and so they think our
1:16:29
I think it’s article two in the Constitution empowers a president to uh
1:16:34
declare martial law and you know of course that’s what Abraham Lincoln did so if you use that as the model he goes
1:16:40
Abraham Lincoln did this so if you want to you know we Revere Abraham Lincoln so
1:16:46
that was the model for future for George Bush to order torture um to to massive surveillance all of the
1:16:53
terrible abuses that have followed 9 11. it’s the model is and so that type of thing and then ends justify the means so
1:17:02
you sell it by saying your Noble goal okay the newest one is bringing democracy to the world who isn’t for
1:17:08
that everybody’s for bringing democracy we’re all for it democracy at home so
1:17:14
we’re all for for you know having uh you know uh I mean it’s used both ways any in any
1:17:21
event nobody’s but but then you say well how do you get that well Samantha power
1:17:26
says you have to bomb those countries to bring them democracy so did George Bush you have to bomb them and uh and and
1:17:34
take over their governments and then you can bring democracy and of course anybody who’s studied history and and
1:17:41
whatever says no rule of law you can’t just put up a a puppet government and
1:17:48
think you’re going to get rule of law you know that’s how they that’s how they introduce democracy to indigenous people
1:17:53
yeah and it’s also just worth pointing out that John you cited uh the Modoc
1:18:00
um the Modoc War as a legal precedent to create a state of exception because he
1:18:06
was saying that during the Modoc War the Modoc people who resisted the United States government in California
1:18:13
where enemy or a stateless enemy combatants so therefore they didn’t have any rights
1:18:19
and this is what the justification was for so it’s it it I mean it like
1:18:24
historically there’s that Boomerang too there isn’t this doesn’t appear out of nowhere this is a you know even somebody
1:18:30
like you a very smart intelligent person like he’s not these aren’t idiots no they’re they’re citing legal precedent
1:18:37
based on the history of this country well they’re twist they’re very Adept at twisting and this is this is a word
1:18:43
smithing as I know I’m Chomsky said you know if if you’re very good at picking words
1:18:49
um you can basically fool a lot of people because it everybody’s like I said everybody’s for democracy
1:18:55
everybody’s four human rights human rights has been used as a as a pretext and uh you know going back to the
1:19:02
lawyers role in this you know lawyers where everybody’s appalled at how bad the lawyers I mean we got a federal
1:19:09
judge now that signed off on the torture memos by me so everybody’s appalled at how the the lawyers and and in the ABA
1:19:17
in the psychology Association all went along with this
1:19:22
but I was asked four times to give to
1:19:28
give commencement speeches at law schools and um this was at right you
1:19:34
know when I was on the time person so okay celebrity so okay so I got it yeah just just uh for everyone’s information
1:19:41
you’re the First Time person of the year that I’ve ever interviewed and you’re the first FBI
1:19:47
so yeah and uh yeah you’re gonna it’s gonna be a long time before you can find
1:19:53
a second one I think but because again I was just lucky to make it to retirement really lucky
1:19:59
um and I was kind of forced to retire otherwise they would have gone after me I was told that so I I knew I had to
1:20:05
retire as soon as I turned 50. but uh so the the
1:20:13
title of my commencement speech is at these four schools was pedophagree it’s
1:20:19
a long it’s a I didn’t never heard this term before it’s it’s an Arcane term but
1:20:24
it means basically shyster so lawyers can you know they’re in it for to make
1:20:31
money too and they they see what side the wind is blowing and there’s all
1:20:36
kinds of little games you know we know about tax loopholes I mean different branches of lawyering have a lot of
1:20:44
shyster Parts in them even divorce attorneys every every part of the law
1:20:50
there’s a temptation to fudge uh things or to to use it for your own Advantage
1:20:57
okay so my title was don’t be a pedophogger and I got it the quote that
1:21:03
I learned about pedophagree from a book written during the Vietnam war the CIA agent who opposed the buildup of troops
1:21:11
uh he opposed the line I should say he opposed the line that was taking place right before the Ted offensive uh uh the
1:21:20
Westmoreland who is the main general in charge was lying to the press that that
1:21:26
the U.S had killed so many of the enemy I he was saying we they had killed 500
1:21:32
000 you know killed uh 500 000 or something like this I forget the huge number
1:21:38
and he was lying about the the relative strengths and uh so the CIA guy lowly
1:21:45
guy said he had already done the study internally not true at all it was half
1:21:50
of what Westmoreland was lying about so there’s a whole book written called The War of numbers and when we started the
1:21:57
war on terror I read that old book the war on numbers and when you get to the
1:22:02
end of it now it’s known now it’s known Westmoreland was lying 60 Minutes had a
1:22:09
whole expose where they tarnished Westmoreland or a little bit at least about this and it’s it’s known and the
1:22:18
agent says or the CIA guy who fought him lost his job and he died early death as
1:22:24
a result too he says it everybody it was just like it was pedophagree and he
1:22:31
lists a whole bunch of things he was it was just like somebody had put something in the water
1:22:36
and so when you get it so widespread the and again this is the banality of evil when it’s so widespread that you can’t
1:22:44
even tell because it’s in the water and everybody’s apart and parcel he opposed
1:22:50
the line about the Vietnam War and he got one other like low ranking Colonel
1:22:55
or somebody there were like a couple of them you know we shouldn’t be lying about this you know from to a to gen up
1:23:02
more war whatever and uh so then he’s got this like little sum up of how this happened and that
1:23:09
I’ll send it to you if I can find it but I put this is my this is my commencement speech to law schools because the law
1:23:15
schools all you know churn out people that become John you he’s hardly alone
1:23:21
hardly alone a whole and we see this over and over again with office of legal
1:23:26
counsel memos legalizing what previously was completely illegal and in in martial
1:23:33
law is the is a is if you actually declare martial law that’s saying no
1:23:38
more rule of law we get to do what we want we can do anything we want martial law and that during time of War that’s
1:23:46
the only time a president can declare martial law and so you get the the pressure for them to do this and after
1:23:53
the war on terror that’s what happened you know it actually John Hughes memos
1:23:58
written the first month or two after 9 11 approach very nearly approached martial
1:24:05
law he’s basically saying no more freedom of press he’s basically saying that in these memos
1:24:12
you know he doesn’t outright say it maybe but very close and they’re very good they’re wordsmithing and you know
1:24:18
they’re educated and um and then of course who am I when you’re watching television who is a
1:24:23
normal person to question any of this you know you can have your hmm I don’t think that sounds right you know uh hmm
1:24:31
you know people might do that a little bit even in the FBI I used to you know talk
1:24:37
about well a lot of us when things would happen whether we get an order or
1:24:42
something you know it’d be there’s be some mumbling and grumbling but internally you know I don’t know that doesn’t sound
1:24:50
good I I got caught up in things that you know actually a couple things that
1:24:55
were investigated afterwards because they were wrong uh luckily like the sispies one I I was
1:25:02
told I did the right thing by not doing anything on it another time in New York City we had a we had uh murders of
1:25:10
police officers on our task force that happened and the Agents went out to um
1:25:16
went out to Italian Social Clubs and went way across the line did some
1:25:25
definitely did some damage and even went you know illegally some so a little bit
1:25:32
I don’t know if it was terrible violence but you know roughing up type things because this is the New York way and
1:25:40
um I went home I that night they were all going out it was all being whispered about I just decided to go home I was
1:25:47
the only one who went home so people you know and people were like oh I don’t
1:25:52
know if we should do that but you know this is how the Germans you know you’re getting the orders coming
1:25:59
down and you’re in this big group and very few people are going to be Jack Ryan
1:26:05
you know it’s it’s our indoor the FBI laboratory
1:26:10
whistleblower Frederick Whitehurst only only forensic lab in the country that
1:26:17
was not accredited and and why was the FBI lab resisting the testing and the
1:26:23
validations to to become accredited scientifically accredited for years why
1:26:30
were they resisting because they were told we were told the FBI lab is superior it’s the top lab in the country
1:26:38
why would we stoop so low low as a state forensic lab and have to get accredited
1:26:44
because we’re the FBI so this kind of Pride and group loyalty is just a very
1:26:50
pernicious thing and eventually that they when they did get accreditation they’ve found out a lot of problems a
1:26:57
lot of mistakes on Earth that probably the lab now is doing so much better than it ever could have done without
1:27:03
accreditation but they they resisted it at the time and they made The Whistleblower Frederick Whitehurst have
1:27:10
a nervous breakdown and fired him and every it was just like Jack Ryan fired him luckily he sued and because the
1:27:18
Whistleblower regulations had not been it not only adhered to they hadn’t even
1:27:23
been codified by the FBI the FBI didn’t even put them into the code of regulations so even though it was law
1:27:31
they had just completely ignored and so Frederick Whitehurst the lab he won the
1:27:37
lawsuit and did get some some recompense from the FBI but um yeah not not after
1:27:45
years and years and all he was calling for it was just accreditation you know
1:27:52
calling for standards I called for stopping sexual affairs with informants
1:27:59
totally ignored so you know the the resistance of these big powerful Washington DC networked
1:28:09
you know it requires something like a church committee and it requires somebody like a Frank Church to realize
1:28:17
that this isn’t isolated on others it can Boomerang back on us
1:28:24
and you know and it that’s that’s really hard for people when they’re part of the perpetrators of something it’s very hard
1:28:31
for them to understand that Crossing these these long-standing ethical
1:28:36
principles you know the Ten Commandments do not murder things like that that this
1:28:42
will eventually come back to to um bite us it’s very hard when you’re in the
1:28:47
group you think oh well we can do it to others but they it will never come back to bite me I I don’t know how we can get that
1:28:54
across I mean it’s very difficult because I’ve tried like I said writing things and it’s very difficult
1 Hona hemen webgune ofiziala: International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee. http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/.
Oso interesgarriak dira ondoko azken link hauek:
U.S. POLITICAL PRISONERS #1: LEONARD PELTIER: http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/general/u-s-political-prisoners1-leonard-peltier/.
Leonard Peltier ~ The World’s Longest Serving Political Prisoner: http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/general/leonard-peltier-the-worlds-longest-serving-political- prisoner
Free Peltier! Says Ex-Federal Prosecutor: http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/general/free-peltier-says-ex-federal-prosecutor/.
Beauty and Injustice in Lakota Land: http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/general/beauty-and-injustice-in-lakota-land/.
