| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Politix |
| Another FBI whistleblower trashes Agency |
| 2004-08-02 |
| As a veteran agent chasing home-grown terrorist suspects for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mike German always had a knack for worming his way into places few other agents could go. In the early 1990's, he infiltrated a group of white supremacist skinheads plotting to blow up a black church in Los Angeles. A few years later, he joined a militia in Washington State that talked of attacking government buildings. Known to his fellow militia members as Rock, he tricked them into handcuffing themselves in a supposed training exercise so the authorities could arrest them. So in early 2002, when Mr. German got word that a group of Americans might be plotting support for an overseas Islamic terrorist group, he proposed to his bosses what he thought was an obvious plan: go undercover and infiltrate the group. But Mr. German says F.B.I. officials sat on his request, botched the investigation, falsified documents to discredit their own sources, then froze him out and made him a "pariah." He left the bureau in mid-June after 16 years and is now going public for the first time - the latest in a string of F.B.I. whistle-blowers who claim they were retaliated against after voicing concerns about how management problems had impeded terrorism investigations since the Sept. 11 attacks. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #5 Hey, Mike's a good guy; unassuming, hardworking, and very serious about his job. I've heard similar complaints about the reluctance of the local bureau to find any get-up-and-go to proactively fight. Will we see a real change in the way things are done? Call me a downer, but I don't think so. The agitators are getting fed up and retiring early; the dorks that don't want to rock the boat are winning out and putting in their pension years. Even if some change is demanded they'll probably be sore losers. |
| Posted by: Asedwich 2004-08-02 1:19:56 PM |
| #4 Of course, the mouse in the corner asks, what do we know about Mr. German? It seems the FBI and CIA get pot shots hurled at them (some justified) but, just as Senator Leaky wants to make political hay, we don't know the full story. Probably never will. |
| Posted by: Capt America 2004-08-02 11:08:21 AM |
| #3 Pfeh. On our worst fucking day, the FBI and CIA equal or exceed any other similar agencies on the planet. Henk, you're a twit and an apologist... and prolly not an American. If you have proof otherwise - post it. Who gives a rat's ass about what you describe as respect? Fucking window wash, sonny. FOAD. As old-time RBers know, I am no buddy to the FBI Management - their field Agents are smart, top-notch, kick-ass investigators. It's the old-boy network running the show and hogging the microphone and seeking publicity plus an inordinate level of PC-istic BS due to Congressional oversight / sucking up that fucks the org up -- to the degree that it is fucked up. Internal Politics and PR grandstanding. That said, the FBI can and does a remarkable job, after the fact every time. Sometimes before the fact, but that's the exception, not the rule. Who knows if Mr German's story is the whole story? Not me. Not you. Bank that. He might've been sandbagged for 100 different reasons running the gamut from "he's a lone-wolf self-aggrandizing loose cannon" to the Old Boyz wanted to gag him cuz he wouldn't play ball their way. We don't know. But the average Field Agent rocks. Beneath the management layers are some of our best and brightest (Oh yeah - they really are.) And they can do the job when allowed to by the dysfunctional management layers who live for their little political head-pats and Congressional appearances. I long for the days of Bobby Inman... The FBI people are investigators - information organizers, forensics, etc - and preventive action is very little of what they're trained to do. Now if they were married to those wonderfully nasty diabolical types from the CIA that were so colorfully blogged about here last week, with no walls or turf BS, then you'd have both sides of the coin and the effectiveness would rise exponentially... assuming we reversed the effects of the Church Committee 100%, which hasn't happened, and had time to build such a staff... if it hasn't already begun, it certainly should. The 9/11 The whole motherloving BS structure has to be torn down and purposefully rebuilt - with transparency everywhere and no room to hide your wife's deadbeat cousin. This is serious war-time shit. What is it? 17 Agencies now? I can picture maybe 6 or 7 tops - domestic agencies and foreign agencies for crime and terror... pure intel gathering and traslations ala NSA -- and whatever else you'd deem necessary - definitely a couple of black agencies cuz it's a nasty world. Streamline the hell out of it and it would produce value per dollar. Wall off and minimize external direct oversight of operations, just administration & results - and you cut down on sensitive and destructive leaks. People have watched way too many idiotic Hollyweird movies and we do have zeros like Cynthia McKinney running amok in Congress. While they are playing turf queen and duplicating the hell out of each other and shuffling back and forth to Capitol Hill and wasting untold billions in the current version, we are sitting ducks. We've had a lot of luck, thanks to savvy Border and Customs agents, but the luck will run out someday - the bad guys only have to get lucky once. We have to be proactive. We have to defend out borders. We have to monitor the hell out of cargo traffic. We have to make our transportation systems secure. We have a lot to do to make that good luck due to planning and procedure and process. The turf games and old boy networks have to end. Our very lives depend upon it. The process of ending them will probably actually begin in earnest right after the next big hit... or two. Unless Skeery is the Skipper of our little Gilligan's Island. In that case, we're pretty much just fucked. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-08-02 8:57:22 AM |
| #2 Yeah, it's a good thing stuff like this never happens in Europe. That's why the Euros are held in such high esteem through out the world. Like the Ivory Coast. |
| Posted by: Mr. Davis 2004-08-02 8:20:08 AM |
| #1 I am afraid we are prosecuting the world countries with false information provided by FBI and CIA. No wonder our image is tarnished and we are loosing respect everywhere. |
| Posted by: Henk 2004-08-02 7:48:48 AM |