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Political Dissent and
Government Misconduct
On
December 21, 2007, the New York Times reported that a document
was declassified as part of a
collection of cold-war documents concerning intelligence
issues from 1950 to 1955. That document shows that J. Edgar
Hoover, the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI), had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison some 12,000
Americans he suspected of disloyalty. This surprised many Americans.
It shouldn't have.
Despite the public image of the FBI as the nation's premier law
enforcement agency, it has always functioned primarily as America's
political police. This role includes not only the collection of
intelligence on the activities of political dissidents and groups, but
often times counterintelligence operations to thwart those activities.
As we have witnessed in the Peltier case, agents of
the FBI tend to decide whether or not persons or groups are "politically
correct" and agents also tend to believe they are above the law. The FBI
tainted this case from the outset through the use of
improper techniques, coercive tactics, poor investigation, and fabrication
of evidence.
In
addition, the federal prosecutors in this case—who knew or should
have known
about such misconduct, or who engaged in serious misconduct of their own—caused
a conviction in large part by unscrupulous,
untruthful, and overzealous and questionable behaviors
such as courtroom misconduct; mishandling of physical evidence (hiding, destroying,
and/or tampering with evidence, case files or court records); failing to disclose exculpatory evidence; threatening, badgering, and/or tampering with
witnesses; and using false or misleading evidence.
The problems of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) are not unique to the
Peltier case as evidenced by these news reports:
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"3000 Tainted FBI cases," Newsday,
17 March 2003.
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Anderson, Curt. "Study on FBI finds fault,
urges change," Associated Press, 27 Feb 2004.
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Jehl, Douglas. "Judge rules false
testimony used to convict ex-CIA spy of arms sale," NY Times, 30
Oct 2003.
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Schaeffer, Jim. "Ashcroft admonished, but not
facing charges," Detroit Free Press, 05 Sep
2003.
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"U.S. attorneys fired [allegedly for political reasons]; Patriot Act
provision questioned," NY Times, 15 Jan 2007.
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"$101m
civil verdict for wrongful convictions in gangland murder," Boston
Globe, 26 Jul 2007. (The DOJ has appealed
this verdict.)
Government
reports in the recent past have found fault with lab procedures
("FBI abandons disputed test for bullets from crime scenes,"
Associated Press, 02 Sep 2005 and "DOJ faults FBI for fingerprinting error,"
Associated Press, 11 Mar 2006),
as well as determined that the DOJ is not in compliance with its own
guidelines as regards wiretapping ("Justice Department report cites FBI
violations," NY Times, 09 March 2006) and the use of informants
("FBI violating informant guidelines: Inspector General finds 87 failure
rate," Boston Globe, 13 Sep 2005).
Whether it is exposure of the fact that the FBI's crime lab has
fabricated physical evidence for the purpose of obtaining convictions of
possibly innocent people; the frame-up (and subsequent life
imprisonment) of three men the FBI knew to be innocent so as to protect a
murderous mob informant ("Everything Secret Degenerates: The FBI’s Use of Murderers as Informants,"
Washington, DC: Committee on Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives, Nov 2003);
prosecutors' violation of a court order with regard to coaching witnesses in confessed Al Qaeda
terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui's trial; the falsification of documents and
other evidence ("Report finds cover-up in a FBI terror case," NY Times, 04
Dec 2005); withholding exculpatory evidence ("Former prosecutor in terror
case indicted," NY Times, 30 Mar 2006)—or other examples far too numerous
to review here—the pattern remains consistent.
The Peltier case is only one of many federal cases that
demonstrates rampant investigative and prosecutorial
misconduct on the part of the DOJ. Further, politically
motivated official misconduct by agents of the FBI and federal
prosecutors is not a thing of the past.
Consequently, we continue to petition Congress
for strict oversight of the DOJ, in general, and
the Bureau, in particular,
and protection of our constitutional rights. We also will continue
to pursue:
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