"Hoover's "alliance" with President Truman's
"strongest political enemies in Congress" also illustrates the
inadequacy of
schoolbook accounts of the American separation of powers. Rather
than the legislative and executive branches checking and balancing
each other for the sake of the public, what we find is an agency
officially located within the executive but that repeatedly
colluded with one of the parties inside the legislature to
undermine sitting presidents and plot their electoral defeat.
"Hoover knew how to use intelligence" not only to root out
potential traitors, but "as an instrument of political warfare" to
help red-hunting Republicans give grief to allegedly
weak-on-communism Democrats such as Truman. Hoover's
back-channelling of sensitive information to Richard Nixon, serving
at the time on the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC),
is only the most famous example of the partisan-political game
played by an unaccountable executive-branch bureaucracy that had no
constitutional right to spend taxpayers' money to help one party
depose the other." From
the Guardian's review of Tim Weiner's FBI
Executive branch authorities can access
congressional communications in almost undetectable ways without a
warrant, just as they can retrieve
emails and phone calls made by other citizens. Elected representatives
risk disgrace or worse because many can be accused of fund-raising
violations or sexual misconduct. Dossiers and blackmail did not go out
of fashion with J. Edgar Hoover's death. Hoover's success merely
showcased the effectiveness of the tool." Presidential Puppetry: Andrew
Kreig
The FBI breached its own internal rules when it spied
on campaigners against the Keystone XL pipeline, failing to get
approval
before it cultivated informants and opened files on individuals
protesting against the construction of the pipeline in Texas, documents
reveal. the
Guardian (5/12/2015)
The FBI historically has weighed in on elections and it always
leans
right. It helped elect Nixon, Reagan
and Trump in 2016. It has
demonstrated the political danger of the surveillance
state.
Connecticut librarians should be congratulated. In spite of a
gag order (they could tell no one about it) they heroically
challenged the Patriot Act.