Federal-agency-securities

Although I know the CIA better than I do the FBI, I have spent time in the past ten years with law enforcement officers from over 40 countries including the US, and the bottom line is that the FBI bureaucracy (Supervisory Special Agents and the politically-motivated upper tiers of FBI management) are a worse threat to US security than individual terrorist groups, for the simple reason that as long as the FBI leadership remains in denial, in secret, and ineffective, the entirety of our homeland defense is incapacitated.

The earlier version of this book focused on the decades of historical enmity between CIA and FBI--in the early years, Edgar J. Hoover was clearly to blame for a culture of hostility between the two agencies and between the FBI and military intelligence--in one instance he actually suppressed early knowledge of Japanese intentions on Pearl Harbor obtained from a German agent tasked to fulfill their targeting requirements.

In later years the CIA took on more responsibility for shutting out the FBI, consistently refusing to brief them in to either internal counterintelligence failures, or foreign operations with a strong domestic counterintelligence matter.

What the author has done in the aftermath of 9-11 is update the book and make it even more relevant to every citizen and every elected official and every bureaucrat. The earlier edition made me very angry about how the senior FBI bureaucracy can sacrifice the national interest at the altar of its own selfish agenda of self-preservation and aggrandizement--from Special Agent Rowley to Special Agent Robert Wright, the FBI leadership consistently spends more time censoring and punishing its own people for honesty, than it does chasing terrorists. This new improved edition should make every citizen, every voter angry, and they should instruct their elected representatives that the time has come for a National Security Act that finally reforms national foreign intelligence, military intelligence, and law enforcement intelligence, and in passing, creates the homeland security intelligence act to create a federated system of state and local intelligence and counterintelligence cadres that operate under the jurisdiction of governors and mayors rather than the federal government.

Pogo had it right: we have met the enemy and he is us.

Riebling also takes a somewhat revisionist approach to the Cold War, implying in many places that the secret measures taken againt communist sympathizers by our government weren't that extreme, and noting that they were in fact more modest than those taken by Jefferson, Madison, et. al. against suspected British sympathizers in the early decades of the Republic.

There's a besetting contrarian current or draft in this work, which sometimes Riebling rides to great heights of interpretation (e.g., on KGB deception ops), but which sometimes blows him into dead-ends where the key data is still classified.

The book is rich in detail. There is tradecraft detail here one finds nowhere else -- e.g., Nazi spies' use of butterfly trays to smuggle microdots; the story of Project WALNUT, CIA's first foray into the computerization of its records; a fistfight between FBI agents and CIA officers over custody of a Soviet defector in a Washington, DC restaurant.

There are long stretches where one feels riveted as in the best spy novels. The material on Ian Fleming and the influence of the "James Bond" ethos is especially well done.

Expertly handled too is the vast amount of original mateiral on the colorful and controversial CIA spycatcher James Jesus Angleton, whose approach is explained with patience and precision. Riebling clearly had access to many who worked closely with Angleton, including FBI liaison officer Sam Papich, and as a result there is a sureness of touch where other writers have played false notes.

Overall, despite some disagreements with Riebling's interpretations, I found this book educating and entertaining. It's the only history of our intelligence community I know of which traces our current problems to our past ones. And unlike most other books in the field, it does NOT devolve into nonsenical claims that the U.S. is in imminent danger of becoming a police state simply because it must sometimes use secret weapons against ruthless foes.

This book focuses on Waco but also delves into the expansion of federal law enforcement and the effect it has on civil liberties in this country.

As per the United States Constitution, the federal government should have law enforcement jurisdiction over the following acts: piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, offences against the law of nations, and counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States.

Something has gone terribly wrong.

Read this book. Then read anything else that David Kopel has written. It will be well worth your time, and you will be well educated about the erosion of our rights as citizens.

The problem was that I didn't understand the extent of the federal corruption involved. By the time I'd read a quarter of this book I was literally sick, since by then it was clear that the "America" I'd loved and defended for years on the mean streets of S. Florida was dead. As dead as the dreams of the children gased (and probably murdered) by "our" government at Waco.

The fictional government lies and cover-ups in "Wag the Dog" were but a pale imitation of the reality of Waco. The ATF has had a well deserved bad rep with local police for years. Read this exceptionally well documented book and you will understand why.

Will you be able to sleep well afterwards? Probably not.

Will you ever be able to trust "our" Government again? Never!

This book is a "must read" for anyone concerned with civil liberties or law enforcement.

To be fair, government employees, no matter what agency employs them, are awash in an ocean of fraud, waste, corruption and general mismanagement perpetuated by their so called "supervisors." These individuals are generally unemployable, mediocre and incompetent. Thank God for government service, the largest, most pernicious public employment and welfare system in existence next to the Pentagon and its arms suppliers, or they'd be on the streets.

"FBI Secrets" does more than expose specific secrets documenting COINTELPRo-type programs designed to deny and destroy the rights of American citizens to actively engage in political dissent, it exposes the moral dilemma faced by those who perpetuate them. Admittedly, this agent waited until after retirement to expose what he knows; but he reveals to the reader the torment of an agent who became disillusioned with the agency yet had a career to protect.

Swearingen could have simply walked away. it would not have stopped these invasive violations of American's civil liberties but, at least, he would nt have been involved. With hindsight, and through the work of many investigative journalists and authors, information concerning how the FBI violates the civil rights of American citizens is abundantly avaialble.

The history of the founding of the FBI, beginning in 1908 with the corrupt Bureau of Investigation, the Palmer raids, orchestrated by Attorney General Mitchell Palmer and executed by an unknown federal bureaucrat named J. Edgar Hoover, stands in stark contrast to the James Stewart inspired cinematic travesty, "The FBI Story." Certainly, the author's slim, yet powerful volume, stands as a beacon of truth next to this cinematic garbargio.

The peculiarities of the Director, his life-long homosexual relationship with Clyde Tolson, his liasons with other rich and pwerful gay men, such as Lewis Rosenthiel of Schenley, the red baiting Roy Cohn and New York's Cardinal Spellman made, in large measure, what the Bureau what it is today, the nation's political police.

Wesley explains how he was able to muster the requisite conscience and personal integrity to expose, albeit belatedly, the bigotry, cheating, lying, burgularizing, wire taps, bugs and unauthorized surveillances he had participated in or witnessed during 25 years as Special Agent. Also emphasized is how the Black Panther Party, the Weatherman (militant college students of the SDS founded by Thomas Haden) and individual top political activists were subjected to harassment, censure and surveillance without due cause.

Swearingen is to be commended for writing about alleged eye-witnessed corruption in the FBI. He effectively indicts himself as a co-conspirator, something which ordinarily adds credence to a confession. As a writer, Wesley's naivete exposes himself as a haughty Special Agent who is troubled with financial and personal security, an over zealous need to make faultfinding remarks of his associates and a total inability to get along with others. Although it fails the rule of "It Takes a King to Unseat a King," the book's content is revealing, easy to digest, reasonably well arranged and does give one pause to ponder.

Mr. Coulson was sent to disarm and arrest an evil doer. What was the man's crime? Why he dared to arm himself to protect his home, family, friends, and nation against what he saw as a government out of control. A threatto his personal life and liberties. Had he threatened anyone? If he did it wasn't related as far as I can recollect. Were the man's fears founded? Well, apparently they were since the very government he feared sent armed men to his doorstep to disarm and arrest him! A man about whom Danny Coulson had no good thing to say. He described this man in the most unflattering and derogatory terms.

We move further down the book and Mr. Coulson finds himself feeling threatened by the very government he has served so faithfully for so many many years. What does he do? Why he arms himself with a full automatic weapon and an automatic sidearm to protect himself and his family. He carries the rifle right on the seat with him wherever he goes! Does he see this as a double standard in contrast to his earlier behaviour? Apparently not because that guy was just a stupid average joe and he, Danny Coulson, was a highly trained "elite" FBI Agent. Danny Coulson displayed the typical attitude of politicians, government agents, and even some local police departments. His actions, in each case, define Danny Coulson more than any other incidents he relates. A double standard and an elitist attitude.