I recently introduced myself with my GANGSTER TURNED GAY RIGHTS ACTIVIST diary, which got a great response. (A shotout to my friend Kendra: No on 8! No on H8!)
To those of you who did not see that post, my name is Kenny Gallo, aka. Kenji, and I'm a reformed gangster with a past in the American Mafia and the Medellin Drug Cartel during the 80's and 90's. I reformed myself and worked as an FBI/NYPD undercover operative against organized crime from 1997-2005.
Today, I'm going to share some stories and offer my experience and expertise to answer any questions about the surveillance programs being run by the US government against US citizens. Read on to learn more ...
For those interested, I'm also discussing the subject of going undercover at my personal blog, Breakshot Blog, today.
I began my work with the cops/FBI as the leader of a drug ring and a cocaine smuggler in the late 1980s. I chose to occasionally partner with the FBI and a crooked local cop mostly as a scam: I would take down someone I didn't like, and in return the feds paid for my apartment and gave me free trips to Hawaii. It was totally voluntary; they did not have me on anything. I was just a con artist who saw benefit in it. My local crooked cop contact would run interference for me and help me steal cocaine from police busts -- and snort most of it with me and my teenage buddies.
In 1997, I began my turnaround as a person and began to work with the FBI fulltime as an undercover operative against my contacts in the Mafia -- not the people I worked with previously, but strangers who I met through my old friends. I conducted operations against everyone from Junior Gotti to the bosses of New York's Colombo Family. Working for the other team fulltime, I quickly realized that everything most people think they know about the FBI and government surveillance is nonsense.
Nowadays, a undercover agent for the government is not in any real danger. It is impossible for him to be found out or identified unless he purposely lets on. Bugs and wiretaps on phone lines are both impossible to find. You could be being recorded at any time without knowing -- period.
It wasn't always like that. As late as the 1990s, I had a contact in the CIA who gave me a phone number that anyone in on the secret could dial, and it would tell you if that phone number was bugged or not. As far as I know, that helpful service was discontinued thanks to cocaine smugglers like me who compromised the program.
A "wire" nowadays is not some large recorder with a long wire and mic attached to it. Those days are long over. Today's space age wires are tiny, microscopic; they would never be found during a body search. By the way, no self-respecting criminal would EVER let another criminal pat him down and insinuate that he was a rat. That's movie bullcrap.
"Wires" and bugs are literally impossible to see with the naked eye. They are hidden in tiny everday objects like a belt buckle, coin, watch, pager and many things besides that. You could search me all day long and never find the wire.
I mostly used a recorder which just records audio and digitally sends it to the FBI receiver. It is like an IPod -- all digital, no tape. I would use a paper clip to click a tiny button hidden in a cranny on the device -- and that was it for 9-13 hours. There was no off switch, no chance to cover anything up. For better or worse, everything I did was going to be recorded that day. It picked up what it picked up, whether it the sound of sex or me taking a dump or talking shit about Fox News. I had targets, but if there were others in the room it picked them up as well. It was impossible for me to "protect" anyone that I met during the day. They were fucked if they talked.
Another common misapprehension is that there is someone in a van nearby listening to every recording. I wish! That's bullshit. If shit "went bad", then the feds wouldn't find out until days or even weeks later when they got around to listening to my backlog of tapes. There were two occasions when I was imminent danger -- once when the New York Mob attempted to kill me, and another time when I was deputized to go on a hit team for the Mafia -- when no one was listening to my wire and I couldn't even get anyone at the FBI on the phone.
They used the recordings I made to get a pen register on my target's
phones. A pen register records the numbers called and those coming into
the target phone. Once they have those they get a court order to "go up" or tap the target's phone. Notice I did not say "request a court order"; nowadays, the FBI knows damn well which judges to ask and how to ask them to get permission for their bugs/wiretaps.
The feds are supposed to have someone monitoring the phones 24/7, and if a call is a non-criminal call they are supposed to shut it off. In my experience, I tend to doubt that there is always someone listening to make sure that private and innocent calls are not recorded, and I doubly doubt that the FBI agents necessarily always give a shit about protecting the target's private lives.
The same 24-hour surveillance rule applies to bugs planted in home and businesses, but I also have my doubts about that.
This is a story that some people may never have heard about an FBI surveillance gone bad. Herbert "Fat Herbie" Blitzstein was a Las Vegas loan shark who was very well known in the underworld. He was lieutenant of Anthony Spilotro in the Chicago Outfit, and there was a character based on Herbie in Casino.
They FBI had bugged his business and his home. They also had 3 guys
close to him that were wearing wires. One day, two petty crooks broke into Herbie's condo and ransacked the place and waited for Fat Herbie to come home. They ambushed him and shot him.
The FBI had a bug inside the condo -- yet no one called a patrol car when they overheard a murder in progress? Weren't they supposed to be listening? I also heard FBI informants discussing potentially murdering Herbie weeks before the killing -- why didn't anyone warn him?
I have no answers, only information that leads to more questions. We are living in a very heavily surveilled country, and I think very few people understand the reality on the street. So, while I cannot guarantee that I clarify anyone's pressing concerns or calm their fears, I'll be happy to share the information that I have that I'm allowed to share and spread awareness.
Also, everyone please check out my gay rights diary linked at the top and spread the word to any activist friends you have that I would like to help. I had a lot of doubters on that blog, so I hope that people see this to see that I am for real. If this were some type of cynical cash-in, wouldn't I aim for the evangelical groups instead of the most savvy and well-informed people in America? Trust me, revival tent poster boy pays much better than volunteer gay rights activist.
Next week I will post some of the hate mail that has come into my blog.
This is why I wanted to stand up and bring up the issue.
Anyone interested in my story can also check out the Breakshot Blog as well.