Here's a chilling tale for those of us who are worried about the expansion of Big Brother's powers under Bush: It seems that the FBI, despite having no basis for pursuing a criminal investigation, is "cultivating contacts" to report on the actions of Portland's Mayor, and members of the City Council in Portland, OR.
This smacks of retribution for Mayor Potter's decision to pull Portland out of the FBI's "anti-terrorism task force"
Go below the flip for Portland Mayor Tom Potter's letter to the the Portland community about the FBI's activity, and the FBI's response.
We'll start with
Mayor Potter's letter:
An Open Letter to the Portland Community:
On Thursday, May 11, 2006, a Special Agent of the Portland Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation stopped a City employee and showed her a badge and ID. He asked if she knew any City Council members. He asked if she would be willing to pass information to him relating to people who work for the City of Portland. He said that while he had duties in other areas, the agency was always interested in information relating to white collar crime and other things.
Mayor Potter with Commissioners Leonard, Adams and Saltzman (left to right)One important and legitimate role of the FBI is to investigate public corruption within government entities. For example, recently the FBI arrested a member of Congress for public corruption. But federal officials have told me they know of no public corruption in our city. Federal officials say they are conducting no investigation of the City of Portland.
The only conclusion I can draw is that the agent in question was trying to place an informant inside the offices of Portland 's elected officials and employees, in order to inform on City Council and others.
The actions of the FBI - even if they are the actions of one agent acting on his own - come at an uneasy time for many Americans. In the past few weeks, we have learned that our phone records are not private, and conversations are monitored without warrants. Journalists exposing these actions have been threatened with prosecution.
Even if this incident is nothing more than the work of one overzealous agent, it represents an unacceptable mindset within the agency. When there is no information to indicate ANY public corruption on the part of City Council members or employees, the FBI has no legitimate role in surreptitiously monitoring elected officials and city employees.
As a city, we will continue to cooperate with the FBI on investigating criminal activities and terrorism, to ensure our community is as safe as possible.
But in the absence of any reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing, I believe the FBI's recent actions smack of "Big Brother." Spying on local government without justification or cause is not acceptable to me. I hope it is not acceptable to you, either.
Thank you,
Tom Potter
Mayor
The Mayor, (formerly Portland's chief of police), hit the issue squarely on the head by pointing out that spying on local government without any suspicion of wrong-doing, particularly at a time when the Feds are also compiling phone records of all U.S. citizens and engaging in warrantless wiretapping of Americans.
Here's the FBI's response (PDF).
The heart of the FBI's justification is this:
It is entirely proper for an FBI agent to ask willing citizens to provide information when those citizens feel it is appropriate to do so regarding potential criminal conduct whether that information involves a bank robbery, kidnapping, public corruption or other crime.
AND:
Many of our investigations start with a tip from someone who encounters corruption in the course of their work. The FBI cannot investigate corruption (or any crime) until it determines that that crime exists, and simply providing citizens with an avenue to provide that information is good police work.
Of course, this is not the same thing as actively cultivating people to spy on officials when there is no suspicion of a crime.
It's a brave new world, folks. We've got 3 more years until Bush is gone, and I suspect that we're just starting to scratch the surface regarding the expansion of government surveillance on its citizens.