Grievance 29 - Spying

The U.S. Constitution failed to specifically restrict government
agencies from unlawful activities, and to hold violators personally
responsible for their actions, as was the case in the private sector.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, established within the U.S. Justice
Department in 1924, was initially restricted to investigate violations
of Federal Laws, but in 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt verbally
authorized the FBI to spy on political activitists who were within their
legal rights. In the ensuing years, it engaged in illegal wiretaps,
mail openings, and break-ins, and infiltrated numerous groups having
opposing views from prevailing U.S. doctrine. Nobody in the agency was
ever brought to justice.

Maquette University history professor Athan Theoharis stated in his 1978
book "Spying on Americans" that the problem worsened after World War II
with the start of the Cold War;

"Obsessed over the possibility of
foreign-directed espionage and
subversion, increasingly after 1945
congressional and public opinion
leaders accepted the expansion of
the FBI's, CIA's and NSA's surveillance
role."

Internal memo's indicated illegal activites by the agencies, but they
were overlooked by the Presidentially-appointed head of the Justice
Department, the Attorney General, and more than one President used the
agencies for personal political gain. Reform was unlikely, and
prosecution by the AG was most remote.

Boston University historian Robert Dailek said President Lyndon Johnson
had the FBI wiretap his Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, in 1968, to
obtain his private views on the Vietnam War.

Former FBI Associate Director William Sullivan confessed upon reviewing
the record in 1975 that fundamental questions of right and wrong were
never raised in regard to spying;

"During the ten years I was on the
(internal security) board, never once
did I hear anybody, including myself,
raise the question `is this course of
action which we have agreed upon
lawful, is it legal, is it ethical, is it moral?"

In the 1990's, the FBI, like Secret Government agencies before it,
established operations in foreign countries, including Russia, in a
self-expanding role that fit into President George Bush's description of
a "new world order", and added another spy agency to the foundation of a
World Empire.

With an AUTHENTIC CONSTITUTION in harmony with the natural
Cosmic Laws of the universe, and producing High Moral Values and
Democratic Ideals, government agents are prosecuted for illegal activity.

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