Does the U.S. Government Permit or Engage in the Illegal Harassment and Destruction of Law Abiding Citizens ?

This page is an introduction into the history of U.S. Government persecution and destruction of law abiding people, on U.S. soil.  I just wrote this in the past couple of days because I used to be a skeptic when it comes to the topic - until it happened to me.

So that is when I started looking into the subject.  It turns out there is long and sordid history of abuse and illegality.  Mainly it was committed by members of the United States intelligence Community ("IC").  It is important to note that if the victims hat follow had committed a crime, they would have been charged and thrown in prison.  Because they didn't commit a crime, repression was used instead.

For example, I read about IC's and U.S. based government's destruction of progressive or leftist writers/artists  (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), people opposed to U.S. government policies in Latin America (1, 2), people fighting racial segregation (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), black activists and people who supported them (1, 2, 3), rivals (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7), and Native Americans struggling for their rights (1).  In many of these instances people were simply steered into illegal or destructive behavior by FBI paid infiltrators (1, 2), in order to derail them.

This list is not complete by any means.  Due to the cover of "classified information" and government dispensed secrecy cloaks, many of these instances of abuse and illegality take leaks, and decades to uncover (1, 2, 3), if they are ever uncovered at all.  

The pattern is usually the same: an established interest group asserts a "threat" from some advocate, or movement, or pending social change.  The U.S. IC and local agents, lackeys, wannabes, hangers-on, and their dependents are eager to sweep in to keep things "stable" - and to ensure their place at the receiving end of government swag.  Frequently the "troublemakers" are just people asking for a more equitable distribution of the profits of their labor, or looking to solve community problems.  Or they are people who simply have different ideas of how things should be done.  The real threat is usually towards someone's profit or their fiefdom.  The people crying out for change are frequently destitute.  There is always a share of locals-know-best; law enforcement glory-hounding or busywork, picking of low lying fruit, and simple incompetence:  The perpetrators are people who don''t shy away from aggrandizing a non-existing "threat," and then swooping in to cleverly solve a non-existent emergency, to their utmost credit.  All on a taxpayer dime.

The persons subject to this treatment are surrounded by government paid informants and provocateurs, and then beset by some combination of entrapment, threats, harassment, and the destruction of their livelihood.  It is not long before the person is powerless, broke, and weakened: their voices thin, marginalized, and rendered easy to ignore.  If they are somehow heard to complain, they are then smeared by rumors, lies, and innuendo.  This latter part is crucial to protect vital interests, or to put it another way, covering up the illegality and abuse.

This is probably the reason why President Harry Truman warned about the IC's showing clear signs of becoming a "Gestapo" ( 1)  - (in his time, it was the FBI that was the main culprit)  - a secretive establishment beset by insiders who feel empowered and equipped to extract a law abiding person's weaknesses, to then leverage government resources for the manipulation, exploitation, or destruction of that person for the gain of the highest bidder.  Whether that bidder is a local establishment, multinational business, "crisis-sellers," sadistic insiders looking for entertainment, Malthusian enthusiasts, Darwinian miscreants, or simply someone who is paid piece rates to "find" troublemakers, the result is the same.  A law abiding person, trampled asunder for their beliefs or advocacy.

"Gestapo"

The above is President Harry Truman's handwriting - from a handwritten document in which he outlayed his fears of what he was seeing in the FBI.

" We want no Gestapo or Secret Police.  FBI is tending in that direction.  They are dabbling in sex life scandles and plain blackmail when they should be catching criminals."

I think we would all like to think that IC abuse is a thing of the past, but I can tell you that it is not.  I have lived it.  And while researching the issue I found not only the past history but also more recent instances of abuse which have involved "sweating" of mere suspects of a crime (1), and the abuse, attempted entrapment, and subjugation of people who were simply speaking their mind, traveling abroad, or attending religious services (1, 2, 3).  Truman was right to be worried.  It now appears the U.S. got more than rocket technology from the Nazis - it got infected with an undemocratic penchant for enslaving people anew.

My current experience shows that unprincipled U.S. IC careerists with a secrecy card are probably the worst possible thing a democracy can face.  It's like having the ambitious law enforcement equivalent of Jordan Belforts running around, while giving them the ability to claim secrecy for their misdeeds.  What is inflicted by such unprincipled ambition is not a monetary loss, but the loss of the democratic ideals embodied in the "American Dream."

So please bear history in mind when you read about my experience.  Power still corrupts, and the U.S. IC insiders' ambition and contempt for the rest of us has not waned.