Update: The answers to questions 17 and 21 have been expanded. Questions and answers 23-26 have been added. A typographical error in the text has been removed.
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1. You read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recently. This text emerged with the help of Eleanor Roosevelt and U.N. delegates from all over the world in response to the worst atrocities of World War II. It was approved in its entirety by the U.N. General Assembly on December 10, 1948.
Answer: It's a seventy-five-year old document that still stands as important bulwark against autocracy.
2. What surprised you within its pages?
Answer: The Declaration takes care to point out the manner in which virtuous people are deprived by autocrats of their good names before they are deprived of their property, their freedoms, and often, in a tragic but predictable sequence, their lives.
Article 12 states that "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such attacks."
I found these words quite poignant.
3. Why?
Answer: Because far right segments of the FBI appear to be wrongfully assailing the honor and reputation of many law-abiding American citizens, and in the process violating their human rights with abandon.
4. What are the most common false accusations within the FBI's unconstitutional "target of interest" program?
Answer: Far right FBI personnel knowingly mischaracterize "targets" as deluded or unstable. They tend to falsely portray women and girls as both promiscuous and unreliable testifiers to events. Victims of predatory crimes are thoroughly discredited. "Targets" are repeatedly and falsely portrayed as "dangerous" people who require surveillance and who merit extrajudicial harms.
5. Totalitarianism requires an "enemy" for some reason.
Answer: The autocratic regimes that emerge surrounding predatory systems often target domestic citizens. Under Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot -- we can see a pattern of intellectuals, artists, scientists, professors and those engaging in peaceable civil discourse being penalized alongside larger "targeted" populations.
6. The far right appears to enjoy penalizing "elites" within their societies. Why is that?
Answer: Those who are thinking independently and critically about unjust authority represent a threat to autocratic regimes. So, as human rights erode, the educated, the journalists, the writers, moderate politicians, scientists, whistleblowers -- everyone who could serve as a defense against human rights abuses -- find themselves targeted.
7. And alongside this targeting, there can often be a rise in racist expressions of nationalism.
Answer: Yes, the diversity on which democracy relies is rejected by autocracy. Healthier societies recognize diversity as a strength, not a limitation.
8. Yet, one of the challenges for society is that autocracy hides the worst of its human rights abuses from public view.
Answer: True. The Nazis' "resettlement camps" were in actuality concentration camps that were not built to resettle anyone.
9. What are the danger signs that a society is slipping toward autocratic governance?
Answer: It's a bad sign when someone with dictatorial proclivities attempts to collect the voting rolls, as Trump did when he demanded voting rolls from state attorneys general in 2016. And to undermine the public's confidence in free and fair elections -- this represents a devastating affront to everyone's civil liberties.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, "The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures."
10. You find it appalling that certain far right FBI personnel have suggested that your friends vote for Republican candidates in upcoming elections.
Answer: All who love democracy would find that conduct appalling.
11. The far right has demonstrated ties to Vladimir Putin and certain Russian oligarchs.
Answer: Yes, it has.
12. Does falsified law enforcement reporting strike you as a pattern of predation that could have its origins with a foreign adversary?
Answer: The origins of the FBI's engagement in widespread falsified law enforcement reporting against the law-abiding American public need to be fully assessed. It seems that the FBI has engaged in a degree of falsified law enforcement reporting for the entire life of the agency, if we look at J. Edgar Hoover's practices within counterintelligence divisions on a historical basis. Yet, certain personnel from the Third Reich were brought into the U.S. intelligence agencies following World War II, a fact which is deeply troubling given the far right's echo of historical human rights abuses. Further, there are concerning links between the far right and Russian-affiliated organized crime within the United States today.
No matter the origins of falsified law enforcement reporting within the FBI and its affiliated agencies, the practice needs to be fully illuminated for the American public in order to be halted as an "insider threat" toward our democracy as a whole.
13. Propaganda and disinformation represent central components of autocratic regimes.
Answer: They do. And if I could have added anything to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, I would have added that the public has the right to be free from propaganda portrayed as news.
14. Fox News just extended a historic settlement to Dominion Voting Systems regarding the lies disseminated by Fox's personnel following the 2020 election.
Answer: It did. And I am delighted to see the civil penalties occur. I just have to wonder whether the FCC now has cause to address the manner in which Fox News could have toppled our democracy through extending knowing lies about the 2020 Presidential election. The wrongs committed by Fox transcend financial harms to Dominion Voting and reach into the very heart of our political processes. There is an opportunity for regulatory bodies such as the FCC to utilize Dominion's discovery process to address much more widespread harms to our country perpetrated by Fox as a propaganda network.
15. The far right appears to have made a sustained and ongoing effort to purchase and extinguish local newspapers within the United States.
Answer: Democracy depends partly on local news sources, regional banks, community colleges, and the small stores on Main Street. Our towns are vested in the potential for our cousin to get her college degree at night, for our uncle to open a restaurant, for our niece to take out a loan in purchasing her first home, for our brother to research a story on the local climate for the town newspaper.
Our democracy is reliant upon our concern for our neighbors, in other words. Their healthy development and growth enriches the wellbeing of the entire community.
We need not only to bring food and water to our neighbors who are standing in line to vote. We need to hope that they are thriving in every aspect of their lives.
If they struggling, we need to try to help.
16. Your point is that democracy is dependent on a certain generosity of spirit that we extend to our fellow Americans.
Answer: It truly is. We need to defend the human rights of our neighbor as vigorously as we would defend our own. This unyielding commitment to one another is what makes democracy possible.
Those who are interested in thriving to the exclusion of others have abandoned democracy's core principles.
17. Does the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reflect on this point?
Answer: It does in that Article 29 reveals that every individual has duties to the community which sustains him or her. And this hearkens back to John F. Kennedy's words, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." We carry obligations to protect and preserve one another's personal dignity, fundamental honor, physical and social well-being, and human rights.
And all of us carry those responsibilities. Not just the personnel of the three-letter agencies. Not just the journalists of the most-watched news hour. Not just the bank officers of most powerful financial institutions.
In a democracy, we all are asked to engage in ethical, benevolent, and generous conduct toward our families, our neighbors, our communities, our nation, and the world as a whole.
Democracy asks that commitment of us and hopefully, we're excited about extending it.
18. On what conditions are universal human rights dependent, in your opinion?
Answer: Transparency and accountability. All of our institutions have a responsibility to disclose programs and initiatives that have been developed with the public's funding and the public's trust.
19. What about the need for secrecy?
Answer: NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake speaks quite knowledgeably about secrecy's role within the three-letter agencies. He argues that programs which could harm the public cannot be hidden by claims of classification or secrecy, and I believe he's entirely correct.
20. What are the risks if predatory programs are maintained as "secrets" from the American people?
Answer: The risks are that our human rights and civil liberties vanish. And it's important to remember that a challenge to human rights begins from the margins. Perhaps the rights of the poor are abrogated first. Perhaps the rights of domestic violence victims. Perhaps the rights of immigrants. Perhaps the rights of those who identify as LGTBQ. Perhaps the rights of the elderly. Perhaps the rights of people of color. Perhaps the rights of women.
The erosions of our access to the rule of law can be gradual -- to the extent that we are not expecting large-scale initiatives that violate our civil liberties in total.
21. But you have stated previously that autocratic initiatives depend upon corrupt, far right elements within law enforcement agencies.
Answer: These officials stand as the enforcers of new policies within a societal context.
But I think it's equally important to recognize that autocracy might be correctly viewed as originating from within corrupt law enforcement, as opposed to originating with autocrats themselves.
There can be no usurpation of the people's sovereignty without the presence of predatory law enforcement personnel -- and, to some degree, military personnel as well.
Again, it's extremely important to emphasize that the vast majority of law enforcement personnel and military personnel are committed to honorably upholding the Constitution and the rule of law in every way, shape and form. We need these people of integrity and courage to protect our democracy -- even and especially when that threat emerges from within their ranks.
22. How can such an "insider threat" to our democracy best be addressed? How can such an "insider threat" to Americans' human rights be addressed?
Answer: With courage. With truthfulness. With rigor. With concern. With journalistic integrity. With the rule of law. With insistence. With selflessness. And with commitment.
23. Is there an international component to the three-letter agencies' engagement in falsified law enforcement reporting?
Answer: There is, I believe. Certain of our agencies appear to have guided and directed falsified reporting in other nations.
24. What can be done about this?
Answer: We need first to characterize the reach of this scheme of falsified reporting, both domestically and internationally. After that, we need to redouble our commitment to working hand in hand with other nations to unravel the entire maze of disinformation that has corrupted law enforcement and security agencies through clandestine far right initiatives. If we join together with purpose, integrity, effort, goodwill and determination, the system of falsified law enforcement reporting can be undone.
25. You believe that President Biden is the ideal leader to defend democracy within the United States and also internationally.
Answer: I do. President Biden has had his finger on the pulse of our democracy from his first day in Office. He has articulated over and over again to the American people, as well as to the citizens of other nations, that we stand at an inflection point between autocracy and democracy. It is his rare combination of gifts -- insight, wisdom, integrity, honesty, courage and steadfast determination -- that render him heroic in his defense of democracy, in my opinion.
He is not replaceable.
His leadership is needed within the United States and it is needed the world over.
26. What did you feel when you learned that President Biden plans to announce his re-election campaign on Tuesday of this week.
Answer: Gratitude. Elation. Hope. Anticipation. Joy.
Lane MacWilliams
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The FBI is a deeply divided agency. There are many FBI employees who view their vows to the Constitution with the utmost seriousness and honor, and who strive to defend the fundamentals of our democracy with courage, fortitude and commitment. The fact that some segments of the FBI appear to have embraced a lawless course is not a justification to assail the FBI in general. As President Joseph R. Biden has so rightly expressed, violence is never justified in any circumstance. The rule of law must always be honored and upheld. It is our shared determination to preserve the civil liberties and human rights of all Americans that renders the United States a democracy. We must never abandon this promise. All of our most cherished freedoms depend upon it.
