One of my concerns over the course of my search for materials responsive to my FOIA request #1496758 of the FBI has been the agency's apparent eagerness to mischaracterize "targets of interest" as mentally ill. What more conclusive way to discredit their truthful testimony relating to the FBI's violations of their civil rights as American citizens?
Is it also true that the FBI has disproportionately focused on the mentally ill in campaigns of harassment and harm toward the "targeted" population?
I don't know the answer to this question.
We certainly saw devastating predations toward the mentally ill during the 1930's and 1940's as perpetrated by Nazi Germany.
So, the far right has demonstrated proclivities for harming this vulnerable population before now.
That said, what is to excuse the outright lies the FBI compels within the witness statements of paid informants pertaining to "targets of interest" who are entirely of sound mind?
The FBI has a powerful motivation to discredit the agency's critics, it's true.
But what could compel friends, colleagues, medical personnel, etc. to lie about a "target of interest" who is perfectly healthy and resilient psychologically? We can presume that the threats and bribes extended by FBI personnel, in combination, are too much for the vast majority of the American public to withstand.
On a more personal level, I wonder about the threats and bribes the FBI has recently extended to counselor Doug Bodin, whom I have never met, in directing him to prevaricate about the mental health of members of our family who are not his patients. The FBI has engaged in privacy violations toward a family member of mine who has been experiencing a vulnerable period psychologically in recent years. Yet, isn't it both unconstitutional and unlawful that those illegal privacy violations would then be utilized by the agency to attempt to discredit our family as a whole? Isn't it true that it is neither ethical nor lawful for Mr. Doug Bodin, with whom I have never once spoken, to knowingly mischaracterize the mental health of family members he does not treat -- my husband and myself among them?
The FBI's efforts to coerce knowingly false statements from Mr. Doug Bodin, and, in fact, many others, represents a cynical and forceful ploy designed to cast doubt on my veracity as a whistleblower of corruption within the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative and the FBI's affiliated "target of interest" program.
Inherent in the FBI's defamation efforts is a desire to shame healthy "targets of interest" for illnesses they do not possess and crimes they did not commit.
One way to illuminate the truth of the FBI's violations of civil liberties and human rights belonging to the law-abiding American public is through a Freedom of Information Act that is rigorously and generously upheld.
We have to gain access to the FBI's lies about "targets of interest" in order to decisively disprove them.
And that requires transparency and accountability from an agency that is becoming increasingly secretive about both its activities and its aims toward the American public.
I don't think the FBI will be capable of confessing its own lies within its falsified law enforcement reporting toward "targets of interest."
The FBI needs to be held to account by a governmental authority its internal leadership cannot dismiss.
And soon.
And, as difficult as it is, people like Mr. Doug Bodin, who may have aided and abetted the FBI in its falsified reporting, need to be held to a public accounting as well.
After that, perhaps we can tend to the mentally ill within our society as we should -- with a compassion and engagement that reaffirms our humanity.
Most sincerely,
Lane MacWilliams
No comments:
Post a Comment