1. You have been thinking about policy priorities regarding your and your family members' experiences as wrongfully designated "targets of interest."
Answer: I have, yes. As much as possible, I would hope to translate our journey into addressing big-picture concerns, so that our democracy can be best defended from "insider threats" in the future.
2. Would you like to divulge those areas you are contemplating?
Answer: Yes, absolutely. These are broad-strokes issues -- and of course each one of them merits careful evaluation and addressal. But, in general, I think it's clear that a rebalancing is needed that empowers the American citizenry to obtain transparency and accountability from the FBI and its affiliates.
3. Please proceed.
Answer: Very well. From a policy perspective, the following list reflects some of my thoughts in answer to the problem of the FBI's commission of knowingly falsified law enforcement reporting and related crimes.
************************************************************************************
1. Privacy rights must be strengthened. Can laws be strengthened so that the American people are empowered to own their own likenesses in photo, video, and social media? AI-developments in co-opting Americans' images cannot be allowed to rob our citizens of their own voices, their own identities.
2. Secrecy provisions allowed to the FBI after 9/11 have been broadly misused. Can secrecy provisions be withdrawn from FBI Counterintelligence divisions while further evaluation of the scope of this problem is assessed?
3. Secret courts which condemn law-abiding American citizens to unconstitutional harms must be fully illuminated. Can these methods of predation be paused while further evaluation is undertaken regarding the FBI's abuse of power?
4. The methods, structures, and economics of mass surveillance of the American people should be fully characterized.
5. The future of programs, technologies, and tactics of covert harm should be fully delineated. (DEWs, electronic harassment, utilities harassment, HAARP, slander and defamation, other physical harms -- more broadly, Phoenix).
6. The place of civilian review boards in addressing complaints against abuses by local and federal law enforcement should be defined.
7. Can FOIA be strengthened through its establishment as a Constitutional Amendment?
8. In facilitating transparency and accountability for individuals who have perpetrated Phoenix, what is the proper balance of justice and temperance? Who within the FBI bears the most responsibility for Constitutional violations?
9. How can the FBI/Infragard best be prohibited from wrongful communications with medical care providers and hospitals, EMT personnel, fire fighters, utilities, banks and financial officials, the IRS, judges, court staff, news organizations, etc.?
10. How can compensation (whether Bitcoin or barter) to informants of the FBI and affiliates best be rendered taxable, so that its full extent can be rapidly assessed?
11. What are the means by which full program disclosure by the FBI and affiliates can be rendered mandatory to Congress and the American public?
12. What are possible enhanced structures of civilian oversight over military initiatives affecting civilians and listed "targets" alike?
13. How can we prohibit AI applications from invading domestic surveillance?
14. How can we prohibit AI applications vis a vis drone deployments in all but a defensive context? In other words, how can we ensure that AI only targets offensive drones, in an express endeavor to protect human life?
15. How can we best prevent the FBI's use of contractors to evade legal and Constitutional requirements of these agencies?
16. What is the future ideal picture of U.S. national security endeavors as protective of the peaceable progress of civilian life?
17. What has been the impact of FBI programs internationally, in conjunction with FBI affiliates? How can we best characterize the experience of other nations?
18. How can we best illuminate internal DoD documents concerning global population risks and changing climate hazards, the conclusions of which require large-scale adaptation in family planning and energy consumption?
19. How can we best set international goals to address world stability and sustainability, in light of these studies?
20. What would a green economy look like within the United States and how can we work past political divisions to achieve it?
21. How can we best address propaganda as disseminated by three-letter agencies and spread by social media and "news" organizations -- in some cases, foreign-owned?
22. How can we foster small-town journalism unconnected to major media conglomerates?
23. How can we best preserve the history of "targets of interest" through documentation and direct testaments?
24. What are the best methods for preservation of private, peaceable, civilian life as defended by military and intelligence capacities, not a militarized society served by an army of civilian recruits?
25. What are the necessary surveillance modalities directed toward public servants, ensuring that all communications of public servants are captured and preserved?
26. How can we best prohibit cryptocurrency accounts for local and federal law enforcement officials and public officials across the board, thereby preventing unlawful payoffs?
27. What are the best safeguards to identify insider threats at an early point?
28. What are the best structures to protect whistleblowers and their families and friends from harm?
29. How can we best characterize foreign compromise of far right factions of the FBI and its affiliates?
30. In light of the necessity of Congress' participation in these evaluations, how can we best prohibit funding schemes between the FBI and it affilates on the one hand and congressional campaigns on the other?
Lane MacWilliams
***********************************************************************************
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment