“What exactly is terrorism?” Not in their lexicon apparently. Well unless you’re talking about bible totin’, gun embracing US military veterans. Now them’s some real threats.
Everyone know that the Feds have defined gun owners, conservatives, libertarians, vets, and evangelical Christians to be the terror threat. There is nothing more federal than the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
You bet they are out manned and out gunned by their own definition of the enemy, and that’s the way if should be.
As TJ said, when the people fear the government we have tyranny, and when government fears the people, we have freedom. The problem today id that the government has no regard does not hear, and does not fear the public.
I remember when there used to be a clear delineation: FBI for domestic security, CIA for international security. But both agencies hated that, for the simple reason that it told both of them there was somewhere where “they couldn’t go.”
This goes against the grain for both police and intelligence agencies, who tell themselves they could do so much more if they are just “untied”. But the truth is just the opposite.
When any form of government wants to expand beyond its limits, its “main mission” suffers. The bureaucrats’ pipe dream always begins with, “My job would be so much easier, if...”
But what *invariably* results, is that the bureaucracy spends all of its time on wasteful minutiae, while the “main mission”, the “big stuff” gets ignored. It is a recipe for disaster.
The US is heading in the same direction as did East Germany towards the end. While their country was impoverished and falling apart, as well as horribly polluted, due almost entirely to neglect, almost *half* of their population had been coerced into laying information about the other half.
Warehouses filled with dossiers on every person in that country. Vast amounts of useless and petty trivia: how much toilet paper they used, and the amount of time they spent in the bathroom, to the second.
And the bureaucrats were convinced that every bit of that useless and worthless trivia was life or death important. While at the same time their stores were empty, their people were miserable, and their lives were moribund.
This is what our government agencies want as well. Not to do their jobs, but to do other bureaucrats jobs, and to force on everybody else a meaningless, life in a fishbowl life. Meanwhile ignoring everything important, and real threats that are obvious.
My experience with the FBI is thus:
1. They’re always smarter than you, no matter what.
2. Solutions must come from them, per #1.
3. Failure to recognize #1 and #2 lead to project paralysis.
4. The lower the rank, the stronger these attributes are manifested.
5. Some completely write you off if you believe morality and forgiveness are better coming from Christ, rather than from government.