A couple of weeks back, Kyra Phillips of CNN did a story about misconduct in the FBI citing disciplinary reports that delineated embarrassing accounts of incidents and missteps by FBI employees over the past three years.
A negative story about the FBI, to a veteran FBI agent, feels like a story about your “family” exposing some shortcomings and mistakes by members of that family. Naturally, it always causes pain, embarrassment and a gut reaction to, certainly not endorse or support the missteps but to try and put things in perspective and ask what could have happened or prompted that person to fall into the circumstances that brought about their misstep. We’ve all seen it on a number of occasions in all our personal lives, being human is often reason enough. We hope that the American people, we serve and work tirelessly to keep safe look at the issue on balance and from the larger perspective.
First of all, was Kyra Phillips story really newsworthy? Many said it was purely sensational and done to purposely embarrass the FBI. On the other hand, some believe it is important and deserving to know any and all missteps by those who are working for the American people and whose salaries are paid by the taxpayer and to that logic, one cannot argue.
Obviously, someone passed the internal FBI document citing the findings of the FBI’s internal affairs division called the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) to Ms. Phillips. I guess it was alright for her to be complicit in the receipt of this sensitive document from her source which in and of itself is not only unethical but criminal. I wonder if she will report that person to the FBI’s OPR for investigation. That’s one story that all FBI employees would welcome but will not hold their breath in anticipation.
What did the report really cite? It showed first, an organization that is fearless in the protection of its standards and its vow to live by its core values and its motto of Fidelity, Bravery and Integrity. It also showed statistically that over 99% of all FBI employees take those words to heart and live by them each and every day.
Yes, we are an organization of human beings; human beings that put their lives on the line each and every day in every corner of the globe, work endless hours to find that missing child or dangerous terrorists amongst us, human beings that skip soccer games, events and holidays with their families to get the job done. But it also showed that sometimes FBI employees slip into that human trap and make mistakes and some of them are stupid and embarrassing. I witnessed it in my career; good agents sometimes make mistakes and ultimately, suffer the consequences.
But those agents and support people who make those mistakes represent less than 1% of FBI employees and less than 10% of that group or a total of less than 0.01% are actually terminated from employment because of their actions. The disciplinary process in the FBI is swift and merciless and no organization is more demanding and more unforgiving of bad behavior than the FBI.
The FBI can put its personnel and its record up against any other law-enforcement agency or organization, public or private, in the world. FBI employees are chosen from the top of the professional ranks of law, accounting, the sciences, languages and the military. Their work ethic is without comparison and their personal sacrifice in the face of adversity is unmatched. So many could walk out the door and make twice the salary in the private sector but they don’t. One might call it loyalty, a vocation, a calling; many just call it Patriotism.
We have not had one terror attack on U.S. soil since 2001 and it is due, in large part, to the round the clock work of the men and women of the FBI; men and women who work seamlessly with their police and intelligence counterparts not only in the U.S. but in war zones and in every corner of the globe. FBI Director, Robert Mueller, has publicly stated, time and again, that terrorism is the FBI’s number one priority and that the FBI has short-circuited numerous attacks on American soil since 9/11 and have taken many terrorists off the streets of America. Americans read accounts of many of these cases in newspapers around the country every day but many more are part of a larger threat and they never make the press while the silent war goes on.
While FBI agents are covering the global terror threat, they are also tasked by our lawmakers and policy-makers in Washington to investigate, collect evidence and capture those that are victimizing children, those that are smuggling drugs, counterfeit software and pirated goods into the U.S., those that are fraudulently causing our insurance rates to skyrocket, those that are committing espionage against our government and our corporation’s secrets and on and on. All of these crimes and threats to the American people fall under the umbrella of more than 375 federal laws that the FBI is required by the President and Congress to enforce in its service to the American people.
Give the FBI a break and look at the positive. Yes, we have slipped and shown our human side at times but we don’t sweep our mistakes under the rug. We confront them and deal with them, promptly, fairly and justly.
We have to. The American people expect it and deserve it.
This article was written by a 25 year veteran of the FBI.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Judicial Crisis
The U.S./Mexico border, a region notorious for the most murders and violence on the face of the earth during the past five years, was front and center again in the news this past week. In a syndicated article by Gary Martin of the San Antonio Express, a new dimension was brought to light outlining the intersection of two issues and how they are mutually creating an impending crisis along the U.S. Border.
The two issues are the significant jump in federal cases within the Federal Districts along the U.S border in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California and the lack of judges sitting on the federal bench to hear those cases. The jump in cases is directly linked to the drug violence on the border; murders, kidnappings, extortion, gang violence, human smuggling and the like coupled with a rapidly growing immigration docket as border security folks attempt to arrest and stem the flow of illegal entry into the U.S.
While we as a nation should be stepping up to vigorously address the growing crime and security issues at the border, we find ourselves instead in the midst of crisis with empty federal benches all along our southern border and no one to hear those case and grind those wheels of justice forward.
The situation is grave and has national security implications.
The lack of federal judges is the bottleneck. Without the jurists in place to hear the cases, the entire system backs up, the bad guys win and we, the American people lose. Under the Speedy Trial Act of 1974, the federal government must be prepared to present their case within seventy days of the filing of formal charges. Many serious criminals and their attorneys play the “poker game” with federal law-enforcement. They know the system is backed up and their cases will never realistically be presented within the seventy day parameters of the Speed Trial Act and they walk. Ultimately what happens is Federal prosecutors take less cases and/or they raise the thresholds for prosecutions for federal offenses, letting many serious criminals escape the consequences of their malevolence. The ripple back is that federal law-enforcement agencies like the FBI, DEA, U.S. Secret Service, and ICE, then open less cases because the hope of a long term investigation seeing the inside of a federal courtroom continues to dwindle with a lack of judges. Moreover, the indirect affect on morale with the federal law-enforcement community can be deleterious.
In the State of Texas alone there are seven vacant judgeships, four of them in border areas. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has called the filling of these vacancies an “urgent need” and it was reported that Chief Judge John Roll of Arizona who was to visit with Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, the day he was murdered, specifically planned to discuss the dire situation at the border and to ask for her intervention and assistance in filling those empty seats on the federal bench.
So why are these seats languishing empty while crime soars on our southern flank? Political partisanship is to blame for the most part; Democrats don’t like or want to confirm Republican appointee recommendations and Republicans don’t want to confirm those recommended by the Democrats and, again, we, the American people lose. It seems as though we as a nation have never recovered from the “bloody partisan battles” of the Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas hearings twenty years ago and that the contentious partisanship has persistently loomed over us. Is it possible more conciliation and less partisanship will emerge in the wake of the Tucson massacre?
We are not talking about appointments to the Supreme Court or even to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals; these are sitting federal judgeships, critical to the day-to-day administration of jurisprudence on the federal level as well as to the public safety and national security of our nation. The American people really don't care if a Federal judge votes Democratic or Republican when he or she goes to the polls; if there is something egregious in their personal or legal history it will come to light during the background investigation and prior to the approval by the judiciary committee. Let’s just get good sensible people in place; people willing to assume the responsibilities of a federal judgeship, those who are willing to leave much more lucrative legal practices, are willing to step up to the plate, be true patriots and take on the most critically important role in any democracy, that of maintaining law and order.
How can we ask our neighbors to the south in Mexico, Colombia and throughout the globe for that matter to work bi-lateral operations with us, to maximize their limited resources and share intelligence and evidence with us, if the realization of a federal prosecution is minimal at best. How can we ask our counterparts in Mexico to move more quickly on judicial reform, moving their system to one more similar to that of ours with oral instead of written arguments presented in a court of law, when we can’t eliminate the self-imposed bottleneck choking our own federal judiciary.
Let’s hope the congressional “date night” last week on the evening of the President’s State of the Union address, mollifies some of the partisanship in the appointment of federal judgeships; our democracy and our national security are at stake.
The two issues are the significant jump in federal cases within the Federal Districts along the U.S border in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California and the lack of judges sitting on the federal bench to hear those cases. The jump in cases is directly linked to the drug violence on the border; murders, kidnappings, extortion, gang violence, human smuggling and the like coupled with a rapidly growing immigration docket as border security folks attempt to arrest and stem the flow of illegal entry into the U.S.
While we as a nation should be stepping up to vigorously address the growing crime and security issues at the border, we find ourselves instead in the midst of crisis with empty federal benches all along our southern border and no one to hear those case and grind those wheels of justice forward.
The situation is grave and has national security implications.
The lack of federal judges is the bottleneck. Without the jurists in place to hear the cases, the entire system backs up, the bad guys win and we, the American people lose. Under the Speedy Trial Act of 1974, the federal government must be prepared to present their case within seventy days of the filing of formal charges. Many serious criminals and their attorneys play the “poker game” with federal law-enforcement. They know the system is backed up and their cases will never realistically be presented within the seventy day parameters of the Speed Trial Act and they walk. Ultimately what happens is Federal prosecutors take less cases and/or they raise the thresholds for prosecutions for federal offenses, letting many serious criminals escape the consequences of their malevolence. The ripple back is that federal law-enforcement agencies like the FBI, DEA, U.S. Secret Service, and ICE, then open less cases because the hope of a long term investigation seeing the inside of a federal courtroom continues to dwindle with a lack of judges. Moreover, the indirect affect on morale with the federal law-enforcement community can be deleterious.
In the State of Texas alone there are seven vacant judgeships, four of them in border areas. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has called the filling of these vacancies an “urgent need” and it was reported that Chief Judge John Roll of Arizona who was to visit with Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, the day he was murdered, specifically planned to discuss the dire situation at the border and to ask for her intervention and assistance in filling those empty seats on the federal bench.
So why are these seats languishing empty while crime soars on our southern flank? Political partisanship is to blame for the most part; Democrats don’t like or want to confirm Republican appointee recommendations and Republicans don’t want to confirm those recommended by the Democrats and, again, we, the American people lose. It seems as though we as a nation have never recovered from the “bloody partisan battles” of the Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas hearings twenty years ago and that the contentious partisanship has persistently loomed over us. Is it possible more conciliation and less partisanship will emerge in the wake of the Tucson massacre?
We are not talking about appointments to the Supreme Court or even to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals; these are sitting federal judgeships, critical to the day-to-day administration of jurisprudence on the federal level as well as to the public safety and national security of our nation. The American people really don't care if a Federal judge votes Democratic or Republican when he or she goes to the polls; if there is something egregious in their personal or legal history it will come to light during the background investigation and prior to the approval by the judiciary committee. Let’s just get good sensible people in place; people willing to assume the responsibilities of a federal judgeship, those who are willing to leave much more lucrative legal practices, are willing to step up to the plate, be true patriots and take on the most critically important role in any democracy, that of maintaining law and order.
How can we ask our neighbors to the south in Mexico, Colombia and throughout the globe for that matter to work bi-lateral operations with us, to maximize their limited resources and share intelligence and evidence with us, if the realization of a federal prosecution is minimal at best. How can we ask our counterparts in Mexico to move more quickly on judicial reform, moving their system to one more similar to that of ours with oral instead of written arguments presented in a court of law, when we can’t eliminate the self-imposed bottleneck choking our own federal judiciary.
Let’s hope the congressional “date night” last week on the evening of the President’s State of the Union address, mollifies some of the partisanship in the appointment of federal judgeships; our democracy and our national security are at stake.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
