Exclusive: FBI allowed informants to commit 5,600 crimes

[WestVirginiaRebel]

USA Today:

WASHINGTON — The FBI gave its informants permission to break the law at least 5,658 times in a single year, according to newly disclosed documents that show just how often the nation's top law enforcement agency enlists criminals to help it battle crime.

 

The U.S. Justice Department ordered the FBI to begin tracking crimes by its informants more than a decade ago, after the agency admitted that its agents had allowed Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger to operate a brutal crime ring in exchange for information about the Mafia. The FBI submits that tally to top Justice Department officials each year, but has never before made it public.

 

Agents authorized 15 crimes a day, on average, including everything from buying and selling illegal drugs to bribing government officials and plotting robberies. FBI officials have said in the past that permitting their informants — who are often criminals themselves — to break the law is an indispensable, if sometimes distasteful, part of investigating criminal organizations.

 

"It sounds like a lot, but you have to keep it in context," said Shawn Henry, who supervised criminal investigations for the FBI until he retired last year. "This is not done in a vacuum. It's not done randomly. It's not taken lightly."

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Who watches the informants?

[Valin]

@WestVirginaRebel

 

Here is a "shocking truth", people that become CI's are not choir boys, they are criminals....and one of the ways you can tell who a criminal is, is they break the law all the time, and are generally speaking not very nice people.

 

Example

 

http://youtu.be/to8Wfuojpvs

[Valin]

http://youtu.be/FEeREIgwVNI