The FBI’s Forgotten Criminal Record

[Draggingtree]

Mises

The FBI’s Forgotten Criminal Record

10/24/2017 James Bovard

President Trump’s firing of FBI chief James Comey on May 9 spurred much of the media and many Democrats to rally around America’s most powerful domestic federal agency. But the FBI has a long record of both deceit and incompetence. Five years ago, Americans learned that the FBI was teaching its agents that “the FBI has the ability to bend or suspend the law to impinge on the freedom of others.” This has practically been the Bureau’s motif since its creation in 1908.

The bureau was small potatoes until Woodrow Wilson dragged the United States into World War I. In one fell swoop, the number of dangerous Americans increased by perhaps twentyfold. The Espionage Act of 1917 made it easy to jail anyone who criticized the war or the government. In September 1918, the bureau, working with local police and private vigilantes, seized more than 50,000 suspected draft dodgers off the streets and out of the restaurants of New York, Newark, and Jersey City. The Justice Department was disgraced when the vast majority of young men who had been arrested turned out to be innocent.   

[Draggingtree]

The Heroic Draft Dodgers of the American Civil War

11/27/2021 Ryan McMaken

In the wake of the American Civil War, one’s status as a veteran could bring significant social and economic benefits. Indeed, the Grand Army of the Republic would become an extremely influential interest group and helped fuel the early creation of an American welfare state for veterans. “Do it for the veterans” became a common plea delivered to politicians of the time.

Yet, it was also the case that actively avoiding military service—what we might call today “draft dodging”—during the war was not an impediment to popularity. Mark Twain was a bona fide “perpetrator” who fled his home state in order to avoid military service. Other celebrated authors of the period—namely Henry Adams and William Dean Howells—conveniently managed to obtain jobs outside the United States during the duration of the war. Novelist Henry James claimed to have suffered a vague nonspecific injury that kept him out of military service.

Moreover, two later US presidents avoided service during the war, namely Chester A. Arthur and Grover Cleveland. Their political careers apparently didn't suffer much from their lack of military experience.     https://mises.org/wire/heroic-draft-dodgers-american-civil-war

[Valin]

1 hour ago, Draggingtree said:

The Heroic Draft Dodgers of the American Civil War

11/27/2021 Ryan McMaken

Good Article. Many people don't know how...complicated that war was.

Question: What does this have to do with the FBI?