The Backround From Which Government Gang Stalking Sprang
That the Attorney General's Guidelines (under Bush) released on May 30, 2002 rescinded anti-COINTELPRO regulations which the Bill of Rights Defense Committee tells us, "Opens the door to COINTEOPRO operations: government spying, disruption, and infiltration, which were used in the past to harass and intimidate people who exercised free speech and the right to assemble while protesting the Vietnam War and demanding civil rights."
The Bush administration granted the FBI, Daphne Eviatar of the Washington Independent said in an article written April 21, 2009 entitled Bush-Era Rule Grants FBI Unprecendented Investigative Powers, "wide-ranging authority to investigate individuals or groups, regardless of whether they are suspected of criminal activity."
Just before leaving the White House, Attorney General Mukasey under Bush, Daphne Eviatar also said in her article, "instituted new guidelines that authorized the FBI to conduct 'assessments' of suspects without requiring any factual basis for suspicion."
The Attorney General under Obama has not changed the above Attorney General Guidelines.
When the Mukasey guidelines were announced in August 2008 Senators Feingold, Durbin, Kennedy wrote a letter to Mukasey expressing their concern that these guidelines could lead to "long-term physical surveillance of an innocent American citizen."
Organized Gang Stalking Tactics are being used all across the United States.
In response to two Freedom of Information Act lawsuits the FBI published on its website its Domestic Investigations and Operations Guidelines. It deleted almost the entire section on the "undisclosed participation" by the FBI or its informants in domestic groups.
The Bill of Rights Defense Committee said under the Attorney General's TIPS program under Bush a system of up to 2 million Americans was set up "to secretly provide information to the government about any persons whom they consider suspicious, and for the government to set up files on these persons." Such, the BORDC said, "may potentially damage someone's record due to innocent activities that are misunderstood or are invented or enhanced by the caller because of a personal vendetta. How the 'tips' would be used has been neither reported nor approved, nor have there been assurances that anyone who is reported as 'suspicious' will be confronted with the evidence against him/her and given an opportunity to correct it."
Over 1.1 million people have been put on government Watch Lists.
71 Fusion Centers have been set up around the country, "with no overarching guidelines to restrict or direct them," the American Civil Liberties Union said. Of them, former Congressman Bob Barr said, "Using the resources of federal and state law enforcement to encourage the citizenry to submit to the government information on the political, social and even religious views of other people, is in itself outrageous. For the government to then data-base that information, disseminate it widely, and clearly imply that views with which it may disagree provides an appropriate basis on which to surveil citizens and collect information on them, is beyond the pale. It is also a poor and inefficient use of police resources."
Fusion centers include firefighters. Fire chiefs have been given federal security clearances to integrate them into Homeland Security. They are being trained to watch for hostile or uncooperative individuals or those expressing discontent with government.
From the web site of Bob Barr: "law enforcement can use GPS devices to track you anytime, anywhere without bothering to secure a warrant showing a court that they have a legitimate reason to track your comings and goings."
The State Secrets Doctrine has been used by both the Bush and Obama Administrations to deny citizens the ability to challenge improper government policies or activities in the courts.
The Senior Counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School, Frederick A.O. Schwarz Jr., in testimony given to the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Property Rights - on the topic of RESTORING THE RULE OF LAW - said the White House (under Bush) "had arrogated to itself unprecedented powers of coercion, detention, and surveillance." He said, "It is of the utmost importance to review our policies and practices, and to make changes where we find unseemly and illegal programs or inefficient and counterproductive policies." To do this he recommended a bipartisan independent investigatory Commission be established "to determine what has gone wrong (and right) with our policies and practices in confronting terrorists since September 11, 2001 and then to recommend lasting solutions to address past mistakes." He further recommended, "a series of specific reforms should be adopted aimed at reforming the executive branch and ensuring no repetition of recent abuses. Among the topics I touch on are the need for a clear rejection of the 'monarchial' presidency theory; improved oversight and accountability mechanisms; responses to the pathological secrecy that today characterizes executive branch operations; and coercive interrogations."