Ron Paul Saw the FBI Threat Back in 1988
The latest Twitter document dump reveals the FBI was directing what is quite possibly the most expansive and chilling censorship campaign in US history.
Part six of the Twitter Files dumped on Friday—and it’s a doozy.
Former Rolling Stone journalist revealed a 31-thread account of just how deep the tentacles of the FBI went into Twitter. Documents show the FBI was working hand-in-hand with the tech company, “regularly sending social media content to Twitter through multiple entry points, pre-flagged for moderation.”
Some reports indicate as many as 80 FBI agents were working to assist in censorship efforts with Twitter, which according to agents displayed a “gross subservience” to the federal crime agency.
It’s unclear who authorized the FBI to determine what Americans are allowed to say online, or what federal statute authorizes them to do so—the First Amendment says “Congress shall make no law …abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”
What is clear is that the latest dump of Twitter documents reveals the FBI was directing what is quite possibly the most expansive and chilling censorship campaign in US history.
That the FBI was engaged in censorious tactics more suited for the Stasi than a US law enforcement agency is frightening, but it actually fits a long and ignoble pattern of civil rights abuses by the FBI.
Carey Wedler and I chronicled some of the abuses of the FBI and CIA in a 2019 FEE article. These included a letter sent to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. instructing him to kill himself, the MK Ultra program, “systemic forensic fraud” in crime labs, Operation Midnight Climax (in which Johns were drugged and then filmed engaging with prostitutes), torture, media manipulation campaigns, and other ghastly operations (some of which are illegal).
Accountability at the FBI has been virtually nonexistent, howeer. Indeed, there’s a longstanding bipartisan consensus to sing praise about the FBI and CIA. Democrats and Republicans alike tend to laud the work of these agencies who “keep Americans safe.”
An exception to this rule is Ron Paul, who has a long history of straight talk on the FBI. A recent example is a video that recently went viral on Twitter.
In a clip from his 1988 run for president, Dr. Paul points out that President Woodrow Wilson created the FBI (originally known as the Bureau of Investigation) during World War I and used the agency to arrest Americans who disagreed with his foreign policy. (The Palmer Raids are among the most overlooked chapters of civil rights abuse in US history.)
The spying did not stop with Wilson, of course. Both Republican and Democratic presidents used the FBI for similar purposes during the Vietnam era and beyond.
"It almost looks like the FBI was designed to spy on Americans who might be disagreeing with policy—especially foreign policy," Paul says in the interview. “I think the FBI has kept and continues to keep a lot of records on a lot of individuals.”
Paul was not wrong at the time. Sadly, however, matters have grown worse since then.
The FBI is no longer content with spying on Americans. They infiltrated Twitter—quite literally in one sense; the top ranks of the company are filled with ex FBI workers—and secretly worked hand-in-hand with the tech company to determine who and what to censor.
That the FBI is engaging in such behavior should perhaps not surprise us.
“The State, by its very nature, must violate the generally accepted moral laws to which most people adhere,” the economist Murray Rothbard once observed.
What Rothbard was saying is that the people tasked with enforcing the law will always be tempted to abuse it themselves, often to accrue more power and protect state interests. And because the can. It is, after all, an age-old dilemma: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? ("Who will guard the guards themselves?")
In this case, the guards have been caught red-handed undermining the US Constitution, a document the FBI exists to protect.
The question now is, what will be done about it?