Liberty Minute August 5 2013

According to legal scholar Harvey Silverglate, each day the typical American commits three acts that could be treated as felonies by a sufficiently creative federal prosecutor. On a typical day the FBI formally authorizes informants and provocateurs on its payroll to commit fifteen unambiguous crimes.

In 2006, following revelations about the FBI?s relationship with Boston crime boss James ?Whitey? Bulger, the Justice Department ordered the Bureau to submit an annual report tabulating the number of crimes committed each year by its corps of 15,000 paid informants. Bulger, who had been a federal asset since the 1950s, was allowed to operate a murderous national crime syndicate in exchange for information about his underworld competition.

The Bureau claims that its informants aren?t permitted to commit crimes of violence or other serious offenses. However, it refuses to provide a detailed public accounting of the operations involving informants. The ATF and DEA also run huge networks of informants, but those agencies will not disclose any information about the number of undercover operatives they employ or the criminal activities in which they may be involved.

In his book ?Our Enemy, the State,? Albert Nock observed that government doesn?t seek to abolish crime, but rather to monopolize it. What rational person could reject that conclusion?

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.