New York Post-June 12, 2000
BAN THE SECRET POLICE
By Dick Morris
THE time has come to absolutely prohibit the growing use of
secret police in our political system.
For those unfamiliar with the secret police, they are elite
private detectives secretly hired by politicians to do only one
thing: dig up dirt - especially about the personal sex lives - of
elected officials, journalists and private citizens who get in
the pols' way.
This revolting technique was perfected into a new art form by
Bill and Hillary Clinton. In 1992, they spent over $100,000 in
federal campaign funds to find dirt about women who claimed to
have relationships with Bill Clinton, even when they knew that
the women were telling the truth.
Back then, the Clintons were bold about it. But as time went on,
they realized that it wasn't really helpful to their image as
protectors of the Constitution to be spying on private citizens.
Now, they get by with a little help from their friends: Their
lawyers hire the private eyes and there's no longer a public
record of the payments.
Last week, Disney/TalkMiramax publishers abandoned plans to
publish "Insane Clown Posse," a controversial book which
reportedly would have exposed the private sexual lives of Clinton
critics: journalists, commentators, members of Congress and
prosecutors in Kenneth Starr's office.
The author, John Connolly, had apparently hired expensive private
investigators to gather the offensive material. The book was
commissioned by friends and supporters of the Clintons and its
sole purpose appears to have been to embarrass adversaries of
Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Equally disturbing was the recent disclosure that New Jersey
Democratic Senate candidate John Corzine had hired detectives to
gather dirt on his primary opponent, former Gov. Jim Florio.
It is time for these tactics to be banned, to stop unregulated
outlaw private eyes from secretly gathering data to be used in
our political system.
The use of these private investigators - initially by Clinton and
the Democrats during the past eight years - is really an
extension of the off-the-shelf covert operations which have
plagued democracy in post-World War II America.
In the '50s, President Eisenhower made covert operations by the
Central Intelligence Agency a key element of U.S. foreign policy,
toppling governments in Guatemala and Iran and backfiring at the
Bay of Pigs. During the Kennedy years, the CIA-Mafia plots to
kill Castro may have led to the assassination of JFK himself.
J. Edgar Hoover's ubiquitous FBI files, which stored information
to blackmail, intimidate, and threaten politicians, were a key
element in helping Lyndon Johnson win congressional votes for his
political and legislative agenda.
In the '70s and '80s, the Republicans took up where the Democrats
had left off. The secret operations of the CIA and other
intelligence agencies came under congressional scrutiny in the
'70s in the hearings led by Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho). The
dirty tricks of Nixon's operatives scamming the Muskie campaign
were the precursors of Watergate itself. In the Reagan
Administration, Oliver North's covert arms-for-hostages dealings
with Iran and the Nicaragua contras continued the dismal history
of covert operations.
Under Clinton, this sordid legacy has metastasized into the use
of private detectives to smear political opponents. The Clinton
political machine has routinely used covert ops to discredit,
threaten, and intimidate their opponents. Unable, in the wake of
the '70s and '80s reforms, to use the FBI, the NSC or the CIA to
do their bidding, the Clintons have turned to private detectives
instead.
The role of detectives, investigators and smear artists in our
political system is truly corrupting and has no more place in our
politics than did the abuses of the FBI, the IRS and the CIA in
years past.
The stakes are the same. The tactics are identical. The goals are
similar. The operations are equally revolting. We need to take
these detectives and their dirty deeds as seriously as we took
the wire tapping of the FBI, the covert dealings of the NSC, or
the intrusive spying of the CIA. It is an equal threat to our
liberties. The one was done by the government and the other with
private funds is a distinction without a difference.
Indeed, the use of detectives on the payroll of the president or
his attorneys may legally have the color of state action. When a
president uses his political position to raise private funds
which are used to pay detectives, whether on the payroll of his
campaign or of his lawyers, to pry into the lives of citizens,
these actions may violate their constitutional rights.
It matters little that the snooping is by Democrats, not
Republicans. It is the same abuse that characterized J. Edgar
Hoover's years at the FBI in another, but equally disgusting,
form.
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Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*Mike Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day.
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