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Observations of An Ex-Cop in La La Land |
 ANDY MURCIA |
|
about an FBI Whistle-blower' |
 AGENT COLLEEN ROWLEY |
 FBI DIRECTOR ROBERT MUELLER |
Will her testimony help
reform the FBI now?
of TheColumnists.com
Not long ago I was part of a three-way phone conversation with two other retired coppers from the Chicago Police Department. The conversation got around to the testimony of FBI Agent Colleen Rowley at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing looking into mistakes made by the FBI in not sharing information about the Sept. 11 terrorists with the CIA and local lawmen.
Here's a small portion of that chat, using only first names of the coppers involved:
ANDY: Did you guys see that FBI Doll on TV with the coke bottle eyeglasses and the bad hair?
BOB: Yeah, no wonder the “G” has trouble finding the bad guys lately, I think she’s close to petting the puppy!
GUS: I checked her out on C-span. What the hell was she doing? The economy isn’t bad enough! All I know is that I hope none of this crap bothers my pension?
ANDY: Your pension is solid, Gus. She wants to make aggressive coppers out of FBI agents.
BOB: It'll never happen.
Those empty holsters are too smart to fall for that. Can you
see an FBI agent going it alone on a case just because he “thinks
the guy's a bad boy?” No way. They play it safe, man.
GUS: It’s coming down to what old “Saberneck”
(our police academy hand combat instructor) used to tell us;
“If you want to be safe, get a shotgun and a big dog and
move to the sticks, because these educated coppers can’t
protect themselves let alone the public.” Most of them just
collect diplomas!
ANDY: Hey, Gus, I know some of them fellas couldn’t find an elephant in a phone booth, but there’s a lot who can.
GUS: I read recently that the budget for the FBI in 1997 was $2,548,583,000 dollars! Imagine what it must be in 2002?
BOB: Geez, what a disgrace! With all that money and the resources they have available to them, they still can’t find that bastard “Osama Yo Mama!” (“bleep bleep”)
Well, readers, you get
the picture. It seems everyone is waking up to the fact the FBI
is not capable of protecting all of us from everything all of
the time. When it comes to first line defense for us citizens,
we might do just as well with that big dog and a shotgun.
Some big city cops knew or at least suspected this many years
ago. Now some of it’s coming to light in the form of the
FBI’s own "whistle-blower, Colleen Rowley. If it weren’t
for the media spot light on her, she’d be called a ‘stool
pigeon” and I suspect she is called that behind closed doors.
I watched Ms. Rowley testify before the Judiciary Committee. She strikes me as a nice person. She gave me the feeling that she might really be trying to better the FBI while bucking the system.
Agent Rowley seems to be
beefing mainly about three things: 1. FBI agents can’t use
their own judgment in starting investigations; 2. They can’t
be too “aggressive,” and 3. They seldom can go over
their immediate supervisors' heads to call FBI big shots in Washington.
The senators re-hashed complaints that were in Ms. Rowley's memo
to FBI Director Robert Mueller. Everything from “racial
profiling” to explaining what “probable cause”
is. Yes, Ms. Rowley graduated law school, and she is, after all,
the lead counsel for the Minneapolis office of the FBI. But I’m
not sure if she’s a streetwise cop and a good investigator.
She also complained about FBI superiors who acted as road blocks to agents who wanted to conduct further investigations into suspicious persons, groups or circumstances--like the Middle Eastern guys taking flying lessons. You know, the ones who only wanted to know how to fly a plane, not land it. Ms. Rowley seemed angry that even after the FBI big shots in Washington failed to move on circumstances she thought warranted further investigation, they still kept their high-level jobs. She said if lower-level FBI agents had acted like that, they would have been transferred out, or possibly demoted.
She seemed to want FBI agents to make decisions based on integrity rather than on “careerism” as she called it. That sounds good, but how could anyone enforce it?
She wanted FBI agents to be more “aggressive” but, if they made errors, for their superiors to be more forgiving and supportive. That’s good, but would the media then report the FBI was covering up for agents who goofed?
Rowley cited a case back in her home office in Minneapolis where an agent arrested the wrong man for a bank robbery. The FBI learned later that the arrested guy turned out to be a “look-alike” for the real bank robber. Ms. Rowley thought that agent had done nothing really wrong. Side bar please, Ms. Rowley. The innocent man who found himself in the federal clink for bank robbery may not agree.
Ms. Rowley sort of reminded me of a 1960s hippie who had lots of complaints but no real solutions. She did not offer a complete plan for fixing the system only a list of repairs needed. Maybe it’s a start?
While each senator on the committee took a turn “questioning” Ms. Rowley, going through the motions for the C-span camera, I started to get tired of them kissing up as if Rowley just saved the world here. I think she got tired of it, too. Their questions were surface at best, sort of more of the same as contained in Rowley’s original memo to Mueller. It was getting a little sugary, each senator giving Rowley a chance to meander on national TV. I thought for sure either Senators Hatch or Leahy’ s questions would delve deeper, but no dice.
What’s this all really about? In my humble opinion, it appears that people now want the FBI to reinvent itself, becoming our first line of defense against terrorists. We know that most FBI agents are lawyers or accountants, a throwback to the time when agents were required to be one or the other. Back in days of old, city cops were on the “frontlines” in the battle with all kinds of criminals, yet most cops then were armed with only a high school education, give or take a little college. City cops felt FBI agents, for the most part, were kept safe in their “ivory towers” while waiting for the phone to ring.
When city coppers pinched a bad guy who did a federal crime, the FBI was notified. Agents showed up when they felt like it, read the city cops' reports, talked to everyone, made numerous phone calls back to their office and the attorney general's office, all to see if this was a “win” case. If it was, they took our prisoner and filed their case, using the city cops as witnesses. Of course, when they made their press release, it was the FBI who caught the bad guy, usually without as much as a mention of the city cop’s work.
Most city cops knew that the public would be in bad shape if they depended on the FBI for immediate protection. Because we knew it was the “thin blue line” who were the only protection citizens had 99 percent of the time. Yet, we were treated a lot worse than the FBI agents--less prestige, lower pay, worse pensions. And when a bum complained that we were too aggressive in arresting him, the FBI got to investigate the city cops to see if the bad guy's rights were violated. This fact alone kept officers from being aggressive.
What I think this is all
about is “reform” of the FBI to make it better suited
to take on the new challenges our USA faces today. But, when
it comes to reform, how tight do you want it? I think it was
an old Chicago character that once said, “Chicago ain’t
ready for reform” and I don’t think the USA is either.
If we enforced all the laws, all the time, the public would be
up in arms and screaming, “police state” to their politicians
and the media. Just the other night I heard a civil liberties
lawyer beefing that U.S. forces were “holding prisoners
just because they were Middle Eastern and had stayed longer than
their visas permitted.” She wanted them released “immediately.”
I think we should release them on one proviso–that we can
get them the apartment or home next to her, and let them live
there by her children, and do whatever it is they do. Lets see
if she feels secure.
Now Ms. Rowley wants FBI
agents to be more aggressive. Well, it isn’t going to happen.
Seems the more educated a cop is, the less risk he or she will
take. Even less intelligent cops have learned the hard way that
if they acted more aggressively, sooner or later they will “step
in it,” meaning get in trouble.
The educated FBI agent usually will not risk leaving himself
open to a lawsuit or any disciplinary action, so he moves real
slowly on every case. Only after he has all his ducks in a row
might he or she make an arrest--and then only if the conviction
is thought to be a slam-dunk.
The overworked, usually less educated city cop without the benefit of time, has to make a split second decision to make the pinch or let the guy go? After all, he’s on the front lines of our defense.
But soon even the city cops learn from the FBI and get on board the “take it slow” train and “be positive” or do nothing. They know if trouble comes, their supervisor usually throws them to the wolves. Lack of support from a cop’s supervisor and the citizens he works for will stop “aggressive” police work faster than anything I know.
Veteran law enforcement officers know that demands for them to be “aggressive” is only a temporary situation, that comes and goes. Just look into the history of the FBI. It was formed in 1908 as the “Bureau of Investigation” with only 34 agents, but by 1994 there were 23,323 agents. As more crimes became federal offenses, more agents were needed to investigate such things as violations of the Mann Act, which deals with transporting women across state lines for immoral purposes like prostitution. Toss in a bunch of other federal offenses and the paperwork is now being piled higher and higher at the FBI.
Some FBI agents were aggressive back then, so much so the FBI got in the middle of the “Teapot Dome” scandal. Seems the then Secretary of the Interior was handing out no-bid favors to businessmen who bribed him. Then FBI Director Burns sent agents to break into offices and homes to secure evidence of this wrongdoing, and the windup was that Attorney General Harlan Stone fired Director Burns May 9, 1924 and appointed J. Edgar Hoover to implement “reforms.”
So, now comes the 9/11 tragedies, and fingers start pointing, and a nice lady like Ms. Rowley goes to Washington for her 15 minutes of fame. Will it be different now because she told the senators what they already knew? Maybe for a short time it will be, but soon it will be business as usual. The FBI will get back on their “C.Y.A.” (Cover Your Ass) safety plan for agents and other law enforcement officers. For the few FBI agents who get aggressive, some of them will find themselves in the proverbial trick bag of trouble and then return to the “C.Y.A.” as their standard operating procedure.
I suspect in due time, Ms. Rowley might be tired of getting those “not so great assignments” but unable to prove she is being cold shouldered because of her whistle blowing activity. So she will most likely, retire and just fade away. Perhaps she might hang out her shingle someplace, see if she can pay her own rent as a lawyer, or use her short-lived fame to get a book deal. Ms. Rowley strikes me as a writer type. I think she will write the book. Perhaps she will again tell us all the stuff she told her boss back then. Maybe the lecture circuit will beckon.
Anyway, I hope this column
is all wrong, I hope the FBI and the CIA can find a way to work
together to protect our great USA, I mean after all, if our current
economy gets worse, I know some retired cops in Chicago who are
worried about their pension checks.
Maybe highly educated law enforcement officers in the FBI who
get more aggressive on our behalf will be supported by their
supervisors and the public. Now that would be my dream come true!
© 2002 by Andy Murcia.
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