The Federal Bureau of Investigation, for most law-abiding citizens we think of them as the ultimate heroes of the law enforcement world. We think back to the Elliot Ness days and these dapperly dressed G Men taking down the bad guys. We think of them as heroes in suits that come save the day when the local police can’t solve the crime or when you can’t trust your local authorities. Sadly, that’s falling far from true in recent years.
We have invested so much trust into these human men, Hollywood has romanticized them but they can be as flawed as any other agency. In recent years an FBI agent, Mark Putman, went to prison for killing his informant, Susan Daniels Smith, whom he seduced, got pregnant, to manipulate her into risking her life to give him information about a bank robber, knowing once she testified, they would kill her. However, his greed and need to advance in his career and his marriage held more value than her life.
In a world where we have to worry about drug cartels moving in massive amounts of dangerous drugs and weapons into our country. A world where sex trafficking is on the rise. A world where gangs are forming again and crime is getting out of control one would think the FBI has plenty of things they could be doing.
The funding we put into this agency is basically being spent on intimidation. The federal Bureau of intimidation. In the Bryan, Texas Woman’s Federal Camp there are over 900 women housed there. Many doing 10-20-year sentences. One would think these women are powerful mob bosses, heads of dangerous organizations, serial killers, kidnappers. Sadly, most of these women are just addicts that found themselves making bad choices behind men they loved. Most these women have children as well. They aren’t big fish, the are small fish in a big pond of a bigger problem. When the federal government conducts an investigation about a drug conspiracy, they use millions of dollars of sophisticated resources to monitor everyone who is in contact with their main target. They target women, especially women with kids to get them to flip and snitch on their main target. In doing so the consequences for a person in the drug world that snitches are not only death for them but some of these cartels will kill your entire family in front of you and make you watch. This includes elderly parents and children.
In the 70s and 80s witness protection was very in-depth program used as a safety net and incentive for an individual to assist the government with bringing down criminal organizations. This isn’t the case for these women and mothers. Most don’t really know enough information to be useful enough for the feds to provide them with witness protection, at best they will protect them until they testify and they kick them and leave them to fend for themselves. These women are threatened with excessive sentences as punishment for not aiding in the prosecution of a high-ranking drug cartel member. Your families live or your freedom is the choice they are given. Not only are we spending money to house these none violate offenders instead of putting them on house arrest, probation, or ordered to treatment we are also ripping families apart.
If these mothers don’t have a family member that can care for their children for 10-20 years the kids are placed into an already damaged and broken foster care system. A system that is so overwhelmed that they are allowing convicted felons to foster. A system that is so flawed that a little girl in Houston, Texas who was removed from her mother’s care due to a brain injury she received at home, was returned only to be murdered by her mom’s boyfriend a few months later. Her name is Maliah Davis. Instead of fixing the problem it seems we are just creating more ongoing issues. Many kid’s get lost in CPS custody, especially ones that have no one on the outside to fight for them. These kids get bounced around in a over worked system and sometimes they get forgotten. There have been cases foster care kids were found sold into sex trafficking.
What brought this to my attention was hearing about a very bizarre case. A young working mother of 5 with no previous criminal history suddenly being sent to federal prison for over 3 years. No history of petty crimes, no addiction history other than the many health issues she has fought against over her life including cancer and getting addicted to her pain medication. How on earth could someone like that be facing that much prison time? That literally means any of us could get caught up in a situation that gives the government full power over our lives. Have we given the government too much power?
I cannot use names of the involved parties because this case has not been resolved for everyone involved. In Texas we have all heard stories about the kilos of drugs that show up on the beach. Always wrapped tightly and identified with a symbol. Most of us have joked about what we would do if we found it. Do you keep it and share with friends? Do you dare attempt to sell it? Do you walk away pretend like you didn’t see anything? Most do the right thing and call the police. There is speculation around the shores about what really happens to the drugs after the police pick it up. Most realize that trying to sell it would mean a death sentence because it surly belongs to someone and they would notice someone not in the drug world trying to sell that amount of cocaine or pot.
The street value of s single kilo of cocaine is worth roughly $30,000, imagine what finding 10 kilos would feel like? That’s exactly what happened in this situation. Mr. J and Mr. M happened to come across a large amount of cocaine washed up on the beach. These young men weren’t criminal masterminds, they were young working locals who were struggling to make ends meet to support their families. They happened to know that Miss W had an in-law that did sell cocaine. In a pinky and the brain moment these young men thought maybe we can call her and maybe we can sell some of this and just make a little bit more money to get ahead in life. Yes, they knew it was wrong but they did it anyway. When Miss W had been sick, Mr. M had been a family friend and a huge help with her 5 kids. She knew it was a bad idea and she was hesitant but she decided she could make the call and leave it between them and she would be out of it.
She called the in-law and told him what was going on. What she didn’t know is this in-law and gotten busted some time earlier and had agreed to work with the FBI. However, he was expected to help bring down actual big fish, actual criminals and for that it would have cost him his life. So, he saw this as an opportunity to get the feds off his back and give them something. Better them than him, right? So, this trio of naïve people suddenly found them under a full federal investigation wire taps, surveillance and all. Once they had gathered enough information they swooped in and arrested them all. The FBI has unlimited access to information about every single one of us. It wouldn’t take them very long to realize these three were part of some big drug conspiracy, they have no ties to the cartels, they were foolish enough to think they could make a quick buck and no one would ever know. One can only speculate way, but instead of scaring the crap out of them, putting them on house arrest or probation and tell them never do that again, they intimidated them, they threatened them. They were threatened with much longer sentences if they took it to trial, told they would turn them into a kingpins. They tried to force them to roll over on someone else, but there was no one to roll over on other than the criminal already working for the feds.
I know this story sounds like some silly Hollywood comedy but this is in fact currently happening in a city near you, in 2019. Yes, I agree don’t put yourselves in situations that will land you in jail, and in most cases, I’ll say you do the crime do the time. This is beyond that, this is our tax dollars being spent not only to house none violent offenders, who offer very minimal rolls in the on going drug problems for very long periods of times but also our tax dollars fund the CPS system as well. When those kids age out, statistically speaking, they will likely turn to the streets themselves, if mother is in prison most likely so is the father.
Ask yourself, do you really feel safe? Not a day goes by that you turn on the news and hear about another sting of violent crimes, random attacks on strangers, shooting sprees, bomb making, missing people. No one should be in fear they don’t leave their home but you defiantly have to be aware. Shouldn’t our Federal Government be doing more to deal with the root of the problem? Like it or not local and state corruption is part of the root. If they spent more time going after the head and less time picking on the weak a vulnerable maybe we would see some results. Maybe we have given them too much power. It’s a matter of time before we become a police state and they rip up our constitutional rights.
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