Thread by @McAdooGordon

Some people aren’t getting what I said about FBI infiltrating groups (not the UCC part) because they’re making assumptions about my position, they reacted to earlier tweets first & I hadn’t expected so many people on the right to have a certain mindset. It’s about these. 👇🏻/1

Where we seem to be is that the Left thinks the govt should be routinely infiltrating these groups regardless of criminal conduct - see Greenwald’s article - & the Right thinks the FBI routinely IS doing so because FBI doesn’t follow the law anymore. THIS IS A BIG PROBLEM. /2

As Americans we should all agree that political or ideological groups can only be infiltrated or investigated by the govt if there is some evidence of criminal activity underway & even then not necessarily the whole group. This is what the law is. /3

If we on the right don’t think that’s what the practice is, & we think the FBI is routinely violating people’s constitutional rights, why haven’t we been doing something about that before now? Like members of Congress at least demanding information about it from FBI? /4

Throwing up our hands in the air & saying “they just break the law at will; nothing we can do” is defeatism. We are not powerless. We can demand investigations by Congress & investigate ourselves. That’s what the Left did to get the Church Commission when govt abused the NAACP./5

The Left wants to make it even easier to investigate domestically. Screw that. We have to fight that. But we should also demand accountability for current practices. Saying “no one ever gets held accountable” is defeatism. Guess what? They definitely don’t if you give up. /6

I had not realized how cynical people are on this & I think it’s because the media actually is so poor at its job & so left wing that people have a distorted view of reality. And people look at historical abuses & assume it’s rampant now. Past acts aren’t current proof. /7

I personally don’t think the FBI or other law enforcement is routinely infiltrating groups w/o legal cause. The reason for that is that I think we would have seen a lot more evidence of it & cases. Proud Boys have been arrested the last few years, but AFTER events. /8

There are few cases from other groups. Even the MI case (3%ers) doesn’t really carry a ton of weight on this issue- it seems clear there was info of potential criminal conduct that would’ve justified investigating at least initially - chatter on SM & local cops contacted FBI. /9

Maybe FBI is investigating/infiltrating groups w/o cause & it hasn’t come to light yet- but that would be illegal, unconstitutional, & contrary to our values. Which is why I said in my thread that if they were/are - they had better have their damn ducks in a row to justify it./10

I think it’s unlikely, but not impossible - as I originally said. A lot of people say they are 100% convinced it’s true.

Well, if we actually believe the government is illegally spying on domestic political & affinity groups:

WE SHOULD DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT.

/11