Your FBI in Peace & War

The L. A. Times:

Agent says the FBI is not prepared The bureau is 'ill-equipped to handle the terrorist threat we are facing,' he tells a House panel. Agent Bassem Youssef said that counter-terrorism agents and managers at FBI headquarters often lack basic knowledge about Middle Eastern culture, language and terrorists' ideology. Compounding matters, he said, is the fact that the FBI has continued to name supervisors to anti-terrorism positions who have little or no experience outside traditional law enforcement. The result, he said, is that agents are wasting resources chasing leads that more sophisticated observers would quickly dispense with. The time and energy expended on marginal cases has diverted resources from investigating more substantial threats, Youssef said. "The FBI counter-terrorism division is ill-equipped to handle the terrorist threat we are facing," he told a House Judiciary Committee subcommittee considering legal protections for government whistle-blowers working at national security agencies such as the FBI. "Regardless of what happens to me when I walk into the Hoover building [FBI headquarters] tomorrow, that is what I hope to convey to you," said Youssef, one of several who testified at the hearing. [...] A decorated counter-terrorism agent in the 1990s, Youssef was passed over for promotions after the Sept. 11 attacks and filed a lawsuit in 2003 claiming the bureau discriminated against him based on his ancestry. The son of immigrant Christian Egyptians, he grew up in Los Angeles; he has long been the highest-ranking Arab American agent in the FBI and one of its few native Arabic speakers. Youssef has been outspoken about the failure of the FBI to recruit Arabic-speaking agents and other bureau shortcomings. After the FBI denied him a transfer to a counter-terrorism unit, he was placed in an administrative job managing the receipt of information from telephone companies. [...] Also testifying was Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), who has frequently criticized the FBI for being insular and who has been a champion of government whistle-blowers. "The FBI is one of the most powerful and least transparent organizations in the federal government," he said. "Underneath all of the good things the FBI does, unfortunately, there is a history of abuse, mismanagement and retaliation so strong that it has become part of its organizational culture."Grassley said those who break the "code of silence" deserve more legal protection.

And from the City Pages of the Twin Cities, we see what the FBI is up to as far as stopping domestic terrorism.

What they were looking for, Carroll says, was an informant—someone to show up at “vegan potlucks” throughout the Twin Cities and rub shoulders with RNC protestors, schmoozing his way into their inner circles, then reporting back to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, a partnership between multiple federal agencies and state and local law enforcement.

Fucking vegans. The nerve, not eating meat. That's a terrorist act in itself. But not to worry, National Beef Council. Just Another Blog™ hates America, but we loooove the flesh of dead cattle. More anti-biotics & hormones, please! (Leave a contact in the comments if you'd like to ship us some dead meat, cattlemen!)