FBI Edits Mission Statement: Removes Law Enforcement As 'Primary' Purpose

schwit1 writes with news that the FBI has altered their declared primary function from "law enforcement" to "national security." From the article: "Following the 9/11 attacks, the FBI picked up scores of new responsibilities related to terrorism and counterintelligence while maintaining a finite amount of resources. What's not in question is that government agencies tend to benefit in numerous ways when considered critical to national security as opposed to law enforcement. 'If you tie yourself to national security, you get funding and you get exemptions on disclosure cases,' said McClanahan. 'You get all the wonderful arguments about how if you don't get your way, buildings will blow up and the country will be less safe.'"

Comments

Re:Of course

[epyT-R]

Ok. If those entities are still huge threats that justify such pervasive action, then it's time for congress to declare war on countries harboring these agents, and send them back to the stone age. Most of these 'terrorist' groups are getting backdoor support from the governments whose countries they occupy. I don't mean these pitiful 'police actions' we've been involved with since the 80s, I mean full out war. It's not like these countries haven't had decades to stabilize. Just start taking out cities until these countries reevaluate their priorities, and every thursday, during peak prayer hour, take out a few mosques, randomly. Treat them as they've treated us. In other words, start acting the way they've claimed we've treated them all this time and maybe then they'll learn the difference. Enough is enough. More effeminate passive aggression will not solve this. They're either threats that should be dealt with, or they're not, and the troops should come home. Either way, crap like the patriot act should be abolished, and the politicians who voted for it should be voted out of office.

What we shouldn't keep doing is compromising our own way of life just to appease others' faux indignance overseas, but that's just what the pantywaists in dc are doing. While I don't advocate such extreme response for every conflict, it's apparently bad enough that weak-kneed politicians would rather squander liberties at home than make the hard choice to go to war. I consider this act as extreme as the blitzkrieg option.

Re:Put a fork in it, it's done.

[cold fjord]

1) People have faced at least the prospect of searches if no actual searches since the late 1960s and the epidemic of hijackings.
2) NSA isn't listening to phone calls or reading emails of more than a couple of hundred Americans. They do broadly collect metadata.
3) You seem to be saying that laws exist to enforce safety measures or outlaw stupid behavior. The DNA collection is ill considered, but voluntary. They are being sued.
4) I doubt it. No. Yes. No.
5) You mean the ones that stores use to catch thieves? Or the ones the traffic departments use to help control traffic?

You don't seem to provide any evidence of anything like this noted above:

Who has been sent to jail for making jokes about Obama? Who gets arrested for voting for the "wrong" political party?