Principalities & Powersrnby Samuel FrancisrnEnemies of the StaternThe Great Republican Revolution took arnbrief trip to the benches last summerrnwhen committees in both House andrnSenate paused in their deliberations tornburrow into the federal atrocities at Wacornand Ruby Ridge. The resulting hearingsrnwere by no means as much fun asrnthe 0.}. Simpson trial, and the Houserninvestigation of the Waco massacre inrnparticular was fatally marred bv the partisanismrnthat the Republicans who ran itrnseem incapable of disguising.rnYet the Stupid Party was not unique inrnits zeal to score political points in thernscrutiny of the mass murder of thernBranch Davidians in 1993 and the slightlyrnmore selective slaughter visited uponrnthe family of Randy Weaver a fewrnmonths before. Perhaps the lowest pointrnin the Weaver hearings was plumbedrnwhen California’s Diane Feinsteinrnquizzed Mr. Weaver as to whether hernhad any swastikas or Nazi armbands inrnhis possession. The clear intent of herrnquestion was to suggest that if one doesrnpossess such paraphernalia, then it’s allrnright for the FBI to shoot one’s wife andrnson. Mr. Weaver responded by asking ifrnhe could go to the bathroom, and whorncan blame him? The crudity of thernquestion and its purpose ought to makernall citizens nauseous.rnThe hearings on Waco were remarkablernchiefly because of their failure evenrnto ask, let alone trv to answer, some ofrnthe central questions that the ATF’s originalrn”dynamic entry” raised, while in therninvestigation of the Ruby Ridge matter,rnchairman Arlen Specter ruled out fromrnthe first any inquirv into the apparent internalrneovcr-up with which the FBI andrnthe Justice Department tried to hide therndecisions that led to the bloodletting.rnYet, for all their flaws, blunders, and perhapsrneven complicity in suppressing therntruth about these two infamies, the hearingsrndid exert at least one salutary effect.rnIf nothing else, they seem to have haltedrnthe efforts of the Clinton administration,rnabetted by the Republican leadership, tornconvert the FBI into a full-fledgedrnAmerican Gestapo.rnNot long before the hearings on Wacornand Ruby Ridge, the administration’srn”counterterrorism” legislation, draftedrnquickly and conveniently in the wake ofrnthe April 19 Oklahoma City bombing,rnslipped easily through the full Senaternand the House Judiciary Committeernwith little opposition. The measuresrnvastly enhanced the power of the FBI tornwiretap telephone conversations, enlargedrnthe role of the military forces inrnlaw enforcement, increased the “counterterrorist”rnpersonnel of the Bureau,rnand (in the House version) defined asrn”terrorism” virtually any crime committedrnwith a firearm. Since the Bureau hasrnautomatic jurisdiction in all terrorismrncases, and since every street muggingrnfrom Miami to Milwaukee would suddenlyrnhave graduated into a “terrorist incident,”rnthe latter provision alone, whichrnmerrily passed the Republican-controlledrnJudiciary Committee by a ‘ote ofrn25 to 12, would have effectively madernthe FBI a national police force oerridingrnlocal and state law enforcement.rnYet, despite the progress of the legislationrnin Congress, bv autumn most lawmakersrnwere beginning to feel as queasyrnas Mr. Weaver had during his interrogationrnby Senator Feinstein. In September,rnHouse Republican aides were telling thernNew York Times thev could not bring therncounterterrorism legislation to the floorrnbecause they just didn’t have the votes,rnand the reason they didn’t, as an officialrnof the ACLU remarked, was that “therernis a suspicion about granting the FBIrnbroader powers in light of Waco and RubyrnRidge.” The ACLIT, in rare conjunctionrnwith gun rights groups like the NationalrnRifle Association and the GunrnOwners of America, played an importantrnrole in stopping the joint march of Republicansrnand Democrats toward evenrngreater federal power.rnBut the use of the FBI for swelling thernpower of the federal leviathan is hardlyrnnew, and throughout this centur—indeed,rnever since the Bureau’s establishmentrnunder Theodore Roosevelt—thatrnis exactly what the purpose of the Bureaurnlias been. In the age of global war thatrnhas preoccupied this country for most ofrnthis century, that purpose was effectivelyrnhidden, and the good old ground of “nationalrnsecurity” served to justify to (orrnconceal from) many Americans the gradualrnenlargement of federal police power.rnNow that the era of international conflictrnis concluded, however, the close relationshiprnbetween the FBI and the imperialrnappetites of the leviathan becomesrnmuch more clear. But at the same time,rnjust as national security elites are inventingrnnew foreign enemies to justifyrnfurther global adventures and the perpetuationrnof their power, so national lawrnenforcement elites are looking for newrnrationales to justify the perpetuationrnand further enlargement of their own.rnDespite the legend of the “right-wing”rnand “antieommunist” characfer of thernFBI under J. Edgar Hoover, the truth isrnthat the Bureau and its functions are almostrnentirely the offspring of the Progressivistrnand New Deal ideologies ofrncentralized governmental power and socialrnreconstruction that have served tornjustify the leviathan state since the earlyrn2()th century. Moreover, in the Progrcssirne era under Roosevelt I as well as in thernNew Deal and Great Society eras of hisrnsuccessors, the Bureau played a majorrnrole in the political regimentation ofrnAmerican society and the outright repressionrnof political resistance to therngrowth of the managerial state.rnRoosevelt 1 created the Bureau of Investigationrnin 1908 explicitly for the purposernof disciplining political opponentsrnof his federal land laws. In 1905, onernsuch opponent. Senator Charles Fultonrnof Oregon, complained on the floor ofrnthe Senate that enforcement of the lawsrnin his state had led to the incarcerationrnof a good part of Oregon’s RepublicanrnPart), including his own colleague in thernSenate. At that time, federal departmentsrnmade use of the Secret Service tornenforce laws within their jurisdiction,rnbut Congress, alarmed at the repressionrnwith which TR visited his Western politicalrnrivals, passed a law forbidding the usernof Secret Service agents outside thernTreasury Department. In an effort torncircumvent that law, Roosevelt thenrnordered his Attorney General, CharlesrnBuonaparte (significantly, perhaps, thernnephew of the Emperor Napoleon III),rnto establish a Bureau of Investigationrnwithin the Justice Department to allowrnhim to pursue the enemies of federal restrictionsrnon land use without congressionalrnmeddling.rnYet the FBI remained a minor federalrn38/CHRONICLESrnrnrn