Life Inside the Bubble: Why a Top-Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away From It All (26 page)
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Authors: Dan Bongino
Tags: #Non-Fiction
The recent scandal within the Internal Revenue Service, where ideologically conservative groups were targeted by the agency, is yet another troubling example of this phenomenon. I have no doubt that the employees who were instructed to target these groups felt that by the time the orders to do so reached their desks, it must have been legal and in compliance with agency regulations given the many layers of bureaucratic management that they perceived as vetting the decision. This troubling development should serve as a wake-up call to every American to demand change from a government they finance through tax dollars earned through their hard work. Being targeted by a government you have paid for is a moral travesty, and unfortunately the trend line, under the current conditions of seemingly endless bureaucratic growth, is moving in the wrong direction.
The IRS is not the only government agency that has landed on the front pages due to scandal. The leaks about the monitoring of Americans by our National Security Agency is another example of this paradox. Living in Maryland, I have been surrounded by employees of the NSA for many years, and I can personally attest to their individual commitment to the United States of America and the principles of freedom. Yet they have been instructed by their management to comply with a program that breaks down the essential contract between US citizens and their government that has made the United States the greatest country in the long history of civilized man. The central tenet of that contract is a liberty based on the principle that the line between the private and the public self is drawn by the citizen, not the government. In totalitarian regimes, there is no private self. Everyone is a potential agent of the government, and informing on your neighbor is encouraged to ensure that every citizen understands that he is part of a “collective.” Such an environment can be enforced only when there is no wall between the individual and the government. In our unique, liberty-loving society, that essential contract—that the freedom of the individual has primacy over the authority of the state—has led us to the greatest standard of living and the most
prosperous conditions in human history.
When we leave the house each morning and open our front doors, we have made a conscious decision to leave the private self behind and allow the world to see the public self again, a line drawn by us. These are always going to be different masks that we all wear, the private and the public one. The common retort I hear from defenders of government monitoring is, “If you are doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to be concerned about.” My experience inside the bubble has conclusively led me to believe that this is a nonsensical argument. We all do something wrong sometimes, since we are all fallible human beings. As long as our private “wrongs” do not impact on the civil liberties of others and do not violate any laws, control of when and if they are made public should be the exclusive domain of the individual, not the government.
To accentuate this point, I want to share a hypothetical example that sounds unlikely only to those who place a blind trust in their government. It is only a matter of time before an innocent American who may have information of value to the government—information he thought was private—sees it used against him as leverage to get him to cooperate. The point is not whether he should or should not cooperate but that information he thought was the exclusive purview of the private self in a free society was not private at all, and it was the government that made that determination. This will fracture the fabric of our free society and make us all unwilling accomplices to an ongoing federal investigation that could have been solved using the methods I describe in this book’s final chapters rather than collecting the private communications of millions of individuals.
My years of experience with information and the government lead me to believe that when you forfeit your personal information without a fight, it will be abused. It is only a matter of when, not if.
Turning the trend line back toward liberty is going to require a new degree of citizen activism. Apathy is the weapon of choice for the supporters of these government intrusions into your private life. In my experience, there is nothing that disturbs the White House or Congress more than a flood of calls to the switchboard on a particular issue. This requires a commitment from the electorate to take the time to make these calls to their elected representatives and to demand a change in direction.
Please do not fall victim to the “one person cannot make a difference” meme. Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the army of American citizens who took to the streets during the struggle for civil rights refused to accept the status quo and changed the course of American history for the better. You can make a difference if you commit yourself to action. The only power in words is to motivate people to action. A better tomorrow awaits your response.
A
ABC (television),
58
–59
Accountability Review Board,
146
,
166
,
167
action
on the importance of political,
128
–29
Affleck, Ben,
30
Afghanistan,
92
–97,
104
,
112
,
139
,
142
Air Force One,
53
,
88
–89,
91
,
93
,
95
–97,
122
Ambrose, Gregory,
6
Ansar al-Sharia (AAS),
146
AOP (assault on principal) training,
21
Arellanes, Manuel Osario,
131
ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Fire arms, and Explosives),
131
,
133
–37,
167
Avila, Jaime,
135
B
Bali bombing of 2002,
77
Baltimore Sun
,
105
Beck, Glenn,
116
Benghazi scandal,
v
,
129
,
138
–51,
164
,
165
,
166
,
167
Blackhawk Down
incident,
59
Bongino, Amelia (author’s daughter),
108
Bongino, Isabel (author’s daughter),
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–82,
92
,
108
,
126
Bongino, Jim (author’s brother),
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,
1
,
2
,
3
Bongino, Joseph (author’s brother),
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,
1
,
2
,
3
,
10
,
33
,
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–22
Bongino, John (author’s father),
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,
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,
6
,
17
,
33
,
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Bongino, Judy (author’s mother, née Cramer),
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,
2
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3
,
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,
7
,
17
,
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Bongino, Paula (author’s wife),
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–43,
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Boston Marathon bombing,
v
,
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,
102
,
129
,
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–58,
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,
167
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Fire arms, and Explosives (ATF).
See
ATF
Bush, Barbara (daughter of George W.),
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Bush, George W.,
30
,
52
,
53
,
57
,
63
,
64
,
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,
66
–67,
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,
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–5
Bush, Jenna (daughter of George W.),
53
–60
C
Camp Arifjan, on transporting dignitaries to,
65
Cavuto, Neil, author’s interview with,
113
–14
Central Intelligence Agency.
See
CIA
Chaffetz, Jason,
146
Champion, Robert,
136
Chechen separatist movement,
154
Chertoff, Michael,
48
–50
CIA
attack on annex in Benghazi.
See
Benghazi scandal
notification by FSB of Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s suspected radical ties,
158
personnel with knowledge of the Benghazi affair, unprecedented internal effort to ensure the silence of,
150
citizen activism,
128
–29,
169
,
172
Clinton, Hillary,
25
–30,
63
,
144
,
148
CNN reports on unprecedented internal effort to ensure the silence of CIA personnel with knowledge of the Benghazi affair,
150
conservative group targeting by IRS,
171
Cooley, Joe,
135
–36
credit card fraud,
20
Cretz, Gene,
141
D
Dauphin Island, AL,
87
DeMint, Jim,
125
Dempsey, Martin E.,
147
Department of Justice (US),
131
,
134
,
135
,
136
,
137
,
165
Dignitary Protective Division (DPD),
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–49,
53
Dodson, John,
133
Doherty, Glen,
142
“Dumpster diving,”
21
E
Eban, Katherine,
133
Ehrlich, Robert (governor),
43
Eikenberry, Paul,
94
Elliker, Shari (WBAL radio),
112
F
“Fast and Furious,”
v
,
129
,
130
–37,
165
,
167
FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation),
5
,
15
,
61
,
101
,
158
,
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,
168
Guardian Database,
157
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC),
17
–20
FEST (Foreign Emergency Support Team)’s lack of action in Benghazi situation,
144
–45
firearms
recovered from crime scenes in California and sourced to Arizona,
137
recovered from crime scenes in Texas and sourced to Arizona,
136
Fish and Wildlife Service,
102
Fox and Friends
,
114
Friedman, Milton,
168
FSB (formerly KGB),
158
G
Gaddafi, Muammar,
147
Gerlach, Jim,
150
Gibbs, Robert,
79
Gil, Darren,
134
Gore, Al,
30
Guardian Database (FBI),
157
H
Harris, Andy,
126
Hoyer, Steny (Rep.),
35
Huffington Post
,
121
Hurley, Emory,
133
I
Iceland volcanic eruption,
84
improvised explosives devices (IEDs),
161
Inauguration Day 2009,
70
–71
Indonesia,
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–82,
84
–86,
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–92,
94
,
138
homegrown terrorist network in Jemaah Islamiyah,
77
Internal Revenue Service scandal,
171
Internet video allegedly disrespecting Muhammad,
145
,
147
–48
Iranian hostage crisis of 1979,
144
IRS scandal regarding conservative group target,
171
Israel,
115
–16
Issa, Daniel (Rep.),
133
J
Joint Staff Report for Congress (on weapons),
136
,
137
K
Kaczynski, Lech,
83
Kerry, John,
150
King, Martin Luther, Jr.,
173
Kingston, Jamaica, on the first daughter’s visit in,
58
–59
Kumor, Daniel (Chief),
134
L
law-enforcement personnel
current number of federal,
102
located within agencies with little investigative control (statistic),
102
Lazio, Rick,
27
lead advance assignments,
69
,
75
–76,
84
,
86
–87,
93
,
104
Lee, Mike (senator),
viii
,
ix
,
116
limousine(s), the president’s,
27
,
60
–61,
70
Lone Wolf Trading Company (Glendale, AZ),
131
M
MacAllister, Hope,
133
marijuana,
11
McCain, John,
71
media spin with regard to threats against the president,
99
–100
