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Turning to Jennifer, I said: "I'm sure you remember the experiments on compliance or obedience conducted by Stanley Milgrim's at Yale University back in the early '60s."

She nodded, yet with a trace of hesitation. Jennifer said: "I remember the broad outlines of the experiment," she confirmed, "but a number of the details have faded from memory."

"Hopefully, Jennifer, you'll be as patient with me as you were with our young jay-walkers, because I might repeat facts with which you are already familiar. However, I believe the Milgrim experiment has relevance for the FBI issue."

Jennifer smiled and said: "Your asking for a great deal, David, but I'm prepared to grit my teeth and ride out the trial. Please, go on!" she urged in a reassuring manner.

"If you'll remember, Jennifer, the essence of the Milgrim experiments was that roughly two-thirds of the experimental subjects showed themselves fully capable of inflicting, or so they were led to believe, great pain, if not life-threatening conditions, on other human beings. They were ready to do this for no other reason than that someone in a scientist's frock told them the experiment was important and needed to be completed.

"No one held a gun to their head. No one threatened them with punishment if they failed to comply with the request of the experimenter to continue with the experiment.

"Even when the subjects heard what they had been led by the experimenters to incorrectly believe were the screams of pain and anguish of people in another room, two-thirds of the subjects kept flipping the toggle switches. The subjects did this despite the fact they had been led to believe by the experimenters that their actions would send further shocks of electricity to the screaming person in the adjoining room.

"When the person, whom the subjects believed- incorrectly- was the recipient of the shocks, was heard over a speaker begging the subjects to stop, two-thirds, or more, of the subjects continued to throw the switches. These subjects might protest, or cry, or be on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but, in the end, two-thirds of the subjects would always throw the next switch. All that was required was for them to be reminded by the experimenter that the experiment was important and that the subject had, of his or her own free will, agreed to participate in the experiment.

"Furthermore, when the level of shock to be given was indicated to be potentially life-threatening to the person in the next room, two-thirds, or more, of the subjects went through the complete sequence of graduated shock levels required by the experiment. They did so because of, among other things, their desire to be obedient to, or comply with, the expectations of the experimenter.

"The people in these experiments were not emotionally disturbed people or psychopaths. They were average people, drawn from a cross-section of the general population."

Having completed my synopsis of the Milgrim experiment, the time had come to try to link it up with Jennifer's question. I started out by saying: "The FBI has an extensive battery of psychological tests and evaluations which all prospective candidates are required to complete. Presumably, only those 'stable' individuals who satisfactorily pass these tests and evaluations will be permitted to proceed further in the training programs.

"Yet, such testing for psychological stability notwithstanding, the FBI continues to require, in addition, traits of compliance and obedience from its agents which, among other things, its program of mental evaluation is designed to identify in prospective candidates. Mavericks, rebels, independent thinkers and people who might be willing to resist the peer pressure of the 'team', are not suitable FBI material.

"The personality profile which the FBI finds useful can lend itself, and, in fact, has led, to all manner of excesses, abuses, and infractions. In turn, these abuses can lead, and have led, to the suffering, persecution, terrorizing and death of innocent people.

"Like the subjects in Milgrim's experiments, these agents are led to believe their actions are necessary for the good of the experiment being run, in this case an experiment involving the nature of democracy. Sometimes the actions of the FBI do serve the interests and good of the experiment of democracy.

"Sometimes, however, the actions of the FBI do not serve the greater good. Indeed, as I briefly indicated earlier, history has produced many substantial instances of a pathology which, from time to time, erupts within the FBI.

"Like the subjects in Milgrim's experiment, far too many FBI agents will, when requested to do so, flip whatever toggle switches are indicated by their superiors. These agents may have reservations about what they are doing, or they may protest against what they are being called on to do, or they may even lose sleep over their actions, but they will continue to flip the toggle switches upon demand.

"If agents don't do this, then they will follow the route of approximately one-third of Milgrim's subjects who refused to comply with the experimenter's request to continue with the experiment. In other words, at some point during the course of one, or another, institutional experiment, a certain number of FBI agents will find themselves unable to comply with some of the requests being made by the people who are running the experiment. Among other things, this means that, on average, the people who remain in the FBI tend to represent a self-selecting group of highly compliant and obedient personality types."

I looked at the street scene through the front windshield. The shadows of a declining day were spreading everywhere. People of twilight were going about their business and pleasure.

Sensing that I was not yet finished, Jennifer waited patiently. She didn't appear to be gritting her teeth, but, maybe, she was good at hiding her impatience...or, boredom.

Finally, I said: "I don't like what the far-from-isolated cases of aberrant behavior of the FBI have done to my sense of trust concerning law-enforcement officials. I don't like the fact, for example, that on all too many occasions, and even with a game program, I often can't tell the difference between the so-called 'good-guys' and the alleged 'bad-guys' due to the manner in which the FBI has a tendency to blur the lines between moral and immoral activity - not to mention issues of legality - in order to suit its purposes and the vested interests it often serves.

"I don't appreciate the manner in which the FBI, sometimes with considerable enthusiasm, has contributed more than its fair share to the creation of an amorphous, ambiguous atmosphere of moral credibility. For example, when the FBI says someone is a 'bad-guy', I don't know anymore if what they are saying is the truth or merely a public relations campaign which is being conducted to camouflage a campaign of harassment, persecution and/or oppression of innocent people as required by some hidden agenda.

"If the FBI claims certain Native peoples are terrorists, is this the truth? Or are such claims part of a carefully-orchestrated plan to eliminate all sources of opposition to 'progressive' governmental and corporate programs aimed at completing the destruction of Native spirituality and ways of life- a program begun several hundred years ago by other like-minded government and corporate agents?

"Generalizing the issue before us, one might ask the following. If any given protest or activist group is labeled as a terrorist organization by the FBI, is this the truth? Or is this act of labeling just one step in a series of steps intended to demonize a group that doesn't fit into the FBI's current mind-set of what America is supposedly all about?"

While speaking to Jennifer, some part of my mind had been playing devil's advocate with certain aspects of my position. I decided to give voice to this unseen critic.

"A person may argue that the FBI is merely trying to enforce the law. However, there are at least three problems with this argument."

"First of all, the FBI doesn't always enforce the law. Sometimes, the FBI breaks and/or twists the law for its own purposes.

"Secondly, sometimes the FBI is very selective in deciding for whom, and against whom, it will enforce the law. For instance, for a variety of reasons, the federal authorities often prefer to go after street criminals rather than corporate criminals. Yet, and a lot of people don't know this, many more deaths are due to, and far, far more money is illegally obtained by, corporate activity than by street crime.

"Alternatively, the FBI often tends to prefer to arrest and prosecute protesters of government misconduct rather than arrest and prosecute the perpetrators of government misconduct. Or, the FBI is much more eager to apprehend small-time terrorists than it is willing to take a look in the mirror and see how it sometimes terrorizes, big-time, groups such as Native peoples.

"Lastly, to say the FBI merely enforced the law is to avoid the real issue. The Gestapo, the KGB, and the secret police of any number of countries enforced the law. However, none of this addresses the question of whether any of the laws in question ought to be enforced.

"Furthermore, one cannot merely say such issues are up to the courts or the legislature. One of the lessons of the Nuremberg Trials is that no one has the right to hide behind the excuse that one was merely following orders or acting in accordance with the requirements of the law.

"In addition, having the courts or the legislature respond to bad laws after-the-fact may be helpful for people in the future. Nevertheless, this doesn't do a whole lot for the people whose lives are destroyed by the enforcement of such laws before changes take place."

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