Since J. Edgar Hoover founded it, the FBI has never really been a law enforcement agency. It’s a clearing house for kompromot and intimidation.

Since J. Edgar Hoover founded it, the FBI has never really been a law enforcement agency. It’s a clearing house for kompromot and intimidation.  link
"Following the death of Stalin, the Soviet secret police pivoted from heavy-handed mass arrests to a subtler, but still sinister, system of mass spying and accumulation of “kompromot,” or compromising material, on its citizens. 

The Soviets maintained control by prioritizing spying on religious figures, political activists, journalists, and public officials. 

We’re now finding out that the FBI in America has a similar program of mass surveillance of similar targets. 

And, as with the Soviets, much of the spying has nothing to do with investigating crime.

• According to a Justice Department internal audit report, the FBI maintained an active caseload of 24,584 cases during the 18 months between January 2018 and June of 2019. A grossly disproportionate share of those cases involved surveillance of influential Americans such as candidates for office, public officials, journalists, religious leaders, and political activists. When the FBI targets an individual wielding high social influence, it categorizes the case as “sensitive.”