FBI's Ridiculous Waste of Time and Resources Exposed By Bizarro Creator
SHARK thanks Dan Piraro, creator of the nationally syndicated "Bizarro" comic strip, for brilliantly portraying the absurd interest the FBI has in SHARK. Regardless of the fact that SHARK has a hard and fast policy against terrorism and the use of violence, the FBI just can't seem to stop thinking about us.
In 2002, SHARK's "Tiger" video truck followed the Olympic Torch route, educating people about the cruelty of rodeos, specifically the ill-conceived rodeo that was planned as part of the cultural events at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. Then Salt Lake Organizing Committee head Mitt Romney (former Governor of Massachusetts and current failed presidential candidate) put the FBI on SHARK's trail because Olympic sponsors Coca-Cola and General Motors were unhappy that SHARK's protected 1st Amendment speech was interfering with their use of the Olympics for commercial gain. The FBI obliged Romney by going from city to city telling local police that SHARK was making bomb threats against the Olympics, trying to start riots along the torch route, and trying to start physical confrontations with police. These allegations were completely and utterly false, and the FBI knew it. In a country that was just a few months past the 9/11 travesty, this was profoundly irresponsible behavior that trivialized the deaths of people at the hands of real terrorists.
Things came to a head in Albuquerque, New Mexico, when Albuquerque police stopped the Tiger and created a major incident. Both the Tiger and its crew were held while the local police tried to trump up some charges against what they thought were, thanks to the FBI, terrorists. Their efforts failed, and SHARK continued to successfully pursue the Olympic Torch. SHARK retaliated by demanding an internal investigation, and the results of the investigation disclosed the FBI's shenanigans.
SHARK President Steve Hindi called and wrote to the FBI on numerous occasions demanding an internal investigation of the Bureau, and further demanding that the FBI admit that its claims about SHARK were false. Hindi even personally met with an FBI manager at an FBI office in the Chicago area, and offered to answer any questions the Bureau had. In spite of SHARK's open door policy with an agency clearly out to get it, the FBI refused to investigate its own behavior and also refused to take responsibility for its own actions. This is most curious for an organization that is supposedly dedicated to truth and justice, and should be of some concern to all Americans.
In July, 2006, the FBI led the Illinois State Police into a similar wild goose chase just before the National High School Rodeo Association's rodeo finals in Springfield, Illinois. This time the FBI claimed it had a report that SHARK members were going to release rodeo animals. As with the silliness in Albuquerque, this was completely false. Again SHARK challenged the FBI to disclose who was making such absurd claims, and questioned why in a world that includes real terrorists, the FBI is worried with an absurdly fictitious plot to release rodeo animals. Again the FBI refused to comment, and simply skulked off into the shadows. SHARK went on to do exactly what it had planned all along, which was to document the illegal cruelty of the rodeo with videotape and still pictures.
After a series of phone conversations between a representative of the Illinois State Police, SHARK lawyer Cherie Travis and SHARK president Steve Hindi; Hindi is convinced that the real culprit of the above described incident was the FBI. He believes that the FBI lured the State Police into their boondoggle with bogus, nonsensical fiction about a supposed SHARK plot to release rodeo animals, and the State Police felt they had to support the FBI.
Hindi also believes the State Police should have asked for some evidence of what the FBI claimed, and he believes that the State Police should have reacted far more quickly to SHARK's complaints than they did. However, he is willing to accept that their actions were based on ignorance as opposed to malice. Hopefully, in light of our phone conversations, there will be improved relations between SHARK and the State Police in the future.
The FBI is an entirely different matter. While the FBI claims to be dedicated to law enforcement, has a history of spreading rumors and outright lies against SHARK. Demands for an internal investigation have been refused. Demands for information with regard to where the FBI is getting its false information have been ignored. In SHARK's experience, the FBI has nothing to do with law enforcement or justice.
Someone in the Rodeo Mafia obviously has influence in the FBI. It probably doesn't help that former President George Bush is a rodeo fan, and has been pictured with rodeo jackets to show his support for rodeo animal abuse, or that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has taken visitors from the United Nations to visit the rodeo cowboy museum in Colorado Springs, Colorado. On the other hand, if Rummy didn't take people there, practically no one would show up at all.
Frankly, SHARK would think that the FBI had real issues to deal with -- terrorism, organized crime, etc. Instead we find that the America's highest law enforcement agency is busy catering to the nonsensical whims and paranoia of the Rodeo Mafia. It is unbelievable that in this age of terrorism and very real threats to our country and our people, the FBI apparently has nothing better to do that run around making up stories about rodeo animals being freed and chasing around a bunch of videotaping animal protectors. This isn't Homeland Security -- it's Homeland Stupidity.
