Former FBI Agent Mike German Talks About the NSA | American Civil Liberties Union: "I often tell a story about a case I worked on as an undercover agent in an anti-government militia group in Washington state. It ended with a six-week trial that was attended by a lot of people who supported the militia group ideologically. One man who was an elder in the group (but didn't know the defendants and wasn't involved in the investigation) came up to me after the trial ended, but before the verdict was returned, and asked to shake my hand. He said he sat through the entire trial and was convinced that these defendants would have hurt someone, which would have hurt his movement, so he wanted to thank me for stopping them. Here was someone predisposed to hate the government, thanking the undercover agent who infiltrated the movement because our transparent and open criminal justice process allowed him to see the evidence, appropriately challenged in an adversarial process, and become convinced against his prejudices that the defendants were guilty. That's how a government demonstrates its legitimacy, which builds a stronger and more stable democracy.
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