February 26, 2007
KGB Then; FSB Now--Yevgenia Albats
>wiki
"Russia has one FSB-ist for every 297 citizens", whereas "the Soviet Union had one KGB officer for every 428 citizens." 7 (Symposium: When an Evil Empire Returns, interview with Ion Mihai Pacepa, R. James Woolsey, Jr., Yuri Yarim-Agaev, and Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, FrontPageMagazine.com June 23, 2006.)
She (Yevgenia Albats) described the KGB as a leading political force, rather than a security organization, whose leaders, including Lavrenty Beria, Yuri Andropov, and Vladimir Kryuchkov, have always struggled for the power with the Communist Party and manipulated the communist leaders. Moreover, FSB has formal membership, military discipline, an extensive network of civilian informants [8], hardcore ideology of Russian nationalism, and support of population (according to Bashkirov and Company, 60% of Russians trust FSB [9]), which made it an extremely effective totalitarian party [10]
from wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgenia_Albats
~Right now there're some 2 million men, women and children in America's prisons and 7 million others "in the system". Unlike the Russians aren't we lucky that our secret federal security agencies, as well as our federal, state and local law enforcement bureacracies have no interest in wielding political power? Imagine what might happen to American democracy if our security forces found common ground upon which to organize?
[photo not with above]
Posted by Stubbornson at February 26, 2007 12:55 PM