Want to report a crime to the FBI?  First you’ll have to prove you deserve to even see an FBI agent.

Step 1: Visit a Federal building where the FBI has a field office. To enter, you must show a driver’s license or State ID card.

If your name is on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” list, you won’t show it at all (let alone visit any FBI office).

And if you aren’t a notorious criminal or terrorist, handing over a driver’s license or State ID card with the name “John Smith” isn’t going to tell the security guard anything relevant about you.

It’s simply an invasion of your privacy in the name of security theater.

Step 2: You must remove

• Your belt;
• Your shoes;
• Your watch;
• Your wallet;
• All other objects from your pants pockets;
• Any jacket you’re wearing;
• Any cell phone you’re carrying.

All of these must be placed in one or more large plastic containers, which are run through an x-ray scanner.

Step 3: Assuming you avoid setting off any alarm system, you’re allowed to enter.

Step 4: Take an elevator to the floor where the Bureau has its office and walk into a large room filled with several comfortable chairs that sit close to the floor.

Step 5: Approach a window such as you find in a bank–made of thick, presumably bulletproof glass.

A secretary on the opposite side greets you, and asks why you’ve come.

Step 6: State your reason for wanting to speak with an agent. If the secretary thinks it’s legitimate, she requires you to show her your driver’s license or State ID card.

Step 7: Slide this through a slot in the glass window. Then she makes a xerox of this and hands the card back.

Step 8: Then you must fill out a single-page card, which requires you to provide your:

• Name;
• Address;
• Phone number;
• Social Security Number;
• The reason you want to speak to an agent.

Of course, you can refuse to fill out the card. But then the secretary will refuse to let you meet with an agent.

So the FBI has no qualms about requiring others to give up their privacy. But its director, James B. Comey, believes the public actions of police should be hidden from citizens’ scrutiny.

Addressing a forum at the University of Chicago Law School on October 23, 2015, Comey offered a series of possible reasons for the recent surge in crime rates in America.

Click here: FBI — Law Enforcement and the Communities We Serve: Bending the Lines Toward Safety and Justice 

“Maybe it’s the return of violent offenders after serving jail terms. Maybe it’s cheap heroin or synthetic drugs. Maybe after we busted up the large gangs, smaller groups are now fighting for turf.

“Maybe it’s a change in the justice system’s approach to bail or charging or sentencing. Maybe something has changed with respect to the availability of guns….”

Then Comey offered what he thought was the real villain behind the rise in crime: Cellphones aimed at police.

FBI Director James B. Comey

“In today’s YouTube world, are officers reluctant to get out of their cars and do the work that controls violent crime? Are officers answering 911 calls but avoiding the informal contact that keeps bad guys from standing around, especially with guns?

“I spoke to officers privately in one big city precinct who described being surrounded by young people with mobile phone cameras held high, taunting them the moment they get out of their cars. They told me, ‘We feel like we’re under siege and we don’t feel much like getting out of our cars.’

“I’ve been told about a senior police leader who urged his force to remember that their political leadership has no tolerance for a viral video.

“So the suggestion, the question that has been asked of me, is whether these kinds of things are changing police behavior all over the country.

“And the answer is, I don’t know. I don’t know whether this explains it entirely, but I do have a strong sense that some part of the explanation is a chill wind blowing through American law enforcement over the last year. And that wind is surely changing behavior.”

The FBI has

• Lobbied Congress for an electronic “key” that would allow it to enter a cyber “back door” to eavesdrop on even those emails protected by encryption systems;
• Monitored electronic bugs and wiretapped phones–as well as social media sites like Facebook and Twitter;
• Treated law-abiding citizens like criminal suspects before they can even seek help from an agent; and
• Repeatedly preached to Americans that if they have nothing to hide, they should have nothing to fear from police surveillance.

But according to the FBI, citizens who aim cameras at cops in public places constitute a clear and present danger. This holds true even if they don’t interfere with the ability of police to make arrests.

They make heavily armed police feel so threatened that many officers are refusing to carry out their sworn duties.