Rating: 
Summary: Did they have any choice?
Review: No one seems to be investigating whether Bulger and Flemmi were coerced into service against their wishes. Examine for a second the plausibility of Bulger and Flemmi going 'legit'..There might have been a very good chance their phone calls were intercepted or monitored. Say Bulger was looking for serious work- if the line was monitored or calls intercepted, the calls could either not be received or those parties calling to offer work could be approached without Bulger's knowledge, keeping him from finding work. All any agency would need to do is mention either national security or an ongoing investigation and neither could get work. A year or two ago the FBI busted some people for operating an illegal software ring and the leader was a NEC employee from Chelmsford, Mass. Following the bust, local media reported that the ringleader wanted to be 'allowed to find work', suggesting that even without a trial, the government could keep the person from legitimate work. Why could this not have been done to Bulger and Flemmi?
Rating:
Summary: Code Red
Review: One might ask how many records were destroyed by officials in this case. Were Bulger and Flemmi monitored much more than the FBI alleges and this monitoring accounts for the 'pathological lying' of Bulger? Should controls be in place for ANY agency such that records can never be fully destroyed? Of even more concern is the integration of known organized crime elements into legitimate government agencies. Have all government agencies been penetrated by organized crime? Or are the most powerful elements within each agency in fact what we know as organized crime?
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put this one down!
Review: This is a wonderful account of the Boston underworld in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. It is full of history and first hand accounts of Whitey Bulger, Stevie Flemmi, and the FBI's involvement and knowledge of their illegal wrong-doings. I would highly recommend this book to anyone!
Rating: 
Summary: Conflicts of Interest
Review: When William Weld worked for the Justice Department, did he learn of a child Whitey may have had? Did Mark Wolf? Is it possible that such a child might have been used as collateral and could the child suffer a heavy price for being Whitey's child and not knowing it? Could such a child have been a pawn between Agents Condon,Rico,Connolly,Coffey,Morris,Flemmi and Bulger? With Governor Paul Cellucci soon to be ambassador to Canada and the Bulger case extending to Nova Scotia with Louis Litif, How objective can such an investigation be, where the State Police have been loyal to Cellucci and Cellucci has been loyal to Cashman who is said to be loyal to Connolly?
Rating:
Summary: Matters of Justice
Review: What seems to be going on in this case is a feeding frenzy where lots of people want justice and there are patterns to this that echo Lee Harvey Oswald, Albert DeSalvo,etc. where you have rival groups fighting each other and all sorts of bizarre legal and extralegal happenings. Then suddenly after a period of fighting one or two individuals appears in which the collective rage is focused. They are indicted in the media which fuels the frenzy, sent off to prison and things calm down. What we may be seeing here is the very nature of our society at work and how disagreements are worked out. When DeSalvo confessed, the need for justice was quenched but prior to this police didn't know if one or more individuals were involved. To this day controversy remains over whether DeSalvo was the strangler or not. Prior to Lee Harvey Oswald being arrested, a policeman was shot- to what purpose? This only fueled the hysteria and demands for instant justice.. capture Oswald, blame it all on him,satisfy public curiosity,move on. Case closed.All that is needed is for the rival groups to agree on how the public overspill of their squabble will be decisively and effectively silenced. In the Bulger case, you have a large number of murder victims and allegations as to who did them. They may be true, they may not. No one has considered whether these guys were set up to look like they had committed murders as surety for such a contingency as has developed here since 1995.As the case has exploded an ' every man for himself' mentality prevails and is it safe to say everyone will be on the up and up? The story focuses entirely on the negatives in the program, but not on how many people were helped or how many people were not sent to prison based on information provided by Flemmi and Bulger. It is publicly assumed they did nothing but evil, but we really don't know that. There is also the question of whether Flemmi and Bulger can provide a full defense if reports and other correspondence cannot be released due to classification constraints. Were murders solved or prevented by actions of Flemmi and Bulger? Kidnappings of children? Drug trafficking reduced to a manageable level? How many agents from any number of agencies may have been protected by the close quarter efforts of Bulger and Flemmi, even if they are unaware of it themselves? Still, this case does raise broad questions of how far we wish clandestine law enforcement efforts to go. What is the line of distinction between informants and secret police? How much priority is given to informant reports, as in the Limone/Salvati case? If more weight had been given in the Limone case, could some decisive action to intercept have occurred? What is our capacity to factor in unavoidable human error in the handling of these complex cases? How liable for their actions are informants where they provide services but are not fully trained as a bona fide agent is?
Rating:
Summary: Hazardous liasons
Review: About the time Whitey disappeared, someone i know worked with a small group of individuals at a Fortune 500 company and began getting harassed severely. These individuals alternately claimed affiliation with Whitey and/or Connolly and wanted to know if this person was 'going to make money off of " A Civil Action" '. These same individuals alleged varying alliances to the Mass. state police, DEA, CIA. As this case heated up in local media, so too did the harassment. No one as far as we know has investigated former miltary service associates of Bulger and Flemmi to see if they have knowledge useful to the case. In Bulger's case that would be the Air Force and Flemmi's the army. Considering the sensitivity of the connections and activities in this case, one might wonder if Flemmi and Bulger were granted security clearances and if so might their personal and professional activities have been scrupulously monitored? No one has given serious consideration to the use of coercion in this case. The coercion need not have only come from the FBI but other state or federal agencies. If Whitey for example had children, wouldn't they be excellent insurance for future control of Whitey or could Whitey,Flemmi,Connolly or Rico have had some control over a government official's children? The timing of the Hanssen spy case comes at a propitious moment for the FBI, as this lends further credence to deniability of knowledge of Flemmi,Connolly, Bulger's activities.
Rating:
Summary: Twists and Turns
Review: Is this case the intersection of several government agencies? The FBI, NSA,CIA, DEA, etc.? There is one individual who may be related to one of the major players in this case but did not know it because they were raised in state child care and this information was withheld from them. In 1992-93 the individual is said to have been approached by an official alleging ties to one or more of the above agencies and essentially threatened. In the same year that Whitey disappeared, this person lost their job and was leveraged into a position by a person with alleged ties to Gov Cellucci and George Bush. While at this position, the individual became subject to many many attacks by the small group of 'coworkers', several that suggested ties to the State police and to federal agencies. As the person experienced a wide array of telephone problems, tens of thousands of resumes sent out over a course of 5-6 years resulted in rejection after rejection. A number of these coworkers suggested pro-Whitey, anti-Connolly and mixed sentiments towards Cellucci and Harshbarger in Masachusets.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, intriguing, scary, suspenseful
Review: Hopefully there will be a sequel to this! One might wonder though if as mentioned in other reviews Bulger has any children whether the Justice Department or FBI might do anything to such a child. When the case broke, could President Clinton have gotten the Secret Service involved? Or could the ultra secret FISA court been used against Bulger and/or any his children? There is one person alleged to have had strange encounters with a man who had Tennessee license plates, claimed to work in construction but was seen driving a telephone company truck before he disappeared after discovery. Prior to the man's disappearance, this person had numerous phone problems. The man in the phone company truck seemed to have some connection to a neighbor who 'did accounting for the government...'.
Rating:
Summary: To be continued?
Review: One might wonder if in all this chaos, what would happen if Whitey had children? How might Connolly, Rico, Morris and the Justice Department handle this? Could the children becoma targets for blackballing or manipulation by the FBI, DEA,CIA,NSA,DIS,or many more agencies? It is alleged there is at least person who might have connections to some of the people involved in this case and worked for a defense contractor in the 1980s and 1990s. About the time of the change between the Bush and Clinton administration, the individual was informed they were ' being watched'. A few years later, Whitey disappeared and this person suddenly became unemployable while individuals allegedly indirectly linked to Connolly and therefore Governor Cellucci through George Cashman threatened this person had 'flipping burgers' in their future. The individual attended a college and was promptly given one letter grade lower than earned after being asked if the individual would vote for Al Gore. The person went on to have an interview with a major defense contractor where individuals with NSA logo materials inquired if the person understood what a "controlled experiment is". Additionally, the individual reported strange phone activity not long after an older man with TN plates appeared claiming to be in the construction field but was later discovered in a phone company truck. On being seen in the phone company truck, the man disappeared. At the last place the individual worked, colleagues claimed this person was paranoid or claimed the person worked with them for years but they did not know this individual's job title. Individuals with strong ties to recruiters and human resources in the Mass. high tech industry sector and with alleged ties to the Mass. republican party suddenly had no work of any kind in what was considered an ' employee's market'. What we know from this book and newspaper accounts is that circumstances can and are manipulated to make an individual 'paranoid', such as the ploys used against Whitey and Eddie Moiano. By controlling the environment with multiple individuals, a portrait is manufactured of the person as unstable should any legal action be taken.
Rating:
Summary: Unresolved issues
Review: Did Whitey have any children that government agents, and not just the FBI, might have known about? Could Whitey have had a son who was made to suffer if Whitey didn't 'go along'? Kevin Weeks was supposed to be Whitey's 'surrogate son' could this truly have been the case because a real son might have been closely monitored? Could Condon,Rico, Connolly, etc have all known about it if that is true? Would such information be safe under Justice Dept officials? Could officials from other agencies have used children of the informants against them? How far would you go if someone was holding your son or daughter?
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