For 16 years, Michael German infiltrated white supremacist groups and investigated white-collar, bank fraud and public corruption cases as an FBI agent. In 2002, German complained that FBI agents had failed to fully investigate links between the leader of a domestic terrorist group and a supporter of an Islamic terrorist organization. Rather than investigate the allegations, German claims, his superiors ignored his concerns and sabotaged his career in retaliation. He resigned in 2004. (Last year, a Department of Justice Office of Inspector General report partly validated German’s complaints that he was punished for reporting on flaws and that FBI records were backdated.)
German, a lawyer, landed at an unlikely place, the American Civil Liberties Union, which a year ago hired him as its policy counsel on national security, immigration and privacy matters.
