Statistically speaking, Americans should be more fearful of the local cops than “terrorists.”
Though Americans commonly believe law enforcement’s role in society is to protect them and ensure peace and stability within the community, the sad reality is that police departments are often more focused on enforcing laws, making arrests and issuing citations. As a result of this as well as an increase in militarized policing techniques, Americans are eight times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist, estimates a Washington’s Blog report based on official statistical data.
Though the U.S. government does not have a database collecting information about the total number of police involved shootings each year, it’s estimated that between 500 and 1,000 Americans are killed by police officers each year. Since 9/11, about 5,000 Americans have been killed by U.S. police officers, which is almost equivalent to the number of U.S. soldiers who have been killed in the line of duty in Iraq.
Because individual police departments are not required to submit information regarding the use of deadly force by its officers, some bloggers have taken it upon themselves to aggregate that data. Wikipedia also has a list of “justifiable homicides” in the U.S., which was created by documenting publicized deaths.
Mike Prysner, one of the local directors of the Los Angeles chapter for ANSWER — an advocacy group that asks the public to Act Now to Stop War and End Racism — told Mint Press Newsearlier this year that the “epidemic” of police harassment and violence is a nationwide issue.
He said groups like ANSWER are trying to hold officers accountable for abuse of power. “[Police brutality] has been an issue for a very long time,” Prysner said, explaining that in May, 13 people were killed in Southern California by police.
As Mint Press News previously reported, each year there are thousands of claims of police misconduct. According to the CATO Institute’s National Police Misconduct Reporting Project, in 2010 there were 4,861 unique reports of police misconduct involving 6,613 sworn officers and 6,826 alleged victims.
Most of those allegations of police brutality involved officers who punched or hit victims with batons, but about one-quarter of the reported cases involved firearms or stun guns.
Racist policing
A big element in the police killings, Prysner says, is racism. “A big majority of those killed are Latinos and Black people,” while the police officers are mostly White, he said. “It’s a badge of honor to shoot gang members so [the police] go out and shoot people who look like gang members,” Prysner argued, giving the example of 34-year-old Rigoberto Arceo, who was killed by police on May 11.
According to a report from the Los Angeles Times, Arceo, who was a biomedical technician at St. Francis Medical Center, was shot and killed after getting out of his sister’s van. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department says Arceo “advanced on the deputy and attempted to take the deputy’s gun.” However, Arceo’s sister and 53-year-old Armando Garcia — who was barbecuing in his yard when the incident happened — say that Arceo had his hands above his head the entire time.
Prysner is not alone in his assertion that race is a major factor in officer-related violence. This past May, astudy from the the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, an anti-racist activist organization, found that police officers, security guards or self-appointed vigilantes killed at least 313 Black people in 2012 — meaning one Black person was killed in the U.S. by law enforcement roughly every 28 hours.
Prysner said the relationship between police departments and community members needs to change and that when police shoot an unarmed person with their arms in the air over their head, the officer should be punished.
Culture of misconduct
“You cannot have a police force that is investigating and punishing itself,” Prysner said, adding that taxpayer money should be invested into the community instead of given to police to buy more guns, assault rifles and body armor.
Dissatisfied with police departments’ internal review policies, some citizens have formed volunteer police watch groups to prevent the so-called “Blue Code of Silence” effect and encourage police officers to speak out against misconduct occurring within their department.
As Mint Press News previously reported, a report released earlier this year found that of the 439 cases of police misconduct that then had been brought before the Minneapolis’s year-old misconduct review board, not one of the police officers involved has been disciplined.
Although the city of Minneapolis spent $14 million in payouts for alleged police misconduct between 2006 and 2012, despite the fact that the Minneapolis Police Department often concluded that the officers involved in those cases did nothing wrong.
Other departments have begun banning equipment such as Tasers, but those decisions were likely more about protecting the individual departments from lawsuits than ensuring that officers are not equipped with weapons that cause serious and sometimes fatal injuries when used.
To ensure officers are properly educated on how to use their weapons and are aware of police ethics, conflict resolution and varying cultures within a community, police departments have historically heldtraining programs for all officers. But due to tighter budgets and a shift in priorities, many departments have not provided the proper continuing education training programs for their officers.
Charles Ramsey, president of both the Major Cities Chiefs Association and the Police Executive Research Forum, called that a big mistake, explaining that it is essential officers are trained and prepared for high-stress situations:
“Not everybody is going to be able to make those kinds of good decisions under pressure, but I do think that the more reality-based training that we provide, the more we put people in stressful situations to make them respond and make them react.”
GI Joe replaces Carl Winslow
In order to help local police officers protect themselves while fighting the largely unsuccessful War on Drugs, the federal government passed legislation in 1994 allowing the Pentagon to donate surplus military equipment from the Cold War to local police departments. Meaning that “weaponry designed for use on a foreign battlefield has been handed over for use on American streets … against American citizens.”
So while the U.S. military fights the War on Terror abroad, local police departments are fighting another war at home with some of the same equipment as U.S. troops, and protocol that largely favors officers in such tactics as no-knock raids.
Radley Balko, author of “Rise of the Warrior Cop,” wrote in the Wall Street Journal in August:
“Since the 1960s, in response to a range of perceived threats, law-enforcement agencies across the U.S., at every level of government, have been blurring the line between police officer and soldier.
“Driven by martial rhetoric and the availability of military-style equipment—from bayonets and M-16 rifles to armored personnel carriers—American police forces have often adopted a mind-set previously reserved for the battlefield. The war on drugs and, more recently, post-9/11 antiterrorism efforts have created a new figure on the U.S. scene: the warrior cop—armed to the teeth, ready to deal harshly with targeted wrongdoers, and a growing threat to familiar American liberties.”
As Mint Press News previously reported, statistics from an FBI report released in September reveal that a person is arrested on marijuana-related charges in the U.S. every 48 seconds, on average — most were for simple possession charges.
According to the FBI’s report, there were more arrests for marijuana possession than for the violent crimes of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault — 658,231 compared with 521,196 arrests.
While groups that advocate against police brutality recognize and believe that law enforcement officials should be protected while on duty, many say that local police officers do not need to wear body armor, Kevlar helmets and tactical equipment vests — all while carrying assault weapons.
“We want the police to keep up with the latest technology. That’s critical,” American Civil Liberties Union senior counsel Kara Dansky said. “But policing should be about protection, not combat.”
According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, there are more than 900,000 sworn law enforcement officers in the United States. In 2012, 120 officers were killed in the line of duty. The deadliest day in law enforcement history was reportedly Sept. 11, 2001, when 72 officers were killed.
Despite far fewer officers dying in the line of duty compared with American citizens, police departments are not only increasing their use of protective and highly volatile gear, but are increasingly setting aside a portion of their budget to invest in new technology such as drones, night vision goggles, remote robots, surveillance cameras, license plate readers and armored vehicles that amount to unarmed tanks.
Though some officers are on board with the increased militarization and attend conferences such as the annual Urban Shield event, others have expressed concern with the direction the profession is heading.
For example, former Arizona police officer Jon W. McBride said police concerns about being “outgunned” were likely a “self-fulfilling prophecy.” He added that “if not expressly prohibited, police managers will continually push the arms race,” because “their professional literature is predominately [sic] based on the acquiring and use of newer weapons and more aggressive techniques to physically overwhelm the public. In many cases, however, this is the opposite of smart policing.”
“Coupled with the paramilitary design of the police bureaucracy itself, the police give in to what is already a serious problem in the ranks: the belief that the increasing use of power against a citizen is always justified no matter the violation. The police don’t understand that in many instances they are the cause of the escalation and bear more responsibility during an adverse outcome.
“The suspects I encountered as a former police officer and federal agent in nearly all cases granted permission for me to search their property when asked, often despite unconcealed contraband. Now, instead of making a simple request of a violator, many in law enforcement seem to take a more difficult and confrontational path, fearing personal risk. In many circumstances they inflame the citizens they are engaging, thereby needlessly putting themselves in real and increased jeopardy.”
Another former police officer who wished to remain anonymous agreed with McBride and told Balko,
“American policing really needs to return to a more traditional role of cops keeping the peace; getting out of police cars, talking to people, and not being prone to overreaction with the use of firearms, tasers, or pepper spray. … Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been in more than my share tussles and certainly appreciate the dangers of police work, but as Joseph Wambaugh famously said, the real danger is psychological, not physical.”
Release Us – a short film on police brutality by Charles Shaw
The history of pilotless aircraft in the United States military stretches back to the days of the Wright brothers. It’s difficult to describe any good that emerges from warfare, but many modern technological advancements — computers, zippers, microwaves — can be traced back to conflicts of a bygone era. Today unmanned aerial vehicles are being used by a whole slew of people, the U.S. Department of Defense being just one primary example. While drones have been used routinely to support or undertake lethal force abroad for over a decade, their domestic applications are just now being given more serious consideration. The capabilities and contributions of UAVs have, up until recently, been propelled more or less exclusively by the defense community. UAV technology may currently be associated with what some would consider secretive and nefarious militarism, but in examining the range of practical, commercial applications we can only hope that drone technology will begin to move away from the dark side.
President Obama’s approach to counterterrorism has been marked by his embrace of drone technology to target terrorist operatives. But they’ve come a long way since their first strike operations: drone backpacks are now used by soldiers, and Predator drones come equipped with even more powerful warheads. U.S. DOD spending on drones increased from $284M in 2000 to $3.3B in October of 2012. Small surveillance drones, called Cicadas, are now being released from balloons to collect data on the ground in Iraq. In short, the military has a seemingly infinite range of uses for unmanned aerial vehicles, large and small. And the scope of drone missions only continues to expand, as the technology necessary to program and operate them becomes at once more commonplace and versatile. Over the next decade, the Pentagon anticipates that the number of “multirole” UAVs (those capable of both spying and striking) will nearly quadruple.
As of October 2013, the Federal Aviation Administration had issued 285 clearance certificates for drones inside the United States. Under pressure from the Unmanned Systems Caucus (or drone lobby) the Department of Homeland Security has accepted eight Predator drones for use along the U.S.-Canada and U.S.-Mexico borders. The FAA is set to further open skies to commercial drones by 2015, allowing civilians to finally explore and expand upon the uses of UAV technology. But even with the law by their side, can civilian companies ever hope to utilize drones to the extent in which they are employed by the military? Many recognize the civil potential of flying robots, but recognize that with certain valuable contributions also comes the possibility of tighter law enforcement and increased government surveillance.
The dualistic nature of drones is being explored by hobbyists and venture capitalists alike. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook is even developing a program that will employ drones and satellite internet to deliver internet to disenfranchised communities throughout the world. While this probably speaks to Zuckerberg’s opportunism (and his desire to compete in the marketplace against Google’s Loon Project and HughesNet Internet) that isn’t to say that people in underserved communities don’t stand to benefit. The U.S. government already uses drones to protect endangered wildlife species, like the sandhill crane, and researchers in Indonesia and Malaysia are also using unmanned aerial devices to monitor the activity of similarly threatened orangutan populations. UAV systems are emerging as key tools in agricultural innovation and the monitoring of natural resources. Search and rescue missions, 3-D mapping and surveying projects, and hurricane tracking projects are also being carried out by UAVs. With unmanned aircraft, it seems the sky’s the limit for civil and commercial usage.
But the business of drones still comes with plenty of risks. The American Civil Liberties Union has warned of a “dystopian future” in which “mass, suspicionless searches of the general population” are the norm. Given the history of drones as advanced tools of the government and military, this doesn’t seem like an empty threat. And for now, the law still stands in the way of any real development on the commercial end. Despite the fact that many ideas for drones, from the delivery of Amazon parcels to Domino’s pizzas, have been suggested, the military still holds the key to their innovation from an American standpoint. Their function as a militaristic tool remains at the forefront of their continued growth, resulting in large spending increases for advanced cameras, sensors, and systems with attack capabilities. But the integration of drone technology into domestic airspace by law enforcement — and later, by corporations — seems inevitable. As technological improvements continue to catapult the UAV industry into the future, the true beneficiaries of these developments remain to be seen.
Photographers are still being classified as potential terrorists in a newly released document from the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI.
The “Roll Call Release,” dated November 13, 2012 and titled “Suspicious Activity Reporting: Photography,” gives a vague reference to a single example where a terrorist may have used cameras to plan attacks.
“In late 2000 and early 2001, convicted al-Qaida operative Dhiren Barot took extensive video footage and numerous photographs of sites in downtown New York City and Washington DC in preparation for planned attacks.”
But then it goes on to list three other examples where people were detained for using cameras in airports, parking garages and shopping malls – which the report describes as “consistent with pre-operational activity and attack planning” – that turned out to have nothing to do with terrorist activity.
But the feds still refer to these detainments as a sign of success because they served for “awareness and training purposes” – as if they need any more training to harass innocent photographers.
And although Barot was convicted of planning attacks, authorities could not connect a video he recorded of the World Trade Center to the actual 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Barot undertook reconnaissance missions in the UK and US in 2000 and 2001, during which he filmed buildings including the International Monetary Fund and World Bank headquarters in Washington DC and the Stock Exchange and Citigroup buildings in New York.
Although there was no evidence that he had foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks on the US, one clip, played in court, showed the World Trade Centre with someone imitating the noise of an explosion in the background.
Barot was also known to visit public libraries to plan possible attacks, so perhaps visiting your local library will soon be regarded as suspicious.
Labeling photographers as potential terrorists has been rampant since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but in 2010, after forcing a man to the ground for video recording a federal courthouse in New York City, the Department of Homeland Security agreed to a settlement, acknowledging that photographing federal buildings is not a crime.
But that still didn’t stop the feds for spreading the message that photographers should be deemed suspicious, including funding municipalities to produce propaganda videos.
Two months ago, it began encouraging citizens to photograph other citizens who take suspicious photographs in order to report them to Homeland Security.
In October, the FBI visited a Houston man at home after he had been seen taking photos near a refinery. He had only been taking pictures of a brewing storm for the National Weather Service.
In 2008, security expert Bruce Schneier wrote his famous “War on Photography” article, in which he stated the following:
Since 9/11, there has been an increasing war on photography. Photographers have been harassed, questioned, detained, arrested or worse, and declared to be unwelcome. We’ve been repeatedly told to watch out for photographers, especially suspicious ones. Clearly any terrorist is going to first photograph his target, so vigilance is required.
Except that it’s nonsense. The 9/11 terrorists didn’t photograph anything. Nor did the London transport bombers, the Madrid subway bombers, or the liquid bombers arrested in 2006. Timothy McVeigh didn’t photograph the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The Unabomber didn’t photograph anything; neither did shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Photographs aren’t being found amongst the papers of Palestinian suicide bombers. The IRA wasn’t known for its photography. Even those manufactured terrorist plots that the US government likes to talk about — the Ft. Dix terrorists, the JFK airport bombers, the Miami 7, the Lackawanna 6 — no photography.
About nine months before a Senate subcommittee for investigations report blasted DHS fusion centers as colossal wastes of money, redundant bureaucracies and threats to our liberty, the Department delivered testimony to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence called “Homeland Security and Intelligence: Next Steps in Evolving the Mission.”
The testimony might as well have been called “We Are Doing Important Stuff, Seriously Guys, C’mon, Please Don’t Cut Our Budget!” It seems like every third sentence in it is an implicit acknowledgement and desperate rebuttal of the fact that DHS’ “intelligence mission” is largely redundant. There are 17 intelligence agencies in the United States at present. As the Senate subcommittee for investigations report on fusion centers observed, the “intelligence mission” DHS has spent hundreds of billions of dollars to implement is being more effectively executed by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) operations.
So what’s left for poor DHS? According to the January 2012 testimony: more of the same, with a (bad) twist. Read the following paragraph from the testimony keeping in mind what we learned here in Boston about the local fusion center’s spying on peaceful First Amendment protected speech and assembly. (We found that the DHS-funded Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC) has been spying on peace activists and labeling them “Extremists” and “HomeSec-Domestic” threats in “intelligence reports” that could easily be shared with the federal government.)
As threat grows more localized, the prospect that a state/local partner will generate the first lead to help understand a new threat, or even an emerging cell, will grow. And the federal government’s need to train, and even staff, local agencies, such as major city police departments, will grow. Because major cities are the focus for threat, these urban areas also will become the sources of intelligence that will help understand these threats at the national level, DHS might move toward decentralizing more of its analytic workforce to partner with state/local agencies in the collection and dissemination of intelligence from the local level.
A translation into non-beltway English: DHS is doubling down on its quest to transform local police departments into mini intelligence agencies. That’s a terrible idea and it is up to us to stop it.
Why resist police federalization? Put simply: we need police departments to respond to local issues, not serve as foot soldiers for the federal spy agencies. Fortunately, terrorism isn’t a major problem in 99% of cities in the United States. As Micah Zenko observes, if you live in the US you are as likely to be killed by your furniture as you are by a terrorist. But that fact has not stopped and will not stop DHS from showering your local police department with money and technology to enable its militarization and federalization, with terror threats as the alibi. Only we can stop this dangerous trend.
And it will likely take some serious organizing. After all, it’s highly unlikely that departments will easily give up access to the “free” federal money for surveillance gadgets and data sharing programs they’ve been raking in for the past ten years. The only way to bring some democracy to this largely shadowy process is to bring it yourself, like people in Oakland are doing right now by stirring up a storm about Alameda County’s plans to acquire surveillance drones.
How can you resist the federal government trying to turn your local police department into a mini-FBI? First you need to know what is going on. Visit your local police department’s website and see if it has posted any information about federal grants for equipment or information sharing programs. File public records requests to the department to learn how any federal monies have been spent over the past five years. (You can file public records requests quickly and easily here.) Then take what you find to the people.
After you’ve learned about what the police department is doing with federal funds, write about it for your local paper. Most local newspapers are happy to accept op-eds from people who live in town. If your area has a Patch online newspaper, write something for that. Spread the word in whatever way you can and make it clear to the local government that you are paying attention to what goes on at the police department.
Finally, bring the issue to your town or city governing body. Here in Massachusetts we have a very strong town government system (the strength of these local offices varies state by state, but it’s a good place to start no matter where you live).
So for example, if your research shows you that the local police department got lots of DHS cash for surveillance cameras and simply installed them without a public conversation on the merits of the enhanced spying, raise the issue with the governing body that controls the police department. Make it clear that you want all future federal grants to the police to be discussed and debated publicly, and that you want your elected officials to play a role in deciding policing procedures. Ask about data policies and whether the information from the cameras can be shared with outside agencies. If there’s the political will in the community, maybe you can get the cameras turned off like people did here in Cambridge, MA.
Let it be known that you want your community to retain local control over your local police. The bureaucrats at DHS will likely be sad if we can work together to reverse the troubling federalization and militarization of our local police departments — it very well might put many of them out of work — but our democracy will be much better off.
While the TSA can’t explain why invasive patdowns without probable cause are legal, that isn’t stopping TSA from future plans to track all your daily travels, anywhere you go, from work, to stores, or even when you go out to play.
Meanwhile at airports, the TSA is rolling out “less-invasive gingerbread man” body scanners to a tune of $2.7 million for 240 machines. At this point, I don’t think skinnier versions of the Pillsbury Doughboy via kinder and gentler naked body scans are going to placate people who are secretly murmuring that America is truly becoming a police state. Spending countless billions of dollars on all this ‘security theater’ makes it look like the TSA is “doing their best to ensure that if there’s a terrorist attack the public doesn’t blame the TSA for missing it.”
According to TSA Blogger Bob, in the 10 years after 9/11, there have been vast improvements and new technology as well as a “professionalized workforce” of Transportation Security Officers. Professional as in claiming no more enhanced groping of children under 12, only to break that promise and seemingly molest this little boy dressed as Spiderman?
The Los Angeles Times reported on TSA launching a behavior-detection program at Boston’s Logan International Airport. These TSA officers received a whopping two weeks of training and are supposed to ask each passenger a “few” questions “in an effort to detect suspicious behavior.” Doesn’t this seem like yet another strike at your privacy? Some people are stressed or even nervous when they are traveling. What if you don’t feel like talking or being questioned? Is this too going to become yet another TSA-mandated “you will answer if you want the privilege of flying?”
A MSNBC travel article warned that when it comes to airport security, “you ain’t seen nothing yet.” Some security analysts suggest Big Brother will employ an even Bigger Brother in the form of “chip-embedded passports that someday tell the federal transportation watchdogs all about your daily commutes to work, the mall — even to parties.”
Other security analysts suggest it will all be about “gathering intelligence technologically” or that increased biometrics is the security answer. The Known Traveler Program will launch this fall so previously known and trusted travelers will “have bar codes stamped on their boarding passes, authorizing TSA screeners to allow those passengers to skip shoe and laptop removals.” TSA Administrator John Pistole said, “Enhancing identity-based screening is another common sense step in the right direction as we continue to strengthen overall security and improve the passenger experience whenever possible.”
So even though the TSA is building up its ranks with bomb-sniffing dogs, there will be dramatic changes in store for travelers within the next 30 years. There will be biometric fingerprinting as well as other biometric and personal info stored in government databases.
Senior policy analyst at the Center for Health and Homeland Security Vernon R. Herron told MSNBC that your official travel document “will not only have information as to who you are and where you have traveled, but it will also … allow government officials to track your travel not only in the air, but your daily travels to work, grocery stores and social events.” In the future the “government will detain passengers who have traveled to places that are suspicious in nature” once they enter an airport, Herron added. “All these measures seem extreme. However, after we declared a war on terror, we must be more proactive than reactive when it comes to airport security.”
Ah, again with the “suspicious” lists even if it’s places to which you traveled this time. Regarding the dreaded list after list of supposed suspicious activity, are they meant to keep the public in a state of paranoia and fear so they just roll over and watch it happen? Digg commenter leodin said, “Strange… The actual threat of terrorism hasn’t increased, and the odds of actually dying in a terrorist attack make the lottery look like a sound investment, and yet the government seems insistent upon taking more and more measures to protect us from these imaginary threats.”
“I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…”
So begins the Oath of Enlistment for the U.S. military, but in an explosive interview with a National Guard whistleblower shown below, soldiers are now being advised they will be ordered to break that oath should civil unrest erupt across the country.
Referred to only as “Soldier X” under promise of anonymity, an Army National Guardsman spoke via phone with Infowars Nightly News Producer Rob Dew regarding a recent briefing his unit underwent on actions the military would take in the event that an Obama election loss sparked rioting in America’s streets.
Citing not only recent widespread threats to riot if Mitt Romney were to become the next U.S. president, but threats to actually assassinate him should he win, Soldier X’s superiors dispensed plans of how the National Guard would be responsible for “taking over” and quelling such unrest.
The soldiers were reportedly told “Doomsday preppers will be treated as terrorists.”
In addition, guns will be confiscated.
“They have a list compiled of all these doomsday preppers that have gone public and they plan to go after them first,” Soldier X said. He claimed those in charge are acting under the belief that preppers will be “the worst part” of any potential civil unrest.
Soldier X was also told that any soldiers in the ranks who are known as preppers will be deemed “defects.” He explained the label meant these soldiers would be treated as traitors. “If you don’t conform, they will get rid of you,” he added.
Unit members also warned not to associate with any fellow soldiers who are preppers.
Not only does the military reportedly plan to target preppers should mass chaos break out, but Soldier X also voiced his concerns regarding civilian gun confiscation.
Soldier X admitted, “Our worry is that Obama’s gonna do what he said he’s gonna do and he’s gonna outlaw all weapons altogether and anybody’s name who is on a weapon, they’re gonna come to your house and try to take them.”
It would not be the first time the National Guard has been used to unconstitutionally disarm law-abiding citizens, robbing them of their Second Amendment right to bear arms. In the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, police and military took to the streets disarming lawful gun owners, including those who were on dry land and had plenty of stored food and water.
Fast forward to this past summer when a leaked Army manual dated 2006 entitled, “Civil Disturbance Operations” surfaced outlining plans not only to confiscate firearms domestically during mass unrest, but to actually detain and even kill American citizens who refuse to hand over their guns. This manual works in conjunction with “FM 3-39.40 Internment and Resettlement Operations,” another Army manual leaked this year, which instructs troops on how to properly detain and intern Americans into re-education camps, including ways that so-called “psy-op officers” will “indoctrinate” incarcerated “political activists” into developing an “understanding and appreciation of U.S. policies and actions.”
Add these manuals to the plethora of Executive Orders Obama has signed during his term which have dismantled our Constitution piece by piece, including the martial law implementing National Defense Resources Preparedness Executive Order which gives the president the power to confiscate citizens’ private property in the event of any national emergency, including economic.
Add it all to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in which Obama granted powers to disappear and indefinitely detain American citizens without any due process, and it is easy to see the tyrannical big picture our government has painted.
When asked if he would go along with gun confiscation, Soldier X replied he and his fellow like-minded guardsmen planned to stand down — not answer the phone or show up to post.
“I’m sorry but I don’t believe in suicide,” he said.
Preppers are becoming regular government targets these days, most recently when a Missisippi prepper group member with a clean record was suddenly taken off his flight halfway to Japan and informed he was on the no-fly list, an FBI terrorist watchlist, stranding him in Hawaii. Other preppers have been denied their Second Amendment rights without legitimate cause.
It is beyond glaringly obvious at this point the U.S. government is gearing up for mass civil unrest. Not only has the DHS sparked controversy by purchasing billions of rounds of ammo, but the department even went so far as to begin classifying further purchases, blacking out bullet figures it is using taxpayer money to buy.
In addition, while FEMA can procure a billion dollars in bulk food supplies, the FBI’s Communities Against Terrorism project released a flier instructing military surplus store owners to report any customers who “make bulk purchases of items” including “meals ready to eat”.
Should society as we know it collapse following the election, it would seem the ultimate prepper and the ultimate terrorist is, indeed, the U.S. government.
The ranking Republican on a Senate panel on Wednesday accused the Department of Homeland Security of hiding embarrassing information about its so-called “fusion” intelligence sharing centers, charging that the program has wasted hundreds of millions of dollars while contributing little to the country’s counterterrorism efforts.
In a 107-page report released late Tuesday, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said that Homeland Security has spent up to $1.4 billion funding fusion centers — in effect, regional intelligence sharing centers– that have produced “useless” reports while at the same time collecting information on the innocent activities of American Muslims that may have violated a federal privacy
The fusion centers, created under President George W. Bush and expanded under President Barack Obama, consist of special teams of federal , state and local officials collecting and analyzing intelligence on suspicious activities throughout the country. They have been hailed by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano as “one of the centerpieces” of the nation’s counterterrorism efforts.
But Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the panel, charged Wednesday that Homeland Security had tried to bury evidence of problems at the centers.
“Unfortunately, DHS has resisted oversight of these centers,” he said. “The Department opted not to inform Congress or the public of serious problems plaguing its fusion centers and broader intelligence efforts. When this subcommittee requested documents that would help it identify these issues, the department initially resisted turning them over, arguing that they were protected by privilege, too sensitive to share, were protected by confidentiality agreements, or did not exist at all. The American people deserve better. I hope this report will help generate the reforms that will help keep our country safe.”
A spokesman for Homeland Security said in a statement to NBC News Tuesday that the Senate report was “out of date, inaccurate and misleading.” Matt Chandler, a spokesman for Napolitano, said the Senate panel “refused to review relevant data, including important intelligence information pertinent to their findings.” Another Homeland Security official, who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity, said the department has made improvements to the fusion centers and that the skills of officials working in them are “evolving and maturing.”
The American Civil Liberties Union also issued a statement saying the report underscores problems that it and other civil liberity groups have been flagging for years. “The ACLU warned back in 2007 that fusion centers posed grave threats to Americans’ privacy and civil liberties, and that they needed clear guidelines and independent oversight,” said Michael German, ACLU senior policy counsel. “This report is a good first step, and we call upon Congress to hold public hearings to investigate fusion centers and their ongoing abuses.”
In addition to the value of much of the fusion centers’ work, the Senate panel found evidence of what it called “troubling” reports by some centers that may have violated the civil liberties and privacy of U.S. citizens. The evidence cited in the report could fuel a continuing controversy over claims that the FBI and some local police departments, notably New York City’s, have spied on American Muslims without a justifiable law enforcement reason for doing so. Among the examples in the report:
One fusion center drafted a report on a list of reading suggestions prepared by a Muslim community group, titled “Ten Book Recommendations for Every Muslim.” The report noted that four of the authors were listed in a terrorism database, but a Homeland Security reviewer in Washington chastised the fusion center, saying, “We cannot report on books and other writings” simply because the authors are in a terrorism database. “The writings themselves are protected by the First Amendment unless you can establish that something in the writing indicates planning or advocates violent or other criminal activity.”
A fusion center in California prepared a report about a speaker at a Muslim center in Santa Cruz who was giving a daylong motivational talk—and a lecture on “positive parenting.” No link to terrorism was alleged.
Another fusion center drafted a report on a U.S. citizen speaking at a local mosque that speculated that — since the speaker had been listed in a terrorism data base — he may have been attempting “to conduct fundraising and recruiting” for a foreign terrorist group.
“The number of things that scare me about this report are almost too many to write into this (form),” a Homeland Security reviewer wrote after analyzing the report. The reviewer noted that “the nature of this event is constitutionally protected activity (public speaking, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion.)”
The Senate panel found 40 reports — including the three listed above — that were drafted at fusion centers by Homeland Security officials, then later “nixed” by officials in Washington after reviewers “raised concerns the documents potentially endangered the civil liberties or legal privacy protections of the U.S. persons they mentioned.”
Despite being scrapped, however, the Senate report concluded that “these reports should not have been drafted at all.” It also noted that the reports were stored at Homeland Security headquarters in Washington, D.C., for a year or more after they had been canceled —a potential violation of the U.S. Privacy Act, which prohibits federal agencies from storing information on U.S. citizens’ First Amendment-protected activities if there is no valid reason to do so.
The report said the retention of these reports also appears to contradict Homeland Security’s own guidelines, which state that once a determination is made that a document should not be retained, “The U.S person identifying information is to be destroyed immediately.”
The investigation was led by the Republican staff of the subcommittee but the report was approved by chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich and Coburn. It stated that much basic information about the fusion centers – including exactly how much they cost the federal government — was difficult to obtain. Although the fusion centers are overseen by Homeland Security, they are funded primarily through grants to local governments by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Although Homeland Security “was unable to provide an accurate tally,” the panel estimated the federal dollars spent on the centers between 2003 and 2011 at between $289 million and $1.4 billion.
The panel’s criticism of the fusion centers was shared in part by Michael Leiter, the former director of the National National Counter-Terrorism Center and now an NBC News analyst. “Since 9/11, the growth of state and local fusion centers has been exponential and regrettably in many instances it has produced an ill-planned mishmash rather than a true national system that is well-integrated with existing organizations like the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Forces,” Leiter wrote in an email when asked about the report.
In its response to the Senate panel , Homeland Security said that the canceled reports could still be retained “for administrative purposes such as audit and oversight.”
The report cited multiple examples of what it called fusion center reports that had little if any value to counterterrorism efforts.
One fusion center report cited described how a certain model car had folding rear seats to the trunk, a feature that it said could be useful to human traffickers. This prompted a Homeland Security reviewer to note that such folding rear seats are “featured on MANY different makes and model of vehicles” and “there is nothing of any intelligence value in this report.”
Another fusion center report, entitled “Possible Drug Smuggling Activity,” recounted the experiences of two state wildlife officials who spotted a pair of men in a bass boat “operating suspiciously” in the body of water off the U.S.-Mexico border. The report noted that the fishermen “avoided eye contact” and that their boat appeared to be low in the water, “as if it were laden with cargo” with high winds and choppy waters.
“The fact that some guys were hanging out in a boat where people normally do not fish MIGHT be an indicator of something abnormal, but does not reach the threshold of something we should be reporting,” a Homeland Security reviewer wrote, according to the Senate panel. “I … think that this should never have been nominated for production, nor passed through three reviews.”
In the Homeland Security Department’s response, spokesman Matt Chandler said the Senate subcommittee “refused to review relevant data, including important intelligence information pertinent to their findings.”
The senior Homeland Security official who spoke to NBC News said that, while the Senate panel reviewed fusion center reports from 2009 and 2010, a more recent June 2011 case in Seattle shows that a fusion center played a key role in helping to thwart a terrorist plot against a local U.S. military processing center.
Chandler added: “The (Senate) report fundamentally misunderstands the role of the federal government in supporting fusion centers and overlooks the significant benefits of this relationship to both state and local law enforcement and the federal government. Among other benefits, fusion centers play a key role by receiving classified and unclassified information from the federal government and assessing its local implications, helping law enforcement on the frontlines better protect their communities from all threats, whether it is terrorism or other criminal activities.”
Find Out If You Are Doing Things Which Might Be Considered Suspicious
There have been so many anti-terrorism laws passed since 9/11 that it is hard to keep up on what kinds of things might get one on a “list” of suspected bad guys.
We’ve prepared this quick checklist so you can see if you might be doing something which might get hassled.
The following actions may get an American citizen living on U.S. soil labeled as a “suspected terrorist” today:
“Currently — as most of us know — TSA agents briefly examine government ID and boarding passes as each passenger presents their documents at a checkpoint at the end of a security line. Thom Patterson writes at CNN that under a 2008 Apple patent application that was approved in July and filed under the working title “iTravel,” a traveler’s phone would automatically send electronic identification to a TSA agent as soon as the traveler got in line and as each traveler waits in line. TSA agents would examine the electronic ID at an electronic viewing station. Next, at the X-ray stations, a traveler’s phone would confirm to security agents that the traveler’s ID had already been checked. Apple’s patent calls for the placement of special kiosks (PDF) around the airport which will automatically exchange data with your phone via a close range wireless technology called near field communication (NFC). Throughout the process, the phone photo could be displayed on a screen for comparison with the traveler. Facial recognition software could be included in the process. Several experts say a key question that must be answered is: How would you prove that the phone is yours? To get around this problem, future phones or electronic ID may require some form of biometric security function including photo, fingerprint and photo retinal scan comparisons. Of course, there is still a ways to go. If consumers, airlines, airports and the TSA don’t embrace the NFC kiosks, experts say it’s unlikely Apple’s vision would become reality. ‘First you would have to sell industry on Apple’s idea. Then you’d have to sell it to travel consumers,’ says Neil Hughes of Apple Insider. ‘It’s a chicken-and-egg problem.'”
When we see photographs of rats grossly deformed by massive tumors after eating genetically engineered corn laced with Roundup, it’s not good news for Monsanto.
People understand instantly in looking at those pathetic rats that organic food is not a niche market or a expensive luxury, but a life or death issue, because the rats were fed corn that is part of the American diet.
All the studies that were required but bypassed before GMOs were unleashed into the food chain seem compressed into this one devastating study by CRIIGEN.
The Monsanto lies are exposed. People must avoid GMOs at all costs and eat organic food if they are to survive.
But Monsanto has been assiduously preparing for this day of public realization, corrupting the FDA (Monsanto VP Michael Taylor is charge of “food safety” and ensuring it through armed raids against organic farmers, organic coops, and mothers’ organic buying clubs!), the USDA (which has funded development of a corn to sterilize humans), the EPA (which is going after hay on an inland ranch as a pollutant under the Clean Water Act, while ignoring serious oil spills into major rivers), and any other agencies standing in the way of getting its death-causing products released as quickly as possible into the environment.
One can see their not very subtle desperation to shut down all questions about their GMOs in the bill proposed in India, that would set up a biotech regulatory authority and laws to imprison anyone who even dared to bring up the issue of the safety of GMOs (including in vaccines, which now contain GMOs with news equally dire). The Indian bill has been called “unconstitutional, unethical, unscientific,” which is practically a nickname for Monsanto at this point.
But however outrageous the efforts to force GMOs onto India, they are small potatoes compared to what Monsanto and the biotech industry have done behind the scenes in the US where they have arranged for Homeland Security to define organic food – the only safe food – as a bio-security threat. They are clearly not happy about the unpatented, free for the taking, biodiversity people are working to save – open pollinated seeds and crops, as well as heritage animals raised on small farms.
As is Monsanto’s modus operandi, reality has been turned on its head, such that GMO seeds and only crops raised on giant mono-culture GMO farms and sprayed with deadly pesticides, and only animals trapped in animal prisons (CAFOs – controlled animal feeding operations) where they are fed on GMOs with pesticides, antibiotics, and hormones, have now been defined as “normal” and what actually is normal (and safe) has been defined as a threat.
Stanford has HUGE stakes in bioterrorism preparedness that includes homeland security funding, as well as having a seat on the National Institutes of Health’s Office of Biotechnology Activities. Stanford also has an entire department that concentrates on agricultural biosecurity. An important goal of the network – which is funded by the Homeland Security Act – is to coordinate diagnostic and scientific expertise in agricultural production and security in regard to agricultural pests and pathogens that could be used in bio-terrorism.
To that end, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has taken the position that organic farming, such as free-ranging chickens and cows and non-GM seeds that you can’t ‘control’ are potential biosecurity threats. USDA has even begun putting, in writing, directives on how they want organic farming “contained” – which resembles turning organic farms into nothing more than factory farms.17 (Source)
Basically, what is owned by the biotech/industrial food system and killing people is “good” and what is from nature, healing, and free to humanity, has been redefined as a biologic threat, and potentially as bioterrorism. This should come as no surprise, really, given the takeover of the US government by Monsanto and the parallel redefinition of patriotic Americans as terrorists, too. The more positive something is, the more Orwellian its redefinition as dangerous. An identical thing has occurred with vaccines in which those asking for vaccine safety are treated by corporate media and the government as threats to the health of the country, at just the same time that studies and government documents are showing without a doubt that the vaccines are causing diseases.
Thus we have a huge government and corporate push for flu vaccines, while it is confirmed that the flu vaccine increases the risk of serious pandemic flu illness. And that leaves off that the the H1N1 is inside the flu vaccine, and kills fetuses.
Medicine, not just food, is an organic issue as well. Vaccines are filled now with GMOs, and also contain heavy metals, viruses, other toxins. We look at the poor tumor-swollen rats being held aloft and see in an instant that GMOs and poisons are deadly, and that organic food is the only way to go.
And we are now starting to understand that vaccines come from those same GMO and pesticide companies, contain GMOs and toxins, and are also killing people. The vaccine experiment parallels the GMO experiment – it’s massive, involuntary, and damaging children. And there, too, there is an effort to ban natural supplements as dangerous, and Homeland Security is set to force vaccines on the country if a “pandemic emergency” is declared (not proven). This vaccine attack on normal human DNA parallels the potential DHS bioterrorism attack on organic food.
In both cases, Homeland Security would be acting for Monsanto and the pharmaceutical industry, force-contaminating crops and animals and getting rid of those with normal DNA, and force-contaminating people with GMO-vaccines, destroying normal DNA and threatening everyone’s lives. In both cases, any bio-threat can be manufactured and then military and DHS can roll out to give Monsanto and the pharmaceutical industry absolute power over seeds, crops, animals, and human bodies. This biotech military take over would leave us with deadly non-food and at the mercy of any vaccine they come up with, but would be publicized as saving the country from bioterrorism and disease.
Monsanto needs military power to carry on with GMOs because its lies are being countered almost instantly now. Three photos of sick, deformed rats tell the truth. And while DHS and military may have been woven into a biotech plan to spray organic crops with Agent Orange and mass destroy organic animals as they are already doing in Michigan, or to force toxic GMO-vaccines onto the country, organic has won the truth when it comes to food, and the evidence for organic approach to health – not taking vaccines is a health move similar to not using pesticides) – is in as well.
In the UK, Freedom of Information Act has revealed that the government has known for 30 years that the vaccines don’t work and cause diseases and has done all they can to hide that fact from the public. In the US, the government has been illegally withholding FOIA documents on vaccines for over 7 years. And now the Obama administration, the same one seeking permanent detention of Americans and that has refused act against those officials committing acts of torture, is seeking to change FOIA to create a new category beyond declaring documents secret but would allow it to declare some FOIA documents “non-existent.”
The FOIA documents the CDC is withholding, and Obama is warping reality to keep hidden, are sought by a doctor with an autistic child. The documents concern what the CDC has known about the true impact of mercury in vaccines. That is about autism. Can we hold up three photos of broken children so people recognize the danger of GMOs in vaccines, too? Or should we hold up the dead bodies of infants killed by the DPT vaccine schedule (at two, four and six months) which is tightly correlated with SIDS’ deaths? Even in the 1970s, the DPT vaccine, which was said by the scientist regulating it to be”the dirtiest substance ever put in the human body.” [Start at 2:40 seconds into the video.) The “miracle of vaccines” is that their lethality has been hidden for so long.
Thanks to the CRIIGEN study, it’s patently obvious now that GMOs and Roundup threaten human life. Full stop. Yet Homeland Security, acting on behalf of Monsanto, has bioterrorism laws in place to rub out organic food and animals as a biosecurity threat.
Thanks to FOIAs in the UK, we know without question that the UK and US government have known for 30 years that vaccines don’t work, and are a biologic threat to children’s lives. Full stop. Yet DHS and military ready to force unknown and untested vaccines on the entire country that could potentially be lethal.
In a way, one might even feel badly for the biotech/pharmaceutical industry because defining organic food and farm animals as bio-threats is insane, and their last ditch effort to win control over everything.
They lied about the 1918 “flu” to hide how many they killed with aspirin, and Monsanto was involved there as well. They lied about WMDs to get oil. They lied about fluoride being safe. They lied about bailouts.
They have concocted massive scare stories of to hide the truth – they themselves are terrorists and bio-terrorists seeking control of all living organisms. It’s just all too crazy to be sustained.
Most Americans now see 9/11 as an inside job, with its terror used to put in place totalitarian laws. The scapegoat, Muslims, didn’t do it.
Vaccines don’t work, are causing diseases, destroying children’s minds, and paralyzing and even killing them. Scapegoated parents, aware enough not to vaccinate their own children, didn’t do it.
The world now sees GMOs as a biologic threat to existence. The new (laughable) scapegoat, organic, didn’t do it.
When Homeland Security is working for Monsanto, with elaborate plans to “subdue” organic food and animals, the whole terrorism/bioterrorism apparatus is out on the table as a scam.
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Bob Tuskin
An eternal student of economics, science and the arts. His radio career began at age 15, then with 911 as the backdrop, his activist side began to emerge. An organic gardener, a radio show host and activist, he seeks a higher form of wisdom and works hard to ensure a better place for his children’s children.
Seeking an end to the current slavery-based system in which we live, his solutions based understanding is an important asset. As an active! activist, and with the skills of grammar, logic and rhetoric, the Trivium, in hand, Tuskin often speaks in front of city commissions, the environmental protection agency and others in the pursuit of 911 justice, to promote awareness of geo-engineering and other topics.
Never pollyannaish and never afraid to speak his mind, with Bob Tuskin the truth shall be told. Bob will also be running for his local sheriffs office.
The Bob Tuskin Show is live Monday through Friday 8 to 10pm est.
Suspicious Words and Phrases Alert! Drug War Facts, DEA Corruption, CIA Conspiracy, Who’s Who in the Drug Running Business, Untraceable Cash and the Reason the War on Drugs is just another War-by-Design.
One of the more extreme government abuses of the post-9/11 era targets U.S. citizens re-entering their own country, and it has received far too little attention. With no oversight or legal framework whatsoever, the Department of Homeland Security routinely singles out individuals who are suspected of no crimes, detains them and questions them at the airport, often for hours, when they return to the U.S. after an international trip, and then copies and even seizes their electronic devices (laptops, cameras, cellphones) and other papers (notebooks, journals, credit card receipts), forever storing their contents in government files. No search warrant is needed for any of this. No oversight exists. And there are no apparent constraints on what the U.S. Government can do with regard to whom it decides to target or why.
In an age of international travel — where large numbers of citizens, especially those involved in sensitive journalism and activism, frequently travel outside the country — this power renders the protections of the Fourth Amendment entirely illusory. By virtue of that amendment, if the government wants to search and seize the papers and effects of someone on U.S. soil, it must (with some exceptions) first convince a court that there is probable cause to believe that the objects to be searched relate to criminal activity and a search warrant must be obtained. But now, none of those obstacles — ones at the very heart of the design of the Constitution — hinders the U.S. government: now, they can just wait until you leave the country, and then, at will, search, seize and copy all of your electronic files on your return. That includes your emails, the websites you’ve visited, the online conversations you’ve had, the identities of those with whom you’ve communicated, your cell phone contacts, your credit card receipts, film you’ve taken, drafts of documents you’re writing, and anything else that you store electronically: which, these days, when it comes to privacy, means basically everything of worth.
This government abuse has received some recent attention in the context of WikiLeaks. Over the past couple of years, any American remotely associated with that group — or even those who have advocated on behalf of Bradley Manning — have been detained at the airport and had their laptops, cellphones and cameras seized: sometimes for months, sometimes forever. But this practice usually targets people having nothing to do with WikiLeaks.
A 2011 FOIA request from the ACLU revealed that just in the 18-month period beginning October 1, 2008, more than 6,600 people — roughly half of whom were American citizens — were subjected to electronic device searches at the border by DHS, all without a search warrant. Typifying the target of these invasive searches is Pascal Abidor, a 26-year-old dual French-American citizen and an Islamic Studies Ph.D. student who was traveling from Montreal to New York on an Amtrak train in 2011 when he was stopped at the border, questioned by DHS agents, handcuffed, taken off the train and kept in a holding cell for several hours before being released without charges; those DHS agents seized his laptop and returned it 11 days later when, the ACLU explains, “there was evidence that many of his personal files, including research, photos and chats with his girlfriend, had been searched.” That’s just one case of thousands, all without any oversight, transparency, legal checks, or any demonstration of wrongdoing.
* * * * *
But the case of Laura Poitras, an Oscar-and Emmy-nominated filmmaker and intrepid journalist, is perhaps the most extreme. In 2004 and 2005, Poitras spent many months in Iraq filming a documentary that, as The New York Times put it in its review, “exposed the emotional toll of occupation on Iraqis and American soldiers alike.” The film, “My Country, My Country,” focused on a Sunni physician and 2005 candidate for the Iraqi Congress as he did things like protest the imprisonment of a 9-year-old boy by the U.S. military. At the time Poitras made this film, Iraqi Sunnis formed the core of the anti-American insurgency and she spent substantial time filming and reporting on the epicenter of that resistance. Poitras’ film was released in 2006 and nominated for the 2007 Academy Award for Best Documentary.
In 2010, she produced and directed “The Oath,” which chronicled the lives of two Yemenis caught up in America’s War on Terror: Salim Hamdan, the accused driver of Osama bin Laden whose years-long imprisonment at Guantanamo led to the 2006 Supreme Court case, bearing his name, that declared military commissions to be a violation of domestic and international law; and Hamdan’s brother-in-law, a former bin Laden bodyguard. The film provides incredible insight into the mindset of these two Yemenis. TheNYT feature on “The Oath” stated that, along with “My Country, My Country,” Poitras has produced ”two of the most searching documentaries of the post-9/11 era, on-the-ground chronicles that are sensitive to both the political and the human consequences of American foreign policy.” At the 2010 Sundance film festival, “The Oath” won the award for Best Cinematography.
Poitras’ intent all along with these two documentaries was to produce a trilogy of War on Terror films, and she is currently at work on the third installment. As Poitras described it to me, this next film will examine the way in which The War on Terror has been imported onto U.S. soil, with a focus on the U.S. Government’s increasing powers of domestic surveillance, its expanding covert domestic NSA activities (includingconstruction of a massive new NSA facility in Bluffdale, Utah), its attacks on whistleblowers, and the movement to foster government transparency and to safeguard Internet anonymity. In sum, Poitras produces some of the best, bravest and most important filmmaking and journalism of the past decade, often exposing truths that are adverse to U.S. government policy, concerning the most sensitive and consequential matters (a 2004 film she produced for PBS on gentrification of an Ohio town won the Peabody Award and was nominated for an Emmy).
But Poitras’ work has been hampered, and continues to be hampered, by the constant harassment, invasive searches, and intimidation tactics to which she is routinely subjected whenever she re-enters her own country. Since the 2006 release of “My Country, My Country,” Poitras has left and re-entered the U.S. roughly 40 times. Virtually every timeduring that six-year-period that she has returned to the U.S., her plane has been met by DHS agents who stand at the airplane door or tarmac and inspect the passports of every de-planing passenger until they find her (on the handful of occasions where they did not meet her at the plane, agents were called when she arrived at immigration). Each time, they detain her, and then interrogate her at length about where she went and with whom she met or spoke. They have exhibited a particular interest in finding out for whom she works.
She has had her laptop, camera and cellphone seized, and not returned for weeks, with the contents presumably copied. On several occasions, her reporter’s notebooks were seized and their contents copied, even as she objected that doing so would invade her journalist-source relationship. Her credit cards and receipts have been copied on numerous occasions. In many instances, DHS agents also detain and interrogate her in the foreign airport before her return, on one trip telling her that she would be barred from boarding her flight back home, only to let her board at the last minute. When she arrived at JFK Airport on Thanksgiving weekend of 2010, she was told by one DHS agent — after she asserted her privileges as a journalist to refuse to answer questions about the individuals with whom she met on her trip — that he “finds it very suspicious that you’re not willing to help your country by answering our questions.” They sometimes keep her detained for three to four hours (all while telling her that she will be released more quickly if she answers all their questions and consents to full searches).
Poitras is now forced to take extreme steps — ones that hamper her ability to do her work — to ensure that she can engage in her journalism and produce her films without the U.S. Government intruding into everything she is doing. She now avoids traveling with any electronic devices. She uses alternative methods to deliver the most sensitive parts of her work — raw film and interview notes — to secure locations. She spends substantial time and resources protecting her computers with encryption and password defenses. Especially when she is in the U.S., she avoids talking on the phone about her work, particularly to sources. And she simply will not edit her films at her home out of fear — obviously well-grounded — that government agents will attempt to search and seize the raw footage.
That’s the climate of fear created by the U.S. Government for an incredibly accomplished journalist and filmmaker who has never been accused, let alone convicted, of any wrongdoing whatsoever. Indeed,documents obtained from a FOIA request show that DHS has repeatedly concluded that nothing incriminating was found from its border searches and interrogations of Poitras. Nonetheless, these abuses not only continue, but escalate, after six years of constant harassment.
* * * * *
Poitras has been somewhat reluctant to speak publicly about the treatment to which she is subjected for fear that doing so would further impede her ability to do her work (the NYT feature on “The Oath” included some discussion of it). But the latest episode, among the most aggressive yet, has caused her to want to vociferously object.
On Thursday night, Poitras arrived at Newark International Airport from Britain. Prior to issuing her a boarding pass in London, the ticket agent called a Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agent (Yost) who questioned her about whom she met and what she did. Upon arriving in Newark, DHS/CBP agents, as always, met her plane, detained her, and took her to an interrogation room. Each time this has happened in the past, Poitras has taken notes during the entire process: in order to chronicle what is being done to her, document the journalistic privileges she asserts and her express lack of consent, obtain the names of the agents involved, and just generally to cling to some level of agency.
This time, however, she was told by multiple CBP agents that she was prohibited from taking notes on the ground that her pen could be used as a weapon. After she advised them that she was a journalist and that her lawyer had advised her to keep notes of her interrogations, one of them, CBP agent Wassum, threatened to handcuff her if she did not immediately stop taking notes. A CBP Deputy Chief (Lopez) also told her she was barred from taking notes, and then accused her of “refusing to cooperate with an investigation” if she continued to refuse to answer their questions (he later clarified that there was no “investigation” per se, but only a “questioning”). Requests for comment from the CBP were not returned as of the time of publication.
Just consider the cumulative effect of this six years of harrassment and invasion. Poitras told me that it is “very traumatizing to come home to your own country and have to go through this every time,”and described the detentions, interrogations and threats as “infuriating,” “horrible” and “intimidating.” She told me that she now “hates to travel” and avoids international travel unless it is absolutely necessary for her work. And as she pointed out, she is generally more protected than most people subjected to similar treatment by virtue of the fact that she is a known journalist with both knowledge of her rights and the ability to publicize what is done to her. Most others are far less able to resist these sorts of abuses. But even for someone in Poitras’ position, this continuous unchecked government invasion is chilling in both senses of the word: it’s intimidating in its own right, and deters journalists and others from challenging government conduct.
* * * * *
As is true for so many abuses of the Surveillance State and assaults on basic liberties in the post-9/11 era, federal courts have almost completely abdicated their responsibility to serve as a check on these transgressions. Instead, federal judges have repeatedly endorsed the notion that the U.S. Government can engage in the most invasive border searches of citizens, including seizures and copying of laptops, without any reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing whatsoever, let alone probable cause.
That has happened in part because federal courts have become extremely submissive to assertions of Executive authority in the post-9/11 era, particularly when justified in the name of security. It’s also in part because anyone with a record of anti-authoritarianism or a willingness to oppose unrestrained government power, with very rare exception, can no longer get appointed to the federal bench; instead, it’s an increasingly homogeneous lot with demonstrated fealty to institutional authority. And it’s also in part because many life-tenured federal judges have been cloistered on the bench for decades, are technologically illiterate, and thus cannot apprehend the basic difference between having your suitcase searched at the airport and having the contents of your laptop and cellphone copied and stored by the U.S. Government.
One potentially important and encouraging exception to this trend was a ruling two weeks ago by U.S. District Judge Denise Casper, an Obama-appointed judge in the District of Massachusetts. As I’ve reported previously, David House, an activist who helped found the Bradley Manning Support Network, was detained by DHS when returning from a vacation in Mexico and had all of his electronic devices, including his laptop, seized; those devices were returned to him after almost two months only after he retained the ACLU of Massachusetts to demand their return. The ACLU then represented him in a lawsuit he commenced against the U.S. Government, alleging that his First and Fourth Amendment rights were violated by virtue of being targeted for his political speech and advocacy.
The DOJ demanded dismissal of the lawsuit, citing the cases approving of its power to search without suspicion, and also claimed that House was targeted not because of his political views but because of his connection to the criminal investigation of Manning and WikiLeaks. But the court refused to dismiss House’s lawsuit, holding that if he were indeed targeted by virtue of his protected activities, then his Constitutional rights have been violated:
Before even questioning House, the agents seized his electronic devices and in seizing them for forty-nine days, reviewed, retained, copied and disseminated information about the Support Network. Although the agents may not need to have any particularized suspicion for the initial search and seizure at the border for the purpose of the Fourth Amendment analysis, it does not necessarily follow that the agents, as is alleged in the complaint, may seize personal electronic devices containing expressive materials, target someone for their political association and seize his electronic devices and review the information pertinent to that association and its members and supporters simply because the initial search occurred at the border. . . .
When agents Santiago and Louck stopped House while he was en route to his connecting flight, they directed him to surrender the electronic devices he was carrying. They questioned him for an extended period of time only after seizing his devices. When the agents questioned House, they did not ask him any questions related to border control, customs, trade, immigration, or terrorism and did not suggest that House had broken the law or that his computer may contain illegal material or contraband. Rather, their questions focused solely on his association with Manning, his work for the Support Network, whether he had any connections to WikiLeaks, and whether he had contact with anyone from WikiLeaks during his trip to Mexico. Thus, the complaint alleges that House was not randomly stopped at the border; it alleges that he was stopped and questioned solelyto examine the contents of his laptop that contained expressive material and investigate his association with the Support Network and Manning. . . .
That the initial search and seizure occurred at the border does not strip House of his First Amendment rights, particularly given the allegations in the complaint that he was targeted specifically because of his association with the Support Network and the search of his laptop resulted in the disclosure of the organizations, members, supporters donors as well as internal organization communications that House alleges will deter further participation in and support of the organization. Accordingly, the Defendants’ motion to dismiss House’s First Amendment claim is DENIED. [emphasis added]
As Kevin Gosztola notes in an excellent report on this ruling, the court — although it dubiously found that “the search of House’s laptop and electronic devices is more akin to the search of a suitcase and other closed containers holding personal information travelers carry with them when they cross the border which may be routinely inspected by customs and require no particularized suspicion” – also ruled that the length of time DHS retained House’s laptop (six weeks) may render the search and seizure unreasonable in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
But thus far, very few efforts have been made to restrain this growing government power. More than a year ago, Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez described to me legislation she proposed just to impose someminimal rules and safeguards governing what DHS can do at the airport, but it’s gone nowhere. A much stronger bill, proposed by then-Sen. Feingold, would have barred laptop seizures entirely without a search warrant, but it suffered the same fate. Apparently, the Small Government faction calling itself the “Tea Party” has no greater interest in restraining this incredibly invasive government power than the Democratic Party which loves to boast of its commitment to individual rights.
It’s hard to overstate how oppressive it is for the U.S. Government to be able to target journalists, film-makers and activists and, without a shred of suspicion of wrongdoing, learn the most private and intimate details about them and their work: with whom they’re communicating, what is being said, what they’re reading. That’s a radical power for a government to assert in general. When it starts being applied not randomly, but to people engaged in activism and journalism adverse to the government, it becomes worse than radical: it’s the power of intimidation and deterrence against those who would challenge government conduct in any way. The ongoing, and escalating, treatment of Laura Poitras is a testament to how severe that abuse is.
If you’re not somebody who films the devastation wrought by the U.S. on the countries it attacks, or provides insight into Iraqi occupation opponents and bin Laden loyalists in Yemen, or documents expanding NSA activities on U.S. soil, then perhaps you’re unlikely to be subjected to such abuses and therefore perhaps unlikely to care much. As is true for all states that expand and abuse their own powers, that’s what the U.S. Government counts on: that it is sending the message that none of this will affect you as long as you avoid posing any meaningful challenges to what they do. In other words: you can avoid being targeted if you passively acquiesce to what they do and refrain from interfering in it. That’s precisely what makes it so pernicious, and why it’s so imperative to find a way to rein it in.
The Department of Homeland Security monitors your updates on social networks, including Facebook and Twitter, to uncover “Items Of Interest” (IOI), according to an internal DHS document released by the EPIC. That document happens to include a list of the baseline terms for which the DHS–or more specifically, a DHS subcontractor hired to monitor social networks–use to generate real-time IOI reports. (Although the released PDF is generally all reader-selectable text, the list of names was curiously embedded as an image of text, preventing simple indexing. We’ve fixed that below.)
To be fair, the DHS does have an internal privacy policy that attempts to strip your “PII”–Personally Identifiable Information–from the aggregated tweets and status updates, with some broad exceptions:
1) U.S. and foreign individuals in extremis situations involving potential life or death circumstances; (this is no change)
2) Senior U.S. and foreign government officials who make public statements or provide public updates;
3) U.S. and foreign government spokespersons who make public statements or provide public updates;
4) U.S. and foreign private sector officials and spokespersons who make public statements or provide public updates;
5) Names of anchors, newscasters, or on-scene reporters who are known or identified as reporters in their post or article or who use traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed;
6) Current and former public officials who are victims of incidents or activities related to Homeland Security; and
7) Terrorists, drug cartel leaders or other persons known to have been involved in major crimes of Homeland Security interest, (e.g., mass shooters such as those at Virginia Tech or Ft. Hood) who are killed or found dead.
In addition, the Media Monitoring Capability team can transmit personal information to the DHS National Operations Center over the phone as deemed necessary.
The MMC watch may provide the name, position, or other information considered to be PII to the NOC over the telephone when approved by the appropriate DHS OPS authority. But that information must not be stored in a database that could be searched by an individual’s PII.
In addition to the following list of terms, the DHS can also add additional search terms circumstantially as deemed necessary.
DHS Media Monitoring Terms

2.13 Key Words & Search Terms
This is a current list of terms that will be used by the NOC when monitoring social media sites to provide situational awareness and establish a common operating picture. As natural or manmade disasters occur, new search terms may be added.
The new search terms will not use PII in searching for relevant
mission-related information.
Glenn Greenwald has a horrifying look at the repeated harassment to which filmmaker Laura Poitras, who has made a series of powerful documentaries about the impact of the War on Terror, has been subject when she’s returned home to the United States from trips abroad:
She has had her laptop, camera and cellphone seized, and not returned for weeks, with the contents presumably copied. On several occasions, her reporter’s notebooks were seized and their contents copied, even as she objected that doing so would invade her journalist-source relationship. Her credit cards and receipts have been copied on numerous occasions. In many instances, DHS agents also detain and interrogate her in the foreign airport before her return, on one trip telling her that she would be barred from boarding her flight back home, only to let her board at the last minute. When she arrived at JFK Airport on Thanksgiving weekend of 2010, she was told by one DHS agent — after she asserted her privileges as a journalist to refuse to answer questions about the individuals with whom she met on her trip — that he “finds it very suspicious that you’re not willing to help your country by answering our questions.” They sometimes keep her detained for three to four hours (all while telling her that she will be released more quickly if she answers all their questions and consents to full searches).
Poitras is now forced to take extreme steps — ones that hamper her ability to do her work — to ensure that she can engage in her journalism and produce her films without the U.S. Government intruding into everything she is doing. She now avoids traveling with any electronic devices. She uses alternative methods to deliver the most sensitive parts of her work — raw film and interview notes — to secure locations. She spends substantial time and resources protecting her computers with encryption and password defenses. Especially when she is in the U.S., she avoids talking on the phone about her work, particularly to sources. And she simply will not edit her films at her home out of fear — obviously well-grounded — that government agents will attempt to search and seize the raw footage.
The New York Times did a wonderful interview with Poitras as part of its September 11 coverage last year:
Apparently, it’s threatening to set up a continuum of reactions to the War on Terror that includes both Americans’ emotional reactions to the physical reality of Ground Zero and opponents of the U.S. occupation who are running for office in Iraq. Or perhaps Poitras’s sin is suggesting that things like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan torture and indefinite detention…”are the things that were not created on 9/11. Those are things that we chose.” Because if we chose them, we can roll them back.
Creating sympathy for people who are harmed by our actions and suggesting we take responsibility for our own are just some of the powerful things that art can do. But confusing ideas that are dangerous to your interests—for example, the suggestion that the huge growth of our security state haven’t reaped us tangible benefits and may in fact have done some damage—and dangerous to the country is a mistake intelligent people out to be ashamed to make. Greenwald points out that DHS concluded that their interrogations of Poitras had produced nothing of value, and yet continued to perform them. Maybe those agencies should answer some questions about what they expect to get next time around, and why harassing Poitras is a valuable use of their time. It’s a far milder query than the ones Poitras is being interrogated for posing.
HSI is a new directorate within the Immigration and Customs Enforcement service. Formed in September, its agents are responsible for investigating large-scale international crime, such as narcotics or arms smuggling, human trafficking, money laundering and any form of terrorism. They also defend against the illegal appropriation and exporting of technology that is crucial to U.S. security.
“In other words we’re looking for illegal activity that is crossing the border into the country or crossing the border out of the country,” Pino says.
The HSI Special Response Team serves warrants and apprehends international criminals considered too dangerous for other law enforcement to go up against.
“A lot of these criminal organizations are very well-armed, very well-funded and some of them may come from military backgrounds in their home countries,” Pino says.
While its name is new, the response team can be traced to the 1980s, before the Department of Homeland Security existed.
“It started here in Miami, in the old cocaine cowboy days,” HSI Special Agent in Charge Mike Shea says. “This is the oldest and best tactical entry team in the country. High-risk entry is the core mission.”
HSI consists of more than 10,000 employees, including 6,700 special agents, who are assigned to more than 200 U.S. cities and 47 countries .
A relatively monstrous SWAT style truck leads us to a whole new blob of police state developments, busy hands with little to do and a lot of hardware to do it. It’s yet another plateau of mad new security bureaucracy, something in this case I was loosely aware of tectonic plates moving, but a little digging revealed quite a nasty new nucleus. Let’s plow in and see what was beta-tested through the willingness of politicians to throw money at repressing immigrants. The results begin with big, black scary trucks. And the biggest intelligence group inside the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and more. Surprise!
What in the hell is the Special Response Team, why do they have eight of these things? etc. What turns up is an entirely new nasty agency gestating with Immigration & Customs Enforcement, from the burbling mass of confused federal police… a new team emerges. With exciting competitions and lurid ways of guarding the Super Bowl from Terrorist Attack – a National Special Security Event. The wikipedia page outlines the bizarre weave of this particular bureaucratic nucleus. And the List of special response units on the ol Wiki shows a spreading motif — but this Homeland Security super-swat is perhaps the swattiest of all.
HSI SRT Training to jump off shiny new helicopters to save the Super Bowl in Miami – yayyyy!!
(this is why your schools/bridges are crumbling, America, the purposeless authoritarian spectacle at its finest ;)
This recently reorganized, months-old ICE Homeland Security Investigations (formerly known as ICE Office of Investigations) should really be on the radar of anyone because this year they are apparently ‘filling in the gaps for the Secret Service’ at NSSEs like G20, NATO summits and the Republican and Democratic national conventions. (unfortunately the Secret Service is now a part of DHS, not Treasury.) The Federal Protective Service, which likes to take photos around the Twin Cities (see my 2010 Fort Snelling Undercover Fail video, classic times) is now part of some weird directorate but briefly passed through ICE after being removed from the General Services Administration.
The HSI Special Response Teams are seemingly the top layer of a lot of things, from the war on terror / war on drugs motif, to the Super Bowl, to whatever the hell they are planning to do to immigrants on the I-5 near LA, which was where this pic was taken according to Copblock. ICE has a large number of staff on the Joint Terrorism Task Forces that do statistic-generating police state busywork around the country, and interestingly this HSI group is now officially becoming publicly distinguished from the rest of ICE — and the theory of course is HSI would be spun out of ICE to become a freestanding ‘directorate’, a more modern and insane paramilitary FBI or whatever.
I wonder if the Secure Communities biometric collection program which was forced upon all counties in Minnesota, regardless of state & local wishes, would feed citizens’ data into HSI…. just like the monstrous truck above, now moving more into the “non immigrant” category of freeform federal police activity. Perhaps they shall do some serious black ops against occupier groups angling to get to the conventions? Nevar!
Wikipedia:
The Special Agents of HSI use their broad legal authority to investigate and combat a range of issues that threaten the national security of the United Statessuch as strategic crimes, human rights violations, human smuggling, art theft,human trafficking, drug smuggling, arms trafficking and other types of smuggling(including weapons of mass destruction), immigration crimes, gang investigations; financial crimes including money laundering, bulk cash smuggling, financial fraud, and trade based money laundering; terrorism, computer crimes including the international trafficking of child pornography over the Internet, intellectual property rights crimes (trafficking of counterfeit trademark protected merchandise), cultural property crimes (theft and smuggling of antiquities and art), and import/export enforcement issues. HSI special agents conduct investigations aimed at protecting critical infrastructure industries that are vulnerable to sabotage, attack or exploitation.[8] HSI special agents also provide security details for VIPs, witness protection, and support the U.S. Secret Service’s mission during overtaxed times such as special-security events and protecting candidates running for U.S. president.
HSI was formerly known as the ICE Office of Investigations (OI). HSI Special Agents have legal authority to enforce the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act (Title 8), U.S. Customs Laws (Title 19), along with Titles 5, 6, 12, 18 (Federal Criminal Code and Rules), 21 (drugs), 22, 26, 28, 31 (exclusive jurisdiction over Money and Finance investigations), 46, 49, and 50 (War and National Defense) statutes; giving them the broadest federal law enforcement jurisdiction of any agency. HSI has more than 8,500 Special Agents, making it the second largest federal law enforcement and criminal investigative agency within the United States government next to the FBI.
The change of names from ICE OI to HSI was announced in June 2010. Part of the reasoning behind the name change was to better describe the general activities of the agency, and to avoid the uninformed stigma that this agency only investigates immigration-related issues (ex. OI/HSI special agents duties were often mistaken by the public, other LE agencies and the media to mirror ERO agents/officers). HSI does have a public relations problem. Its the second largest investigatory agency, but the general public has never heard of it. ICE held it close to the belt and until recently, didn’t publicly make the distinction as TSA does with Federal Air Marshals and CBP does with Border Patrol. In 2012, ICE and HSI have mandated a public distinction be made between both organizations. Most often news reports bury HSI’s efforts as “immigrations agents” or as ICE efforts, and frequently Department of Justice and US Attorney’s Office press releases of HSI-led investigations get spun up to sound like DOJ or FBI investigations that received assistance from local partners and ICE.
The name change to HSI better reflects that it is the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s primary investigative body, and as a result, its thought that someday it will be pulled out from under the ICE umbrella and stand independent under the DHS. An obscure fact is the original planned name before settling on ICE was the Bureau of Investigations and Criminal Enforcement, but the brothers at the FBI didn’t approve and made their complaints heard.
Intelligence
Intelligence is a subcomponent of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). The Office of Intelligence uses its Intelligence Research Specialists for the collection, analysis, and dissemination of strategic and tactical intelligence data for use by the operational elements of ICE and DHS. Consequently, the Office of Intelligence works closely with the Central Intelligence Agency, IRS the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
International Affairs
IA is a subcomponent of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). The Office of International Affairs, with agents in over 60 locations around the world, represents DHS’ broadest footprint beyond US borders. ICE Attaché offices work with foreign counterparts to identify and combat transnational criminal organizations before they threaten the United States. IA also facilitates domestic HSI investigations.
Oh good, the CIA and FBI together at last… (and let’s not forget the ICE/DHS network of detention facilities: Detention Facilities official front page- what is the HSI role for something like that applied to – somehow – non-immigrants?)
The ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) directorate is a critical asset in the ICE mission, responsible for investigating a wide range of domestic and international activities arising from the illegal movement of people and goods into, within and out of the United States.
HSI investigates immigration crime, human rights violations and human smuggling, smuggling of narcotics, weapons and other types of contraband, financial crimes, cybercrime and export enforcement issues. ICE special agents conduct investigations aimed at protecting critical infrastructure industries that are vulnerable to sabotage, attack or exploitation.
In addition to ICE criminal investigations, HSI oversees the agency’s international affairs operations and intelligence functions. HSI consists of more than 10,000 employees, consisting of 6,700 special agents, who are assigned to more than 200 cities throughout the U.S. and 47 countries around the world.
Report suspicious activity. Complete our tip form…..
HSI conducts criminal investigations against terrorist and other criminal organizations who threaten national security. HSI combats worldwide criminal enterprises who seek to exploit America’s legitimate trade, travel and financial systems and enforces America’s customs and immigration laws at and beyond our nation’s borders.
HSI comprises six key divisions:
-Domestic Operations
-Intelligence
-International Affairs
-Investigative Programs
-Mission Support
-National Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Coordination Center
The official page for the HSI Special Agent in Charge Field Offices of which there are 26:
Homeland Security Investigations has 26 Special Agent in Charge (SAC) principal field offices throughout the United States. The SAC offices are responsible for the administration and management of all investigative and enforcement activities within the geographic boundaries of the office. The SACs develop, coordinate, and implement enforcement strategies to ensure conformance with national policies and procedures and to support national intelligence programs. SACs coordinate law enforcement activities with the highest level of Federal, state, and local governments, as well as intelligence organizations and international law enforcement entities. In addition, SACs supervise all administrative responsibilities assigned to the office and ensure a responsive Internal Controls Program is developed.
To efficiently manage their designated geographic regions, SAC offices maintain various subordinate field offices throughout their areas of responsibility, which support the enforcement mission. These subordinate field offices, Deputy Special Agents in Charge (DSAC), Assistant Special Agents in Charge (ASAC), Resident Agents in Charge (RAC) and Resident Agents (RA), are responsible for managing enforcement activities within the geographic boundaries of the office.
SAC Minneapolis/St. Paul
2901 Metro Drive, Suite 100
Bloomington, MN 55425
Main (952) 853-2940
Fax (612) 313-9045
If you search for 2901 Metro Drive Suite 100 that is the same office for other immigration, ICE & Homeland Security sub-offices.
These guys also have the completely insane National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center, a hearty reminder that the kafkaesque nature of what they call “intellectual property” combined with bureaucratic bloatware budget and an aggressively fascist private industry-friendly design, can truly combine to make one of the most awful, yet admittedly bold, authoritarian government logos of all time. Our Partner Agencies — National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center
It’s almost enough to make you believe that swat teams could control all the memes they want, and even maybe the copy and paste commands too!
These are like a new branch of goons yet to be accounted for: HSI-Intel.
The ICE Homeland Security Investigations Intelligence Office (HSI-Intel) is a robust intelligence force that supports the enforcement needs of ICE’s executive leadership and operational field units.
Cutting edge technology, complex intelligence gathering tools, multifaceted investigative techniques and a high level of professionalism have enabled HSI-Intel to set the standard for federal law enforcement/intelligence agencies.
HSI-Intel also serves as home to the National Incident Response Unit (NIRU). This unit ensures that ICE is prepared to respond to national emergencies or critical events, including natural disasters, disease pandemics and terrorist attacks. NIRU plans for ICE’s continuity of operations before, during and after catastrophic incidents. During these incidents, NIRU serves as the agency’s central communications “nerve center,” coordinating the sharing of information between ICE components and other federal, state and local agencies. …..
HSI-Intel collects, analyzes and shares strategic and tactical data for use by DHS and ICE leadership and operational units. It also supports federal, state, local, tribal and international law enforcement partners.
HSI-Intel’s analysis and targeting information plays a vital role in supporting investigations related to illegal immigration, terrorism, weapons proliferation, war crimes, financial crimes, trade fraud, drug smuggling, human smuggling and trafficking, child sex tourism and other criminal activities.
I am sure they will figure out how all that drug money gets through the Federal Reserve Bank computer systems one of these days.
As far as I can tell, the following picture is not some satirical fan-boy art piece come to life. And those fonts…. christ! It looks like you can clearly see the ‘investigations’ part on there.
What about the Office of Investigations Special Response Team? Looks like we’ve found #8 and #10 so far. Both manilla and black color schemas.
Alright lets move this along & get these links out there.I found #9 for the Los Angeles set in Flickr user DFP2746 (plz forgive remixing a part of the images, you intellectual property fusion center types) Source: Homeland Security MRAP / DHS/ICE Special Response Team | Flickr – DFP2746
This is getting to be like Pokemon… my SRT trucks. Let me show you them…
A ICE Special Response Team (S.R.T.), an elite tactical unit attached to the Department of Homeland Security, deployed to New Orleans equipped with Zensah (http://www.zensah.com/tactical.html) tactical gear. By wearing Zensah moisture wicking tactical clothing, ICE special response team members receive a first line of defense against hazardous conditions found in the Gulf Coast areas affected by Hurricane Katrina.
ICE special response team members are in the affected areas to save lives, to protect lives, and to provide security to the recovery effort. ICEÂs primary objectives are to support authorities in securing New Orleans and other affected communities and to provide security to federal rescue and recovery efforts.
….The ICE Special Response Team is an elite tactical team for the office of investigations under the Department of Homeland Security in Miami, Florida. Duties and responsibilities include search and arrests warrants, maritime interdiction, customs and immigration enforcement. For more information pleas visit http://www.ice.gov
MOAR GUNS:Tactical-Life.com » THE U.S. ICE MEN: The ICE Special Responders cometh bringing high-speed efficiency and low-drag force as required! “ICE also maintains five additional certified SRT units that are managed by ICE Detention and Operations.” … not sure if they mean 5 or 6 SRTs total. “the U.S. Customs Service evolved into a very progressive and highly successful interdiction and investigative agency. Due to the number of high-risk enforcement actions being executed on a regular basis, the U.S. Customs Service decided to establish a tactical unit called the WETT (Warrant Entry Tactical Team). In time, the U.S. Customs Service changed the name of its tactical team to the Special Response Team.”
Gunfire a regular occurrence for ICE employees | California Watch. This has the following govt-produced pic, look how big that damn truck is. We can’t see the apparent city-like (SAC?) insignia on the side or which number it has. It was at this Fort Benning GA training they blather about.
Another benefit of filling up society with needless paramilitary organizations is random accidental gunfire. Nice. “Roughly 80 ICE-involved shootings were unintentional and often involved agents dropping, cleaning or reaching for their guns, records show. The guns, in many cases, discharged in offices, government vehicles or during target practice. ”
[ OKC Tangent. One other note — In the Oklahoma City case I think Terry Nichols tried to tip off these Homeland Security types to a stash of explosives he’d obtained from FBI-friendly weapons dealer and Contra player Roger Moore. I don’t have that info on hand here but it’s around (notes on that ). It failed because some mafia guy snitched to the FBI — the FBI has a pretty careful info cage around Nichols because of the informant-saturated nature of OKC he likes to talk about. This went down in like 2005. (Source of FBI Delay on Terry Nichols Explosives etc) So the idea is if the DOJ/FBI had a specific scheme such as OKC you could get around them through HSI. There’s more to all of this, don’t have the notes here, but there have been developments in recent weeks, search ‘Jesse Trentadue’.. ]
Conclusions? In any case it’s good to know who the ‘filler goons’ are for NSSE campaigns of state-sponsored violence and insanity, of which 3.5 are scheduled for Chicago/Camp David, RNC & DNC this year, (along with the all important national sporting events), and ICE’s new spawn HSI and the HSI SRT giant trucks will soon be a fixture at high profile gigs. There were weird Border Patrol Swat types at the 2009 G20 – See TC Indymedia Exclusive: Secret ‘Trigger’ & blueprint for emergency domestic military crackdown plan revealed – BORTAC is that team. And who knows what they might do with good ol’ FEMA.
What to expect: HSI’s avid effort to become a domestic Swiss army knife of police activity between IRS, CIA and FBI; another layer on the Joint Terrorism Task Force cake and a free-wheeling institution in its own right, combined with a few new flashy PR initiatives (a high profile bust of a little fish or 2 perhaps, etc) in order to carry out the planned ‘branding’ of HSI.
Perhaps we can just shut it down and use the borrowed debt ‘money’ we save to be less permanently indebted to the banker police state… borrowed money to build out echelons of mass suppression is always a grim spectacle. Imagine what we could have done with the wasted resources instead. Now we know which new goonsquad will get the biometrics data from Secure Communities.
And of course, who better to ‘manage’ the war on drugs than the organizational descendant of the ‘cocaine cowboys’ and the 1980s task forces which helped pass through planeload after planeload of cocaine? That era’s keywords, Barry Seal, aviation fronts like Vortex, Southern Air Transport, Evergreen, Polar Air Cross and Air America (some still thriving), operations like AMADEUS, PEGASUS and WATCHTOWER, the quasi-privatized intelligence operations authorized under proclamations like Executive Order 12333 to facilitate the drugs-for-weapons smuggling… those were a few critical points of that era.
What awaits us next? How will HSI deal with the vast scale of financial corruption? What will they do? Who are they going to point the weapons at, and where are the trucks going? Chicago, Charlotte & Tampa… but first, LA, of course. For the immigrants.
The Department of Homeland security has just executed an order for enough rounds of 40 caliber ammunition to kill every man, woman and child in the United States.
The Intel Hub alerts us to a shocking new defense contract entered by the Department of Homeland Security to secure a massive amount of ammunition, with the option for infinite supply, infinite delivery.
ATK Awarded Contract to Supply 450 Million Rounds of .40 Caliber Ammunition to the Department of Homeland Security
ATK has secured a major Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity deal to supply up to 450 million rounds of .40 caliber ammunition to the Department of Homeland Security.
The 1 year contract with four option years comes at a time when many Americans believe that DHS, along with certain aspects of the military, will soon turn their sights on the American people during some sort of martial law scenario.
“We are proud to extend our track record as the prime supplier of .40 caliber duty ammunition for DHS, ICE,” said Ron Johnson, the president of ATK’s Security and Sporting group,” reported a PR Newswire release.
The Department of Homeland Security has been extremely busy in the last few months.
Whether it be mastering their surveillance of social media, planning to buildlevel 4 bio weapons labs in the middle of the country, defending Globalism,lying to Congress about their big brother policies, labeling people who believe in conspiracy theories as potential terrorists, or taking over cyber security, DHS seems to be actively working against the American people on every front.
Considering this, the fact that they are openly ordering millions more rounds of ammunition should at the very least give the American people pause.
As 2012 continues to move forward and the awakening of the sleeping giant that is the American people kicks into high gear, federal agencies seem hell bent to continue to gear up for a possible confrontation with the people of this once great country.
ATK ATK +0.25% announced that it is being awarded an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) agreement from the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (DHS, ICE) for .40 caliber ammunition. This contract features a base of 12 months, includes four option years, and will have a maximum volume of 450 million rounds.
ATK was the incumbent and won the contract with its HST bullet, which has proven itself in the field. The special hollow point effectively passes through a variety of barriers and holds its jacket in the toughest conditions. HST is engineered for 100-percent weight retention, limits collateral damage, and avoids over-penetration.
“We are proud to extend our track record as the prime supplier of .40 caliber duty ammunition for DHS, ICE,” said Ron Johnson, President of ATK’s Security and Sporting group. “The HST is a proven design that will continue to serve those who keep our borders safe.”
ATK will produce the ammunition at the Federal Cartridge Company facility in Anoka, Minn. Deliveries are expected to begin in June.
While just a “standard disclosure” the press release goes on to warn this is forward looking contract which may change based on a variety of factors, including economic conditions.
Among those factors are: changes in governmental spending, budgetary policies and product sourcing strategies; the company’s competitive environment; the terms and timing of awards and contracts; economic conditions; the supply, availability and costs of raw materials and components; or reliance on a key supplier.
Question: Who Needs .40 Caliber?
A newbie I know got a sudden hard-on for 40 cal. “It’s what the cops use,” he said. “It’s not as cheap as 9mm,” I pointed out, knowing that my ballistic buddy was going to be doing a LOT of shooting. “It’s also harder to manage the recoil, so you’ll probably going to be less accurate. And it doesn’t make as big a hole as a .45.” I didn’t get into the .40′s history: the whole post-1986 FBI shooting“we need a bigger caliber so how about we neck-down this 10mm cartridge” deal. I think I convinced him with this: “This isn’t Goldilocks and the Three Bears. There is no ‘just right’ caliber. Big holes (.45) or more filling (9mm); pick one.” Am I wrong?
Statistically speaking, Americans should be more fearful of the local cops than “terrorists.”
In order to help local police officers protect themselves while fighting the largely unsuccessful War on Drugs, the federal government passed legislation in 1994 allowing the Pentagon to donate surplus military equipment from the Cold War to local police departments. Meaning that “weaponry designed for use on a foreign battlefield has been handed over for use on American streets … against American citizens.”
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