Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Who was spying on California fire stations last month?

As I write, flames have charred much of my state. I haven't been directly affected, but people I know have been forced to evacuate. A friend's sister may have lost her home.

Fire officials now seem confident that the Orange County fire was an act of arson; other blazes may have a similar origin. The National Terror Alert Response Center cautiously discusses the possibility that the arsonists were terrorists.

One month ago, California Fire News published a fascinating story about suspicious activity around fire stations in Northern California:
During the last week of July, fire officials in the Bay Area city of Campbell reported that two men had been seen videotaping routine activities at a fire station.

The men were reportedly in their 20s or early 30s, and one was using a sophisticated news media-style camera.

When firefighters attempted to talk with the men, they reportedly jumped into a waiting car and sped off.

The incident prompted the Sacramento Regional Terrorism Threat Assessment Center to send out a request for Northern California fire stations to watch for similar incidents, and report them immediately.

The day the request went out, Sept. 6, a second, similar incident was reported at a fire station in Yuba City.

According to officials, a fire captain encountered two men parked outside the city’s main fire station. One of the men got out and allegedly began taking pictures of the fire station’s administration building. When the captain approached the men, to tell them they were in a no-parking zone, the photographer jumped in the vehicle and the men left.

The man who took the photos was described as being between 30 and 40 years of age.

On Sept. 12, Fresno Fire Department officials spotted two men in a vehicle allegedly observing activities at a fire training center. When questioned, the driver reportedly said they were just checking things out, then left immediately.

Two days later, on Sept. 14, personnel from the Sacramento Metro Fire Department noticed two men taking photos of a fire station. A third man sat in the back of a car, and appeared to be drawing or taking notes. When fire officials walked toward them, the two taking pictures jumped in the vehicle and sped away.

The men allegedly took pictures in front of the station, and in the rear. They ranged in age from late teens to about 60, officials recalled.
Did similar incidents occur in the southern part of the state? What useful info could an organized team of arsonists possibly gain from stake-outs of this sort? Why haven't the major media fastened onto this story?

I would note that the above paragraphs do not describe the suspicious men as being of Middle Eastern appearance.

Of course, I do not wish to engage in sensationalism. But we should not be afraid to discuss all possibilities.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

really,
i agree with above poster!

AitchD said...

Of all the reasons for the different men taking pictures, criminal reasons seem very far-fetched since the men had been discovered and observed, they weren't sneaking around or being 'covert'. Granted, there may have been many other similar incidents that weren't observed. We know that every year at this time forest fires break out in the Western states. Many years ago it was reported in the underground press that the US military had started such fires to destroy the season's marijuana crops, which are harvested in early fall -- the marijuana plant's growing season is April-September. Simon & Garfunkel's "April Come She Will" (1965) is a lovely song, no?

The several picture-taking incidents certainly are suspicious sounding; it sounds co-ordinated and extraordinary because everyone beat a hasty retreat. When I've travelled and shot pictures I answer to anyone who wants to know what I'm doing. My friend used my camera when he travelled to Ohio to take pictures of the Ohio National Guard's headquarters in 1975, including the commander's offices, during the trial about the 1970 Kent State shootings and killings. Those were also scary and suspicious times, and he wore his radical, outside-agitator appearance on both his sleeves and all over his head and face. No one bothered him despite his having a police record (he was a guerrilla disrupter at public hearings), and had been represented by William Kunstler in 1970. He also played master-level bridge with PA Governor Richard Thornburgh.

The fairly recent criminal convictions of members of the Earth Liberation Front -- charged as 'terrorists' -- in the Pacific Northwest, would lead some to believe that, under the Patriot Act, such picture-taking can be deemed 'terrorism', and the men can now be detained as 'enemy combatants' when they're rounded up. Everyone's starting to act more than a little crazy, no? In "Body Heat" Oscar says the cop business always starts hopping in weather like this, and Dante had advised abandoning all hope if you enter.

Anonymous said...

I sort of agree with the above posters, as well. It's strange how something horrific always seems to materialize just when the Bush administration really needs a major distraction.

Remember after the Katrina hurricane there were multiple reports of certain levees being bombed? Right when Donald Rumsfeld was lying through his teeth about Pat Tillman's assassination that bridge in MN conveniently fell.

Remember that 9/11 happened right when Enron was stealing all the headlines and just three days before the media consortium report telling us that Al Gore had actually won the 2000 election was slated to be released.

It all seems so Machiavellian.

Anonymous said...

Why didn't anyone get a plate number? Poor observers.

Anonymous said...

yeah, dicz, why was there no license plate number in all those observations??

one wonders if the reports themselves are even real, given the sexed up media these days.

i would, however, suggest naomi klein's 'shock doctrine' and her disaster capitalism thesis. these sorts of disasters have been playing right into the agenda of the creepos.

Anonymous said...

ok. call me highly suspicious, or downright tinfoil hat, BUT....

it just dawned on me, after commenting on this and the connection with naomi klein's disaster capitalism thesis (do read at least her article in last month's harper's)...

and now this article in salon on blackwater's determination to set up a HUGE training site in southern CA
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/10/23/blackwater_border/index_np.html
in order to position themselves to monitor our borders....

it would not surprise me in the least if this spate of fires is a major - and very very sick and EXTREMELY illegal - push on the part of blackwater to make itself 'needed' in that part of the country.

the fires, the borders, so many disasters, so much money and power, so little time...

mind you, i have no evidence whatsoever, and i fully acknowledge that. but, given the stakes and the history, i would not put it past them to pull something just like this.

when you don't get what you want, or when what you got is threatened, just bully your way through it. seems to be the blackwater motto.

Anonymous said...

I've seen a number of articles in the past year about increasing paranoia regarding photographers who are photographing buildings and public works from places where they can in theory legally stand. Lot of problems from security guards and police.

That said, if the pattern is the same over multiple sites (if it is true), that might be something to be concerned about.

I'd have thought that if it was terrorists who wanted to fuck things up, they'd have had set fires like this earlier, and more often.

Anonymous said...

Blackwater has been attempting to set up a center in the area of the fires. Public resistance has been mounting and there was a protest within the last few days. I wonder how much resistance there will be now with so many burned out?

Anonymous said...

Really glad I happened upon this discussion. I didn't know about the Blackwater angle -- but in the context of the Naomi Klein book, I was thinking what a convenient problem-reaction-solution scenario this is, not only for fear purposes, but economic ones as well. I would love for somebody to shoot the following idea full of holes:

The fires were started in areas that would mainly threaten the homes of wealthier people, no doubt with plenty of insurance, thereby in the longer run transferring a sizable chunk of wealth from the booming post-9/11 insurance market to the perilously declining housing market.

Any takers?

Anonymous said...

anon 3:20,

if anyone remembers the origins of the malibu fires from the 1990's, most of them were in fact deliberately started via sophisticated arson but the cause of those fires as "arson" was never publicized or properly investigated.

why would someone want to cause all these fires in So Cal?

The katrina effect:

1) destabilize so cal so that Gov Ahrnold declares a state of emergency and calls in blackwater to keep order

2) drug wars: notice the geographical location of the fires near San Diego/Mexico and Irvine. most likely the houses containing meth drug labs and organized crime "offices" got torched because a new "gang" or "group" wanted to takeover territory

3) notice that the fires took place in repug congressional districts in which "deals" and "kickbacks" have been hinted at

4) These fires are the latest attack to destabilize a large chunk of California so that a much bigger "federal presence" is needed to restore "order" and enable homeowners to get back on their feet

5) these fires keep the bigger headlines off the front pages like Bush's continued low ratings, the budget debacle caused by Iraq, the declining dollar and of course the damage done by Valerie Plame's interview and recent appearances on national shows such as 60 minutes sunday night

basically we're all screwed because the folks in power have a game plan to take control of this control and shift us into a police state which started with 9/11.

folks will be so preoccupied with the fires in So Cal that no one will notice when Cheney has his secret off the books forces provoke Iran into attacking us. We will never learn what cheney's forces did to provoke Iran's wrath because it simply will not be reported since Cheney's buddies own the media.

Anonymous said...

And the really big So-Cal fires all seem to occur in an odd year in October before an election year:

October 20th 1991 - Oakland *** October 27th 1993 - Laguna Beach *** October 25th, 2003 - Cedar Fire *** October 20th 2007 - San Diego, Malibu

C L I F Y L Q said...

CA FIRESTORM 2007 WAS SET BY AL QAEDA
http://clifylq.livejournal.com/63012.html

ANY QUESTIONS?

clifylq
http://clifylq.livejournal.com/