Friday, June 19, 2009

Protest = "Domestic terrorism" (Plus: more on von Brunn)

If you haven't seen it yet, you must read this story, which Corrente first brought to my attention.

This week, President Obama said -- vis-a-vis Iran -- that "Peaceful dissent should never be subject to violence."

Meanwhile, a Pentagon training manual describes protest rallies as "low-level terrorist activity."

So. All those protests and rallies and such that attended the downfall of the Soviet bloc: That was terrorism, right?

Our friend Antifascist has written a brilliant column about the Pentagon's stance.
Pretty ironic coming from a sprawling bureaucracy currently engaged in two aggressive wars of conquest for whom dropping a proverbial dime on unsuspecting goat herders or wedding parties is a walk in the park! Not to mention Joint Special Operations Command's "executive assassination ring" operating out of the former Vice President's office, who without so much as a by-your-leave, bumped-off official regime enemies.
The "terrorism" label is not just a matter of semantics. The Pentagon really does treat American dissenters as Enemy #1. Here's something most folks don't know:
As Antifascist Calling revealed in previous reports, the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team is now deployed inside the United States "under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the "service component" of U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM).

AFC also reported that since NORTHCOM's launch in 2002, it has been mired in controversy. Among its more dubious accomplishments were illegal domestic spying operations in conjunction with the Pentagon's shadowy Counter Intelligence Field Activity (CIFA). Before being run to ground, like many Defense Department intelligence operations, CIFA was heavily outsourced to security corporations. More than 900 employees out of a total work force of 1,300 were high-paid contractors.
Hey, but that was then. CIFA has been shut down. So everything is better now, right?
Despite CIFA's shut-down last year, its TALON database (Threat and Local Observation Notices), which contained hundreds of files on antiwar activists, was shunted over to the FBI for safekeeping in its Guardian database, one component of the Bureau's massive Investigative Data Warehouse.

Its a safe bet however, that the illegal collection of intelligence on domestic dissidents continues.
Oh.

Antifascist goes on to identify a number of anti-terrorism "institutes" which define terrorism with an elasticity worthy of Plastic Man. These organizations include The Institute of Terrorism Research and Response, a joint American-Israeli venture; Henley Putnam University, an online university staffed by a lot of former spooks; The Performance Institute, a think tank which has has new ideas about tracking sex offenders; and St. Petersburg College's Florida Regional Community Policing Institute, which teaches law enforcement personnel "identify the electronic tools and media which international and domestic terrorists use and the best practices identified for properly seizing computer hardware and peripherals."

Speaking of the sex offender thing:
Am I the only person suspicious of the report that kiddie porn was found on a computer belonging to James von Brunn, the aged neo-fascist accused of committing murder at the Holocaust Museum?

Please don't misunderstand: The man is contemptible. Sexual oddity in such individuals comes as no surprise. (Adolf himself made women defecate on him.) And it hardly seems likely that the cops would feel any need to "salt" the evidence against von Brunn.

But.

Evil as he is (and old as he is), von Brunn is not stupid, and he seems to have some sense of himself as the representative of a movement. As he set off for the Museum, he must have known that, before the day was out, the authorities would grab hold of his computer. Why would anyone leave pedo porn on a hard drive knowing that the feds would soon examine it? Why not just trash the drive?

It doesn't make sense.

5 comments:

Zee said...

Joseph, thanks for the links to these stories. (And I'm sure you noted that the first comment in the Smirking Chimp thread was from an Obot claiming that the Lightbring is treading a very careful and "intelligent" path and that the poster of that column should "shut the fuck up.")

I used to wonder how in Hell the gummint got away with all the new plans to "deal" with protesters. Under the guise of the Patriot Act, they kept developing weapons to deal with "crowd control." Didn't anyone ask what kind of "terrorists" come in crowds? American citizens protesting. All those stun guns and other "nonlethal" weapons would probably cause an uproar if it came out that they were tested on animals. But as it turns out, they probably were just tested on humans, such as the unfortunate girl killed by a taser in Boston after the Red Sox won.

Incidentally, it was the buffer zone given to women entering abortion clinics, to keep the antichoice protesters at bay, which paved the way to those ridiculous "free speech zones."

Oh, and I think the child porn angle is irrelevant. Why would they need to plant such a story? I think you are over-estimating the care an aging zealot would take to cover his tracks. His impulses and passions obviously overwhelm any meticulous attention to detail.

Zee said...

On the same note of a rising police state, where citizens are increasingly subject to surveillance, arrest and control, there have been some more disturbing trends.

FL Republican Gov Crist (who will be running for Senate, I believe) has passed a new law which mandates getting DNA samples from those arrested for felonies. Arrested, not convicted. Although they're starting with murder and rape (after all, to be accused and arrested now means guilty until, or even if, found innocent) they are going to phase in more felonies over a 10 year period. They are increasing penalties for "assaulting an officer" too. A charge that commonly accompanies protesters who are arrested.

Add to that, a New York judge recently ruled that tasers could be employed to stun a suspect in order to get...a DNA sample.

http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/692141.html

Something for all domestic terrorists to consider before they go out and get themselves arrested for protesting, hm?

Once they get this DNA database underway our concern with phone eavesdropping will seem so quaint, won't it?

Anonymous said...

For some time now I've automatically doubted all news stories of some no-name Harry being in possession of kiddie porn. I don't believe it is as widespread as reported and I don't believe most people charged with it are guilty. It is just impossible to disprove. Charged = Convicted in the minds of the media.

Ever since the McMartin Preschool fiasco, I have doubted all related claims.

Anonymous said...

"Peaceful dissent should never be subject to violence."

Tell that to the Bonus Army at Anacostia Flats.

Or that guy in the "don't tase me bro!" video.

Anonymous said...

Hmm, the first time a website asked me for personal information, I simply fabricated a person for that purpose.

A friend of mine asked me to go on Facebook, but when I noted the FB contract said that although what I put on there remained my property, they could use it for any purpose for as long as they wished (even if I took it back or deleted my account), I decided against it.


Sergei Rostov