"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast"
-Oscar Wilde		 Brilliant at Breakfast title banner "The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth, shall be watered also himself."
-- Proverbs 11:25
"...you have a choice: be a fighting liberal or sit quietly. I know what I am, what are you?" -- Steve Gilliard, 1964 - 2007

"For straight up monster-stomping goodness, nothing makes smoke shoot out my ears like Brilliant@Breakfast" -- Tata

"...the best bleacher bum since Pete Axthelm" -- Randy K.

"I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum." -- "Rowdy" Roddy Piper (1954-2015), They Live
Friday, December 24, 2010

Because it never WAS about fighting terrorism -- and it still isn't
Posted by Jill | 9:24 AM
It's about monitoring every American:
Nine years after the terrorist attacks of 2001, the United States is assembling a vast domestic intelligence apparatus to collect information about Americans, using the FBI, local police, state homeland security offices and military criminal investigators.

The system, by far the largest and most technologically sophisticated in the nation's history, collects, stores and analyzes information about thousands of U.S. citizens and residents, many of whom have not been accused of any wrongdoing.

The government's goal is to have every state and local law enforcement agency in the country feed information to Washington to buttress the work of the FBI, which is in charge of terrorism investigations in the United States.

Other democracies - Britain and Israel, to name two - are well acquainted with such domestic security measures. But for the United States, the sum of these new activities represents a new level of governmental scrutiny.

[snip]

The months-long investigation, based on nearly 100 interviews and 1,000 documents, found that:

* Technologies and techniques honed for use on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan have migrated into the hands of law enforcement agencies in America.

* The FBI is building a database with the names and certain personal information, such as employment history, of thousands of U.S. citizens and residents whom a local police officer or a fellow citizen believed to be acting suspiciously. It is accessible to an increasing number of local law enforcement and military criminal investigators, increasing concerns that it could somehow end up in the public domain.

* Seeking to learn more about Islam and terrorism, some law enforcement agencies have hired as trainers self-described experts whose extremist views on Islam and terrorism are considered inaccurate and counterproductive by the FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies.

* The Department of Homeland Security sends its state and local partners intelligence reports with little meaningful guidance, and state reports have sometimes inappropriately reported on lawful meetings.


The TSA ritual at airports is just the tip of the iceberg. Our government no longer serves us, it serves the interests of corporations whose interests might be affected by terrorism -- or even by anyone who might expose what they do. Our government regards us all as potential enemies.

It no longer matters who is in the White House, or who is in the Senate. We already live in a corporate oligarchy. The only step remaining is to make it a totalitarian one.

Labels: , ,

4 comments
Bookmark and Share
4 Comments:
Anonymous ShortWoman said...
If it were ever about terrorism, immigration reform would have come to pass at least 8 years ago. After all, if our housekeepers, landscapers, and farm workers can get in the country illegally, so can BAD GUYS!
12/24/10, 11:11 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...
Would it help if we started reporting local police, TSA & homeland security agents and politicians that acquiesce to this to the program.
12/24/10, 1:06 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
I believe in my country. This is my land. I served in that obscene conflict in Southeast Asia. The message is not getting through to that shopping bag laden population of ours. I hate to say it, but God help us............
12/24/10, 1:49 PM  
Amen, brudda. Amen. I don't eff'n care if FEMA takes me away to a death camp. I'll be a saint. Not one recognized by the Catholic church, but nevertheless, I'll still be a saint. How well I know, brudda, the 'prez' is controlled like a puppet-on-a-string by the billionaires who wanna have tight control (the elections are a complete scam, Illuminati). Sad how people couldn't care less: they all wanna watch 'Dancing Withe Jarheads' and... leeve-me-alone, asswhole!!! That's precisely why I'm glad I'm leaving this planet when I croak. Meet me Upstairs where we'll have a beer... or several. See ya soon. God blessa youse -Fr. Sarducci, ol SNL
12/24/10, 10:16 PM  
Post a Comment
<< Home