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Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
A Freedom of Information Act request filed by former Congressman Bob Barr seeks to discover whether the Department of Homeland Security has been keeping tabs on the Drudge Report and other prominent media outlets who have spearheaded a nationwide revolt against invasive TSA airport security measures.
The FOIA request, filed by Barr’s Liberty Guard organization (PDF here), demands that the Transportation Security Administration, an agency of the DHS, turn over all information related to “Matt Drudge,” “drudgereport.com,” along with other media personalities and websites that have been at the center of the TSA controversy, including “Alex Jones, “John Tyner” and “prisonplanet.com”.
The request seeks to ascertain whether any of these names have been linked with the term “domestic extremist,” in reference to a reported TSA memo that was leaked last weekwhich, according to Doug Hagmann, “officially addresses those who are opposed to, or engaged in the disruption of the implementation of the enhanced airport screening procedures as ‘domestic extremists’.”
Numerous confirmed memos originating out of federal or state law enforcement agencies, such as the infamous MIAC report, have listed conservatives and libertarians as “domestic extremists” and even potential domestic terrorists for opposing big government and supporting Constitutionally-minded campaigns and causes.
The TSA has made a habit out of intimidating people into acquiescing to their procedures. The organization admitted that the introduction of invasive pat down measures was a ploy to make people choose to go through naked body scanners, while threats of $11,000 fines for people who refused to be sexually molested by TSA workers were also aggressively circulated by the federal agency.
Barr’s attempt to discover whether the federal government is treating critics of the TSA as domestic extremists is key in light of TSA chief John Pistole’s announcement yesterday that all travelers flying in US airspace would be checked against a government watch list before they are given permission to board an aircraft, a system some have likened to Communist-style internal checkpoints.
The notion that Matt Drudge, a constant thorn in the side of ‘Big Sis’ Janet Napolitano, along with other prominent media critics of the TSA, could be the target of DHS surveillance is hardly far fetched considering the fact that Homeland Security was caught recently spying on Tea Party groups as well as State Representative Daryl Metcalfe.
The TSA is turning into an arm of the DHS’ political police force – how long before Matt Drudge, Bob Barr and Alex Jones are put on a list and prevented from flying? Will everyone who opposes being radiated in a naked body scanner or having their kids felt up by TSA goons be put on a list?
Drudge has been at the forefront of a national rebellion against the TSA’s new enhanced pat down procedures which subject travelers, including children, the disabled and the elderly, to humiliating treatment which falls not far short of sexual molestation.
The Freedom of Information Act request also aims to uncover why the TSA made the decision to “stand down” on its normal security procedures the day before Thanksgiving in what was a blatant public relations ploy to deflate the impact of the national opt out day protest which had been scheduled for the same day.
“We’d like to think that the TSA has been listening to citizens concerned about being given a choice between naked imaging or pat down searches of people’s private parts,” said former Congressman Bob Barr, Liberty Guard’s Chairman. “If this is the indeed the case, we’d like to commend the TSA for applying a bit of common sense to the controversial situation. However, it’s far more likely the reason was political and we think the public should be made aware of the motivations of our country’s security chiefs.”
As we highlighted on Monday, according to numerous reports, major airports around the country roped off body scanners and refrained from conducting the more invasive pat downs on national opt out day. Our own reporters, who were flying from Denver International Airport, confirmed that the body scanners were out of use and pat downs were either light or non-existent.
This was later spun by the TSA and the establishment media to claim that the body scanner opt out protest had been a total failure, when in fact that majority of the body scanners were not even in use and millions more had boycotted airports altogether and traveled via clogged highways.
“Considering recent hardline statements made by DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and TSA Administrator John Pistole, this apparent sudden reversal in the TSA’s direction warrants additional scrutiny,” said Joe Seehussen, President of Liberty Guard. “We’d like to know if we can expect a policy shift from the TSA or if they were merely attempting to shut down the public outcry regarding their search procedures.”
Statement from Alex Jones, one of the individuals named in the FOIA request.
“If the TSA really believes that the terror threat is so imminent that old ladies have to have hands put down their pants, then why did they turn off scanners on the busiest travel day of year?”
“This is right out of the old Soviet Union and then some, the TSA is boldly going where no police state has ever gone before, sticking hands down people’s pants and radiating them, and when the public speaks up about it and the press reports on it they’re labeled extremists and spied on?”
“The TSA needs to be investigated by Congress and grand juries for standing down and removing security on the busiest travel day of year, security that they say is so vital to prevent terror attacks.”
“They didn’t announce they had changed security, then simply lied to everyone while mockingly taunting critics in claiming that the public loved the pat downs and scanners.”
“This is a group of bureaucrats gone wild, Big Sis is developing the TSA as a Gestapo force to be used on the streets of America, trained to humiliate Americans on highways, at shopping malls, sporting events and any other public gathering. Regardless of your political persuasion, me must stand up to this tyranny in unison.”
“Now the TSA is talking about putting its critics on lists? How about we put everyone who’s a real American on a list and then we can see who’s not on the list and find out who the real enemies are. Let Matt Drudge and Alex Jones go down in history as being at the top of the list when it comes to opposing sticking hands down children’s pants and groping them.”
Mac Slavo
SHTF Plan
Nov 24, 2010
If the information recently acquired by Doug Hagmann of Northeast Intelligence Network is accurate, then something really big is happening in America right now – and it’s most certainlynot a step towards individual liberty.
According to Mr. Hagmann, he was contacted by a source within the DHS who provided an alarming memo detailing a new administrative directive agreed upon by DHS chief Janet Napolitano and the head of TSA John Pistole. The memo, according to Doug Hagmann, “officially addresses those who are opposed to, or engaged in the disruption of the implementation of the enhanced airport screening procedures as ‘domestic extremists’.”
The memo leaves no doubt as to who, exactly, is leading the charge to label Americans who refuse current security measures due to health and privacy concerns as extremists. “The measures to be taken in response to the negative public backlash as detailed [in this directive], have the full support of the President,” it says.
Under the new labeling procedures, those who choose to opt-out or are perceived as being troublemakers will be detained, questioned and processed for further investigation:
The terminology contained within the reported memo is indeed troubling. It labels any person who “interferes” with TSA airport security screening procedure protocol and operations by actively objecting to the established screening process, “including but not limited to the anticipated national opt-out day” as a “domestic extremist.” The label is then broadened to include “any person, group or alternative media source” that actively objects to, causes others to object to, supports and/or elicits support for anyone who engages in such travel disruptions at U.S. airports in response to the enhanced security procedures.
For individuals who engaged in such activity at screening points, it instructs TSA operations to obtain the identities of those individuals and other applicable information and submit the same electronically to the Homeland Environment Threat Analysis Division, the Extremism and Radicalization branch of the Office of Intelligence & Analysis (IA) division of the Department of Homeland Security.
The United States government, under complete control and direction of our elected President, is now actively labeling anyone who exercises their 4th amendment Constitutional right which protects against warrantless and unreasonable searches and seizures as, essentially, engaging in terrorism as defined by Section 802 of the USA Patriot Act:
Section 802 [USA Patriot Act]
(a) DOMESTIC TERRORISM DEFINED- Section 2331 of title 18, United States Code, is amended–
‘(5) the term `domestic terrorism’ means activities that–
‘(B) appear to be intended–
‘(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
‘(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
Though it may seem a broad interpretation, the definitions for domestic terrorism are very vague, allowing for a variety of views depending on who happens to be making the decisions. The very fact that TSA is allegedly going to label opt-out travelers as ‘domestic extremists’ suggest that they are, by today’s standards, considered no different than terrorists – and thus – may have their Constitutional rights stripped and be held without trial. In a previous article we discussedMatt Kernan, who may have found a Constitutional argument that works to avoid enhanced security in the airport. But, what if the-powers-that-be determined, by whatever vague definition, that the Constitution doesn’t apply?
With the outrage from American travelers and the pressure being put on corporate profits, the President and TSA may eventually change their tune. But if they don’t, then we can expect more intrusive checkpoints from our government in the very near future. Ms. Napolitano has already publicly stated that DHS is looking at other mass transit systems like buses and trains as the next target.
Something big is happening. And either the American people are going to force the change – starting with each individual making a personal decision to stand up against policies that can be described as nothing less than tyrannical – or the expansion of surveillance and control systems will continue to spread.
If the American people fail this time as we did with bailouts and healthcare, the end result will be backscatter machines in schools, malls, stadiums, and any other public venue which is deemed a security threat by our government.
Law enforcement across the country are being educated that informed Americans who know their rights are dangerous and that cops are their enemy
Paul Joseph Watson, Kurt Nimmo & Alex Jones
Prison Planet.com
Friday, March 13, 2009
A secret report distributed by the Missouri Information Analysis Center lists Ron Paul supporters, libertarians, people who display bumper stickers, people who own gold, or even people who fly a U.S. flag and equates them with radical race hate groups and terrorists. This is merely the latest example in an alarming trend which confirms that law enforcement across the country is being trained that American citizens are a dangerous enemy.
A copy of the MIAC report was sent to us by two Missouri police officers who were concerned by its content.
Perhaps due to the outlandish and shocking nature of the document, some people are still having difficulty believing it is real. Unfortunately, we have confirmed that it’s 100 per cent genuine. We spoke with Capt Hull at the Missouri State Highway Patrol who told us that the MIAC Strategic Report is a part “normal operation for officers” to receive these periodic reports for “safety purposes and to track trends or changes”. Hull added that the report was for the purposes of training their officers.
Anyone still in doubt as to the veracity of the document can call the MIAC toll free at 866-362-6422 and confirm it for themselves.
We also spoke to Lt. John Hotz who, along with Capt Hull, declined to appear on The Alex Jones Show to talk about the document, but had no qualms about admitting that it was genuine and had been handed out to Missouri police officers.
View the document below.
According to the MIAC website, “MIAC is the mechanism to collect incident reports of suspicious activities to be evaluated and analyzed in an effort to identify potential trends or patterns of terrorist or criminal operations within the state of Missouri.”
The MIAC report specifically describes supporters of presidential candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, and Bob Barr as “militia” influenced terrorists and instructs the Missouri police to be on the lookout for supporters displaying bumper stickers and other paraphernalia associated with the Constitutional, Campaign for Liberty, and Libertarian parties.
The MIAC report does not concentrate on Muslim terrorists, but rather on the so-called “militia movement” and conflates it with supporters of Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, Bob Barr, the so-called patriot movement and other political activist organizations opposed to the North American Union and the New World Order.
Police are educated in the document that people are are anti-abortion, own gold, display an assortment of U.S. flags, or even those that talk about the film Zeitgeist, view the police as their “enemy” and conflates them with domestic terrorists like Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph and other domestic militia groups who have been charged with plotting terrorist attacks.
The demonization of militia groups is something that we have come to expect, despite the fact that the very same constitution police officers swear an oath to defend outlines the need for “a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State”. George Washington himself was a member of a militia.
However, the conflation of banal sectors of society such as people who own gold, fly flags, display bumper stickers or who support mainstream political candidates such as Bob Barr, and the guilt-by-association smear that they are likely to be dangerous and potential terrorists, is a staggering alarm bell which indicates police are being trained that ordinary Americans, not radicalized Mexican race hate groups or Al-Qaeda suicide bomber cells, are the number one domestic threat in the war on terror.
The MIAC report is similar to one created by the Phoenix Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Joint Terrorism Task Force during the Clinton administration (see page one and page two of the document). The FBI document explicitly designates “defenders” of the Constitution as “right-wing extremists.” The MIAC report expands significantly on the earlier document.
Indeed, the MIAC report is just the latest in a series of similar threat assessment documents that list average American citizens as dangerous extremists and potential terrorists.
We discovered that similar propaganda was being disseminated from the very top in September 2006 when it was revealed that the Bush administration had been targeting “conspiracy theorists” as terrorist recruiters.
President Bush himself gave speeches about a White House “strategy paper” that formed “an unclassified version of the strategy we’ve been pursuing since September the 11th, 2001,” that takes into account, “the changing nature of this enemy.”
The document says that terrorism springs from “subcultures of conspiracy and misinformation,” and that “terrorists recruit more effectively from populations whose information about the world is contaminated by falsehoods and corrupted by conspiracy theories. The distortions keep alive grievances and filter out facts that would challenge popular prejudices and self-serving propaganda.”
We have highlighted previous training manuals issued by state and federal government bodies which identify whole swathes of the population as potential terrorists. A Texas Department of Public Safety Criminal Law Enforcement pamphlet gives the public characteristics to identify terrorists that include buying baby formula, beer, wearing Levi jeans, carrying identifying documents like a drivers license and traveling with women or children.
A Virginia training manual used to help state employees recognize terrorists lists anti-government and property rights activists as terrorists and includes binoculars, video cameras, paper pads and notebooks in a compendium of terrorist tools.
Such training documents are manifesting real-life situations where people are being harassed, assaulted and arrested by law enforcement simply for owning material or discussing topics related to the Constitution and the bill of rights.
Last May, a student of a large bible college in east Texas was accused by federal agents of committing an “act of terror and espionage” after he gave a talk to a group of Boy Scouts in which he encouraged them to educate themselves about the U.S. constitution.
In July 2007, the Kuhns, a North Carolina couple (pictured above) were terrorized by sheriff’s deputy Brian Scarborough, who broke into their house, assaulted them and then arrested the couple for the crime of flying an upside down U.S. flag.
Buncombe County Sheriff’s deputy Brian Scarborough had just returned from Iraq and according to the Deborah Kuhn, was sent by his staff Sergeant from the local National Guard to “deal with” the Kuhns after a local resident complained about the flag, a fact that was later admitted on TV news. A National Guard soldier in military fatigues had also previously visited the Kuhn’s to harass them about the flag.
Even though Kuhn took the flag down, the officer immediately demanded that the couple show their ID’s and when they refused told them to put their hands behind their back and was about to arrest them before the couple shut and locked the door.
Scarborough then proceeded to kick the door in, “And the next thing we know, the glass is flying, he unlocks the deadbolt and he comes into our house after us,” Kuhn told The Alex Jones Show.
The officer then pursued Mark Kuhn through the house before intercepting him in the kitchen and putting him in a choke hold.
The officer then pulled out pepper spray to which Mark Kuhn responded, “Are you going to spray me in my house?” before Scarborough whipped out his billy club and the Kuhn’s ran out of the house into the street, pleading for help from their neighbors.
The couple were handcuffed, arrested and bundled into a squad car, to the protests of numerous neighbors who demanded to know why the Kuhns were being incarcerated, but were told to leave by police.
As is supported by the United States Flag Code as well as a similar incident in 2001, flying the flag upside down is not a mark of disrespect, and in fact is considered by many to be the highest form of patriotism. Despite this fact, the upside down flag is equated in the MIAC report with terrorist paraphernalia.
Alex Jones’ 2001 documentary film 9/11: The Road to Tyranny featured footage from a FEMA symposium given to firefighters and other emergency personnel in Kansas City in which it was stated that the founding fathers, Christians and homeschoolers were terrorists and should be treated with the utmost suspicion and brutality in times of national emergency.
The lecturer identifies George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers as “terrorists”.
In 2004, Kelly Rushing was charged with making “terroristic threats” after he handed out Alex Jones videos and recordings of a Congressman Ron Paul speech on C-Span to Lyon County, Kentucky officials and Kentucky State Trooper Lewis Dobbs.
A jury later ruled in favor of Rushing but he continues to be harassed by authorities and local law enforcement.
In October 2007, a Michigan man was harassed, handcuffed, assaulted, branded “unpatriotic” and subjected to an unconstitutional search of his vehicle during which drugs were allegedly planted, before being ticketed by a police officer for the apparent crime of freely distributing DVD’s about 9/11 truth.
Last August, a Las Vegas couple were stopped by police, detained and searched as cops demanded to know if there was anything illegal inside the vehicle. When the couple asked why they had been stopped, the police officer pointed at “Infowars” and “Ron Paul” bumper stickers on their car.
In 2001, housewife Abbey Newman was assaulted and arrested by police at a checkpoint for exercising her 4th amendment right. Cops looked through literature which included a copy of a pocket constitution and debated whether or not the material was illegal.
To have secret police, regular troopers and federal authorities target people who discuss the very document that they swore an oath to uphold and protect is a chilling prospect and rivals anything that was a pre-cursor to Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia.
The precedent of treating a knowledge of the U.S. constitution and the bill of rights as suspicious and possibly a sign of terrorism can only be linked to careful preparations for martial law which are now public.
A shocking KSLA news report last summer confirmed the story we first broke in 2006, that Clergy Response Teams are being trained by the federal government to “quell dissent” and pacify citizens to obey the government in the event of a declaration of martial law.
In May 2006, we exposed the existence of a nationwide FEMA program which is training tens of thousands of Pastors and other religious representatives to become secret police enforcers who teach their congregations to “obey the government” in preparation for the implementation of martial law, property and firearm seizures, mass vaccination programs and forced relocation.
A whistleblower who was secretly enrolled into the program told us that the feds were clandestinely recruiting religious leaders to help implement Homeland Security directives in anticipation of a potential bio-terrorist attack, any natural disaster or a nationally declared emergency.
The first directive was for Pastors to preach to their congregations Romans 13, the often taken out of context bible passage that was used by Hitler to hoodwink Christians into supporting him, in order to teach them to “obey the government” when martial law is declared.
It was related to the Pastors that quarantines, martial law and forced relocation were a problem for state authorities when enforcing federal mandates due to the “cowboy mentality” of citizens standing up for their property and second amendment rights as well as farmers defending their crops and livestock from seizure.
It was stressed that the Pastors needed to preach subservience to the authorities ahead of time in preparation for the round-ups and to make it clear to the congregation that “this is for their own good.”
Pastors were told that they would be backed up by law enforcement in controlling uncooperative individuals and that they would even lead SWAT teams in attempting to quell resistance.
The chilling preparations for martial law and the targeting of Americans who merely talk about the U.S. constitution, own gold, hold pro-life political viewpoints, watch and discuss internet documentaries like Zeitgeist or support mainstream political candidates such as Ron Paul or Bob Barr should act as a wake-up call and prompt more people in different levels of authority throughout religious and educational establishments to go public and expose similar examples of this unfolding tyranny.
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
In response to the national outcry surrounding invasive pat down measures, the TSA has been forced to refine its airport security procedures, but has simultaneously entrenched its policy that requires government permission for all Americans who wish to fly, creating what critics have labeled a Communist-style system of internal checkpoints.
After a public revolt against naked body scanners and TSA groping that was primarily spearheaded by the Drudge Report website, TSA chief John Pistole announced yesterday was looking at refining pat down procedures to make them “less intrusive.”
“Pistole said that the TSA will work “quickly” to determine whether there is a viable alternative but that he has no timetable,” reports the Washington Post today.
However, until such a time that the policy is changed, cases of rampant TSA abuse continue to occur, including a recent example where a young mother who was subjected to enhanced groping was subsequently locked inside a screening box for almost an hour by agents after she refused to allow them to put her breast milk through an x-ray device, a legitimate request that is even written into the TSA’s own guidelines.
Despite appearing to back down on hugely unpopular pat down measures, Pistole confirmed that every single passenger who flies in American skies is now checked against a government watch list before they are allowed to board a plane, meaning that every US citizen now requires de facto government permission to travel.
“The TSA began matching passengers against a watch list maintained by the FBI last year. By June, all passengers on domestic flights were being prescreened, and with Tuesday’s announcement, all international passengers headed to or from the United States are as well,” reports the Post.
Under the Secure Flight program, the TSA demands that passengers submit personal information 72 hours before being cleared to fly. While on the surface, this is justified by invoking the threat of terror, as we have seen from the MIAC report and others, the federal government now considers politically active Americans as potential terrorists, meaning that innocent travelers could find themselves on a watch list and barred from flying.
“By combining the requirement for government photo IDs in order to fly with checking government watchlists including potentially every passenger, “Secure Flight” puts the federal government into the business of licensing travel,” warns Michael Ostrolenk.
“What the government can allow one day, it can forbid the next. All things considered, isn’t this a higher-tech and later-day version of South African domestic passports or eastern European checkpoints? In fact, because of the high technological capacity of the U.S. version, aren’t its implications for travel control of plane, train, bus and subway travel much more far reaching? It’s incredible that something like this is happening relatively unrecognized in America.”
Indeed, the 9/11 Commission demanded that the dubious “no fly list” be extended to trains, boats and basically every form of travel, handing the feds the power to control the mobility of millions of Americans. Rahm Emanuel and Mayor Michael Bloomberg have also demanded that people on the no fly list be prevented from purchasing firearms.
The no fly list is merely one component of a 500,000-750,000 strong government “watch list” thathas ensnared people like the late former Senator Ted Kennedy, former presidential candidate John Anderson, and many others including a Vermont college student, a retired Presbyterian minister and an ACLU employee. People with similar names to aliases used by alleged terrorists are automatically put on no fly lists and federal watch lists.
Unfortunately, government watchlists seem to have been more successful at causing problems for innocent people than they are at catching terrorists. Despite the fact that underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was on a watch list, the US State Department refused to revoke his visa and allowed him to board Delta Flight 253, with the aid of a well-dressed Indian man who convinced airline officials to let Abdulmutallab on the Christmas Day flight.
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