Republicans Rabid Over Right-Wing Report

16 09 2011

Republicans on Wednesday said a Homeland Security Department intelligence assessment unfairly characterizes military veterans as right-wing extremists. House Republican leader John Boehner described the report as offensive and called on the agency to apologize to veterans.

The agency’s intelligence assessment, sent to law enforcement officials last week, warns that right-wing extremists could use the bad state of the U.S. economy and the election of the country’s first black president to recruit members.

The assessment also said that returning military veterans who have difficulties assimilating back into their home communities could be susceptible to extremist recruiters or might engage in lone acts of violence.

J. Boehner

“To characterize men and women returning home after defending our country as potential terrorists is offensive and unacceptable,” said Boehner, R-Ohio.

The commander of the veterans group the American Legion, David Rehbein, wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano expressing concern with the assessment, which made its way into the mainstream press after conservative bloggers got wind of the analysis.

Rehbein called the assessment incomplete and said it lacked statistical evidence. He said the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing by military veteran Timothy McVeigh was one instance of a veteran becoming a domestic terrorist.

“To continue to use McVeigh as an example of the stereotypical ‘disgruntled military veteran’ is as unfair as using Osama bin Laden as the sole example of Islam,” Rehbein said in the April 13 letter.

Napolitano defended the assessment and others issued by the agency.

“Let me be very clear — we monitor the risks of violent extremism taking root here in the United States,” Napolitano said in a statement. “We don’t have the luxury of focusing our efforts on one group; we must protect the country from terrorism whether foreign or homegrown, and regardless of the ideology that motivates its violence.”

Napolitano said the department respects and honors veterans and that she intends to meet with Rehbein next week after she returns from a tour of the U.S.-Mexico border and meetings in Mexico City.

The agency describes these assessments as part of a series published “to facilitate a greater understanding of the phenomenon of violent radicalization in the United States.”

In February, the department issued a report to law enforcement that said left-wing extremist groups were likely to use cyber attacks more often in the next 10 years to further their cause.

In September, the agency highlighted how right-wing extremists over the past five years have used the immigration debate as a recruiting tool.

Between September 2008 and Feb. 5, the agency issued at least four reports, obtained by The Associated Press, on individual extremist groups such as the Moors, Vinlanders Social Club, Volksfront and Hammerskin Nation.

But the references to military veterans in the recent report angered conservatives.

“The department is engaging in political and ideological profiling of people who fought to keep our country safe from terrorism, uphold our nation’s immigration laws, and protect our constitutional right to keep and bear arms,” said Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla.,

Texas Rep. Lamar Smith accused the department of painting “law-abiding Americans, including war veterans, as ‘extremists.’”

Indiana Rep. Steve Buyer, the ranking Republican on the House Veterans’ Affairs committee, said it was “inconceivable” that the administration would consider military veterans a potential terrorist threat.

 





Dept. of Homeland Sercurity Warns Returning Veterans Pose Potential Terrorist Threat

16 09 2011

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Wednesday that she was briefed before the release of a controversial intelligence assessment and that she stands by the report, which lists returning veterans among terrorist risks to the U.S.

But the top House Democrat with oversight of the Department of Homeland Security said in a letter to Ms. Napolitano that he was “dumbfounded” that such a report would be issued.

B. Thompson

“This report appears to raise significant issues involving the privacy and civil liberties of many Americans – including war veterans,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, in his letter sent Tuesday night.

The letter was representative of a public furor over the nine-page document since its existence was reported in The Washington Times on Tuesday.

In her statement Wednesday, Ms. Napolitano defended the report, which says “rightwing extremism” may include groups opposed to abortion and immigration, as merely one among several threat assessments. But she agreed to meet with the head of the American Legion, who had expressed anger over the report, when she returns to Washington next week from a tour of the U.S.-Mexico border.

“The document on right-wing extremism sent last week by this department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis is one in an ongoing series of assessments to provide situational awareness to state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies on the phenomenon and trends of violent radicalization in the United States,” Ms. Napolitano said in her statement.

“I was briefed on the general topic, which is one that struck a nerve as someone personally involved in the Timothy McVeigh prosecution,” Ms. Napolitano said.

Click here to download a PDF of the report.

Ms. Napolitano insisted that the department was not planning on engaging in any form of ideological profiling.





Leaked FBI Document Calls ‘Anonymous’ a “National Security Threat” Kevin Fogarty ITWorld.com

13 09 2011

According to a PDF containing what purports to be a leaked psychological assessment of the leaders of LulzSec and Anonymous by the FBI‘s Behavioral Science Unit (which also profiles serial killers), Anonymous is not only not a collection of individuals, it’s a coherent group that poses a threat to national security.

Neither the FBI nor Dept. of Homeland Security have commented on the “leak,” which may be a fake according to the TechHerald, but seems to reflect accurately the thinking behind a series of DHS warning bulletins andcrackdowns that have resulted in 75 raids and 16 arrests of Anonymous members just this year.

Anons themselves refer to the group as a rough, almost coincidental collective of individuals that occasionally cooperate on projects to protest specific things.

There are approximately eight vortices of special interest within the collective, according to interviews, postings and counter-arguments posted by various Anonymi in response to invective by those it attacked.

Attacks are the work of small groups of interested individuals who, on their own initiative and using public argument as their weapon, gather like-minded Anonymi to protest governmental outrages or attack injustice in whatever form they find it, according to de facto leaders in the non-existent but vocal #OPpublicrelations.

In March, for example, members of Anonymous and 4Chan debated, in the finest traditions of American Democracy and citizen activism, whether to attack and defeat the Internet scourge that is Rebecca Black – the annoying but harmless pop “singer” whose made herself famous with a mom-and-dad-funded music video on YouTube that repeated the same lyrics so often it became apparent those might be the only words she knows.

(Other, less world-shaking Anonymous projects resulted in significant attacks against the embattled governments of Egypt and Syria, the exposure of government atrocities in Bolivia, civil protest against censorship on the Bay Area Rapid Transit System, attacks on Visa, Mastercard and Paypal in support of whistleblower site WikiLeaks and a long-simmering, high-profile protest against unrestricted greed, corrosive dishonesty of Wall Street and the and economic destruction from which the rest of the country suffers while financiers continues to prosper.)

The FBI has analyzed various instant messages, forum postings, emails, Twitter posts and other documentation and decided Anonymous behaves more like a coherent organization led by a small number of powerful and focused activists, not a politically involved group of individuals using the Anonymous banner as gathering point.

“The Anonymous ‘collective’ has risen from an amorphous group of individuals on the Internet to the current state of a potential threat to national security. Due to the nature of Anonymous, they believe that they are a leaderless collective. However, it has been shown that there is a defined leadership group,” the document reads.

“A thorough assessment of each UNSUB’s online activities, speech patterns, and general writings was collected by the FBI. Each UNSUB was individually assessed by members of the SBU (sic) and a psychological profile created from these datasets.”

Most of the members of Anonymous are under 30, but the bulk of its leadership are not teenage hacker/script-kids as many portray themselves, according to the FBI.

“It is likely” that Sabu, one of the more vocal spokestrolls for the LulzSec mini-collective of Anonymous, “works in the information security sector and has been doing so since the early days of the internet and hacking activities. His use of net speak is interspersed with proper American English diction and grammar that implies he is an American citizen and has been educated,” the FBI notes said.

BS, quoth the Anon:

“Anonymous is not a group, it does not have leaders, people can do ANYTHING under the flag of their country,”according to one member in an email interview with the AP. ”Anything can be a threat to National Security, really,” the member said in an email interview. “Any hacker group can be.”

If the document is real, it ends on a disturbingly dangerous and presumptive conclusion: that attacks and protests by Anonymous will eventually lead to the death of members of Anonymous, law enforcement or the public that will drive many supporters away from Anonymous.

Until then, Anonymous, whether collectively or individually, may be unstoppable in practical terms.

The overall assessment for the movement however is the following:

    1. The movement is out of control and there seems to be no real coherent motivation
    2. The leaders have begun to hide themselves a bit more due to arrests that have been made
    3. Their reliance on technology will eventually be their downfall
    4. Their interpersonal relationships are weak points, as such they should be leveraged
    5. Their increasing attacks on infrastructure will eventually lead to serious results that could in fact lead to deaths

It is after the first real attributable deaths that there may be a tapering off of their ranks as the members realize that by outing individuals, actual physical actions can occur that cause great damage. Until such time though, the movement will continue with the masses used as fodder and the command structure urging them on to carry out their commands. – Psychological Profiles of Anonymous Leadership, FBI BSU Quantico, Aug., 2011





War On Terror’s New Targets: Veterans, Tea Partiers, Anti-Fed Activists

26 08 2011

Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com                                                                                                                                                                     Thursday, August 18, 2011 Two new videos recently released by the Department of Homeland Security add to the mountain of evidence that proves Big Sis has now dispensed with all pretense of the war on terror being focused on Al-Qaeda Muslims, as tools that were designed to catch foreign terrorists are now being targeted against Americans who are opposed to big governmentFar from representing some superficial nod to political correctness, this is in fact a deliberate effort by the feds to characterize predominantly white, middle class, politically engaged Americans as domestic extremists. It’s all part of the agenda to frame dissent against big government as dangerous radicalism. Contrary to claims by the DHS that it does not profile, the bulk of literature and other training tools issued by the federal government over the last decade clearly go to great lengths to demonize informed, middle class, and predominately white Americans as the most likely terrorists, despite the fact that the 126 people who were indictedon terrorist-related charges in the United States over the last two years were all Muslim. In addition to recent rhetoric from the likes of Vice-President Biden that Tea Partiers are akin to “terrorists,” other legitimate grass roots activists such as End the Fed protesters have also been labeled as dangerous extremists by the federal government. In March 2009 it came to light that the End the Fed protests, which took place at banks and regional Federal Reserve branches across the country the previous year on November 22, were being monitored closely by the United States Army Reserve Command, who implied that those protesting against the Fed and the bankster bailout were essentially terrorists. On November 22, 2008, Alex Jones led a rally at the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas Texas. The Dallas protest is specifically mentioned in the official Army document. Ron Paul’s brother was also in attendance.  The FBI has also gone out of its way to characterize returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan as a major domestic terrorist threat. Additionally, Janet Napolitano said she stood by an April 2009 DHS intelligence assessment that listed returning vets as likely domestic terrorists. Just a month later, the New York Times reported on how Boy Scout Explorers were being trained by the DHS to kill “disgruntled Iraq war veterans” in terrorist drills. In March 2009 we broke the story of the infamous MIAC report, leaked to us by two concerned Missouri police officers. The report listed 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. Indeed, the MIAC report is just one in a series of similar threat assessment documents released over the last decade that list average American citizens as dangerous extremists and potential terrorists. 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. In May 2008, 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 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. 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 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 August 2008, 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 rights. Cops looked through literature which included a copy of a pocket constitution and debated whether or not the material was illegal The federal government’s clear intent to profile politically active middle class Americans as likely terrorists is manifestly provable from their own internal and public documents. Only when conservatives become cognizant of the fact that they too are as much of a target in the “war on terror” as Muslims, whether it’s a Republican or a Democrat in the White House, will we have any hope of dismantling the Homeland Security police state. ********************* Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.





Government to Monitor Social Networks For “Extremist Propaganda” by Paul Joeseph Watson

10 08 2011

A new strategy document released by the White House promises to “closely monitor…the Internet and social networking sites” in order to “counter online violent extremist propaganda” as the federal government attempts to embed itself further in local communities under the guise of preventing domestic extremism. The document, Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States (PDF), focuses on identifying Americans who have supposedly been radicalized or groomed by Al-Qaeda to carry out attacks in the United States. As the L.A. Times notes, the plan involves “federal departments not usually associated with national security,” and is heavily focused around increasing the federal government’s involvement with schools and the “emotional and behavioral development” of young people. The document defines extremist propaganda as that which is used to “feed on grievances” and “assign blame.” The government vows to “aggressively” combat such ideology by “continuing to closely monitor the important role the internet and social networking sites play in advancing violent extremist narratives.” In targeting the Internet and social networking websites for surveillance in the name of fighting domestic terrorism, the White House is continuing in the vein of the previous administration who in 2006 revealed that since 9/11 they had been pursuing a plan to diminish the role of “conspiracy theories” as a primary recruitment tool for terrorists. The document arrives in the same week that the Pentagon also announced it would be hiring individuals to “detect and track popular ideas on social networks”. Indeed, one such examples amidst many where the federal government monitored the Internet to counter “extremist propaganda” was before protests against the Federal Reserve in 2009 that took place across the United States. After the demonstrations were organized on social networks, the Pentagon released a “Force Protection Advisory” about “planned protests at all Federal Reserve Banks and office locations within the United States,” that was sent to Northcom and the FBI. On November 22, 2008, Alex Jones led a rally at the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas Texas. The Dallas protest is specifically mentioned in the official Army document. Despite the White House document’s claim that, “opposition to government policy is neither illegal nor unpatriotic and does not make someone a violent extremist,” the Department of Homeland Security has gone out of its way to characterize adversaries of big government as potential domestic terrorists. The MIAC Report, admist a deluge of other training documents released by state and federal authorities (or leaked by whistleblowers), equates Ron Paul supporters, libertarians, people who display bumper stickers, people who own gold, or even people who fly a U.S. flag with radical race hate groups and terrorists. 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. A recent DHS promotional video for its See Something, Say Something campaign also overwhelmingly portrayed white middle class Americans as the most likely terrorists. Bizarely, the vast majority of the people seen reporting them to authorities in the 10 minute clip were from ethnic minorities, a theme echoed in the introduction to the White House document which welcomes the “waves of immigrants” who have flocked to the United States. There seems little doubt that the Obama administration is attempting to marginalize its most fervent critics by characterizing them as potentially violent extremists, to the point where Tea Party lawmakers are now being labeled as terrorists by New York Times writers as well as Vice-President Joe Biden. Indeed, numerous Democratic strategists have subtly invited a domestic terror attack blamed on anti-government extremists that President Obama could exploit to rescue his sinking approval ratings. Following Jared Lee Loughner’s shooting spree in Arizona back in January, Politico called on Obama to seize upon his “Oklahoma City moment,” adding that the attack presented a “critical opportunity” to “re-define the nation’s political debate,” a talking point endlessly repeated for weeks that merely became a euphemism for allowing Democrats to exploit the attack to silence critics of big government.








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