The Department Of Homeland Security is the very epitome of unnecessary bureaucracy. Its formation was predicated on the existence of terrorist threats, many of which the U.S. government and orbiting alphabet agencies either created through acts of war, or fabricated out of thin air. Its policies of centralization were sold to the public as necessary to prevent systemic “miscommunications” that never actually took place. Throughout our history, it has been a rare occasion indeed when an attack falls upon American infrastructure or interests that was not influenced, directly or indirectly, by the actions of agencies which were supposedly employed to prevent such events from ever occurring. Whether through ‘blowback’, or through ‘false flag’, frankly, most of the harm that comes to our nation is perpetrated by the guiding hand of our inexorably corrupt government.
Knowing that the DHS was established on false pretenses forces us to question the agency’s true intentions, especially when a professional fear-monger like Secretary Janet Napolitano announces that the globalization of the world economy falls within her jurisdiction:
January 15, 2012 The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's TSA Visible Intermodal Prevention Response (VIPR) teams have been reported in Spokane, WA for the holiday weekend, making security sweeps through STA buses and the downtown plaza where they will continue scaring Spokane Transit passengers through Monday.
Spokane Transit Authority’s communications officer, Molly Myers told a local news station that VIPR are conducting training exercises as a 'precautionary measure' for Martin Luther King Jr. Day...[Full Article]
Use of technology to be expanded despite warnings that devices cause cancer
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Friday, January 13, 2012
The Department of Homeland Security is set to increase its deployment of of X-ray scanners, already in use on highways, at US border crossings, despite warnings from innumerable health authorities that the devices can cause cancer.
Despite airports moving away from dangerous naked body scanners that fire radiation into the body, damaging living tissue, rearranging chromosomes, and raising the risk of cancer, the DHS is expanding its use of X-ray scanning technology at border checkpoints.
With the technology already in place at places like the busy San Ysidro, California checkpoint, the DHS is planning to introduce the procedure at more locations, with Customs and Border Protection set to announce a new round of scanner purchases in February.
“A 63-page set of specifications (PDF), heavily redacted, obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center through the Freedom of Information Act, says the scanners must “be based on X-Ray or gamma technology,” which use potentially dangerous ionizing radiation at high energies, and “shall be capable of scanning cars, SUVs, motorcycles and busses,” reports CNet’s Declan McCullagh.
“Society will pay a huge price in cancer because of this,” John Sedat, professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California at San Francisco, told CNET. Sedat has raised concerns about the health risks of X-ray scanners, and the European Commission in November prohibited their use in European airports.”
Presumably in an attempt to hide the true threat posed by the scanners, the DHS has named them “Low Energy Drive Through Portal Non-Intrusive Inspection Systems,” a term Peter Rez, a professor of physics at Arizona State University who has studied the technology, calls “highly misleading”.
“To call anything based on high energy X-rays ‘low energy’ is worse than 1984 doublespeak” because radiation emitted by the scanners “goes right through the person” sitting in a vehicle, he says. (High energy X-rays can penetrate not only human flesh, but steel plates that are multiple centimeters thick.)”
These warnings have been ignored by the DHS, mirroring the federal agency’s response to another controversy uncovered by EPIC, where “A large number of workers” at Boston-Logan Airport were found to “have been falling victim to cancer, strokes and heart disease,” having been tasked with operating X-ray scanning machines in the airport.
After TSA workers complained to bosses about how they were being kept in the dark over the dangers posed by the scanners, the DHS attempted to cover-up concerns and refused to issue workers with dosimeters.
Using portable X-ray scanning devices to carry out virtual strip-searches of the American people at TSA checkpoints is not just confined to airports or border crossings.
Documents obtained by Forbes describe Homeland Security plans to “mount backscatter x-ray scanners and video cameras on roving vans,” which would then allow the DHS to scan individuals on “public streets” at random.
Last year we reported on how the federal government has acquired hundreds of backscatter x-ray scanners mounted in vans that they are now using to randomly scan vehicles, passengers and homes in complete violation of the 4th amendment and with wanton disregard for any health consequences.
Congress recently gave the green light on increased funding for a massive expansion of TSA checkpoints, with the federal agency already responsible for over 9,000 such checkpoints in the last year. The funds will pay for 12 additional VIPR teams (Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response), who will be tasked with searching Americans on highways, at bus depots, train stations, sports stadiums, and numerous other public locations.
The extra money is being demanded despite the fact that there is “no proof that the roving viper teams have foiled any terrorist plots or thwarted any major threat to public safety,” according to an L.A. Times report.
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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 and Infowars Nightly News.
With so many of our most essential liberties under attack from the oligarchy on the Potomac, it is little wonder that the freedom of the press and speech are next on the government guillotine.
Specifically, the Initiative sets out the plan and purpose behind the DHS’s collection of personal information from news anchors, journalists, reporters, or anyone else who posts articles, comments, or other information to many popular web outlets. The report defines the target audience as anyone who may use “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed.”
Journalists and bloggers need not worry, however. DHS promises that it will not routinely gather and use Personally Identifiable Information (PII). From the abstract of the Initiative:
While this Initiative is not designed to actively collect Personally Identifiable Information (PII), OPS is conducting this update to the Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) because this initiative may now collect and disseminate PII for certain narrowly tailored categories. For example, in the event of an in extremis situation involving potential life and death, OPS will share certain PII with the responding authority in order for them to take the necessary actions to save a life, such as name and location of a person calling for help buried under rubble, or hiding in a hotel room when the hotel is under attack by terrorists.
In other words, the government promises that all the personal electronic data that it monitors and records will only be used in “narrowly tailored” circumstances, saving a life, for example. There is no requirement that the data be used only in those instances, but there is a promise that it will be.
This unconstitutional, unwarranted search of private information is designed by DHS “to provide situational awareness and establish a common operating picture” of target audiences...[Full Article]
(Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's command center routinely monitors dozens of popular websites, including Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, WikiLeaks and news and gossip sites including the Huffington Post and Drudge Report, according to a government document.
A "privacy compliance review" issued by DHS last November says that since at least June 2010, its national operations center has been operating a "Social Networking/Media Capability" which involves regular monitoring of "publicly available online forums, blogs, public websites and message boards."
The purpose of the monitoring, says the government document, is to "collect information used in providing situational awareness and establishing a common operating picture."...[Full Article]
It's unclear exactly why, but the Department of Homeland has been operating a "Social Networking/Media Capability" program to monitor the top blogs, forums and social networks online for at least the past 18 months. Based on a privacy compliance review from last November recently obtained by Reuters, the purpose of the project is to "collect information used in providing situational awareness and establishing a common operating picture." Whatever that means. Either way, the list of sites reported by Reuters reveals in a Wednesday afternoon exclusive is pretty intriguing...[Full Article]
Freedom of speech might allow journalists to get away with a lot in America, but the Department of Homeland Security is on the ready to make sure that the government is keeping dibs on who is saying what
US Dept. of Homeland Security
Under the National Operations Center (NOC)’s Media Monitoring Initiative that came out of DHS headquarters in November, Washington has the written permission to retain data on users of social media and online networking platforms.
Specifically, the DHS announced the NCO and its Office of Operations Coordination and Planning (OPS) can collect personal information from news anchors, journalists, reporters or anyone who may use “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed.”
According to the Department of Homeland Security’s own definition of personal identifiable information, or PII, such data could consist of any intellect “that permits the identity of an individual to be directly or indirectly inferred, including any information which is linked or linkable to that individual.” Previously established guidelines within the administration say that data could only be collected under authorization set forth by written code, but the new provisions in the NOC’s write-up means that any reporter, whether someone along the lines of Walter Cronkite or a budding blogger, can be victimized by the agency...[Full Article]
By Carol Marin and Don Moseley January 8, 2012 9:58PM
Project Shield was supposed to make citizens safer. But in the end, the $45-million Homeland Security program more resembled a disaster, wasting taxpayers’ dollars and failing to make a single citizen more secure.
The failed Cook County initiative was replete with equipment that failed to work, missing records and untrained first responders according to a report by the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The report, to be released Monday but obtained by The Sun-Times and NBC5 News, found “millions of tax dollars may have been wasted.”
Under Project Shield, two police squad cars in all 128 Cook County suburbs were to be fitted with cameras capable of feeding live video to a central command. In addition, fixed mounted cameras were to be installed to feed pictures in case of a terrorist attack or emergency in Cook County.
A six-month investigation by the IG found “equipment was not working, was removed, or could not be properly operated.”
Investigators visited 15 municipalities between January and June last year and found “missing records, improper procurement practices, unallowable costs and unaccountable inventory items.”...[Full Article]
The Department of Homeland Security makes fake users on Twitter and Facebook with which to follow suspicious people. But what if you're not shifty enough to get your own government e-stalker? No problem: Just tweet "My cow collapsed, and now there's a human to animal infection outbreak among illegal immigrants."
That should bring heaps of DHS scrutiny, judging from a fresh lawsuit seeking access to the agency's data. In the suit, the privacy advocates at Electronic Privacy Information Center said DHS is monitoring social networks, blogs and message boards for users saying terms like "human to animal," "collapse," "infection," "outbreak," and "illegal immigrants." If you use these words and phrases, the government might follow you, record your activity, and share information about you with local, state, federal, and foreign governments. Since EPIC has thus far received no cooperation from the government and is suing for access, it's not clear how the nonprofit compiled its list of red-flag keywords. Hopefully its research did not involve human to animal contact, smuggling things through airport security, or bribing government employees!
Want the government to notice you? Well, according to privacy advocates at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, it's a pretty simple feat! The Department of Homeland Security monitors social networks, creating fake accounts on sites like Facebook and Twitter to follow people who post statuses that include certain flagged words.
So, the next time someone random friend requests you, just think, it could be the federal government!
The so-called flagged words are the following: "human to animal," "collapse," "infection," "outbreak," and "illegal immigrants." The EPIC says that using any of the following words could attract someone from the DHS to follow you, track your activity, monitor everything you post, and report it all to local, state, federal, and even foreign governments. According to Gawker, it's not too clear how the EPIC compiled its list of words, but they're suing the government to seek access to the data that the DHS has been compiling.
So if you want all those guys in Washington to know what you did last weekend, you know what to tweet.
Privacy Advocates Sue DHS for Big Bro Fake 'Friends' Monitoring Social Media Privacy advocates are suing DHS for 'covert' social networking surveillance on Facebook and Twitter. EPIC's FOIA lawsuit is a result of Homeland Security refusing to turn over details about Big Brother setting up fake accounts to 'friend' you and better monitor your social media activities.
Yes, Virginia, Big Brother is watching you in social media and storing those "naughty" tweets, posts and comments. After those hot keyword terms put you on the naughty list, unlike Santa's list, it's not a redo in a year . . . that info will be stored for five years. The EFF previously warned Big Brother wants to be your online buddy on social networking sites. Then the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request asking Homeland Security for more details about the agency's plans to setup fake profiles and monitor social media users; but when no documents were produced, EPIC is now suing DHS over 'covert surveillance on Facebook and Twitter.'
Hackers belonging to Anonymous kindly shared with the public such "chumming and baiting" tactics as were disclosed in Aaron Barr's leaked emails.Those sock puppet accounts will try to befriend you, monitor for specific NOC terms, and then collect your PII (personally identifiable information) which will be stored for five years. Many users have a nasty habit of over-sharing on social media even though all that personal or sensitive information is potential fodder for social engineers. EPIC's lawsuit [PDF] against DHS states, "Social media users have no reason to believe that the Department of Homeland Security is tracking their every post." The DHS program plans to share this PII by "email and telephone" with "federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, foreign, or international government partners."
EPIC wrote, "DHS has stated that it will routinely monitor the public postings of users on Twitter and Facebook. The agency plans to create fictitious user accounts and scan posts of users for key terms. User data will be stored for five years and shared with other government agencies. The legal authority for the DHS program remains unclear."
“As a nation, we will do everything in our power to protect our country. As Americans, we will never give in to fear or division. We will be guided by our hopes, our unity, and our deeply held values. That’s who we are as Americans … And we will continue to do everything that we can to keep America safe in the new year and beyond.” - Barrack Obama’s opening address for the Department of Homeland Security 2011 Budget Report
The Orwellian overtones could not be more ominous. Contrary to Obama’s moral decree, America is already ten years into its latest social experiment – making fear and division its premier business.
One of the true hallmarks of any successful police state is a compulsory national ID. On this score, Janet Napolitano’s Department of Homeland Security has officially taken up challenge of making sure that no American will be left without one. Tennessee provided the launchpad for this new DHS police state project, but like anything with the DHS, it’s hard to actually pinpoint whose banner it is actually run under.
Originally conceived under the Bush Administration in November 2002, supposedly in response to the attacks of September 11, 2011 and the dubious anthrax attacks (both these events have not been proven to be carried out by foreign agents), the DHS along with its stepchild the TSA, have become a bottomless pit of federal and grant money, who’s only achievement to date has been to instigate increased control and monitoring of the US domestic population – bullying its way through the legislative branch at the same time as the USA PATRIOT Act.
The new DHS national ID card program was officially rolled out this week in the state of Tennessee. From January 1st, 2012, ID cards are longer optional, they are the law. The new state law requires that all Tennessee citizens must present a federal or state-issued photo ID in order to vote at the polls. The law also requires the DHS to issue photo IDs for voting purposes – at no charge. Residents appear to have given in without any serious fight, giving a new dimension to the state’s lofty moniker as a “Volunteer State”.
The program was quietly ushered in earlier in 2011, as reported today by Tennessee journal Clarksville Online:...[Full Article]
Staff of Florida Social Security office not informed of drill, Homeland Security officials refused to talk to media
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Thursday, January 5, 2012
Residents of Leesburg, Florida were shocked to see their local Social Security office turned into a random Homeland Security checkpoint Tuesday morning, as DHS officers armed with semiautomatic rifles and accompanied by sniffer dogs checked identifications of locals.
“With their blue and white SUVs circled around the Main Street office, at least one official was posted on the door with a semiautomatic rifle, randomly checking identifications. And other officers, some with K-9s, sifted through the building,” reports the Daily Commercial.
The activity was part of Operation Shield, an unannounced drill conducted by the DHS’ Federal Protective Service centered around “detecting the presence of unauthorized persons and potentially disruptive or dangerous activities.”
Thomas Milligan, district manager for the Social Security Administration office, said staff were not informed their offices were about to be stormed by armed FPS officers. DHS officials refused to answer questions asked by local media and left with no explanation at noon.
“Part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, FPS is the federal law enforcement agency that provides integrated security and law enforcement services to over 9,000 federally-owned and leased buildings, facilities, properties and other assets,” states the report.
Indeed, the FPS is used for a variety of roles, not just limited to setting up unannounced ID checkpoints.
A separate component of Homeland Security, VIPR (Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response), recently received an expansion in funding from Congress that will see 2011′s figure of around 9,300 checkpoints increased with the addition of 12 new VIPR teams, who will be used to carry out security checks at bus depots, train stations, ferry ports and highways.
The extra money is being demanded despite the fact that there is “no proof that the roving viper teams have foiled any terrorist plots or thwarted any major threat to public safety,” according to an L.A. Times report.
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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.
The Federal Register published a notice of December 28 providing a brief overview on a behind closed doors Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) meeting to be held at TSA headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, on January 9, 2012.
“The HSAC will meet for the purpose of receiving sensitive operational information from senior DHS leadership,” the notice posted on the Cryptome.org website states. “The meeting will address threats to our homeland security, border security, examine U.S. Coast Guard counterterrorism efforts; provide an operational update of the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) Frequent Traveler Program; examine evolving threats in cyber security; and provide information on the threat of an electromagnetic pulse attack and its associated vulnerabilities.”
The DHS notice explains that disclosing further details on the meeting would not be in the public interest, although it states that “there will be material presented regarding the latest viable threats against the United States, and how DHS and other Federal agencies plan to address those threats.”
The DHS Office of Counterterrorism will present a briefing on the Department’s implementation plan to counter domestic violent extremism. Providing this information to the public would provide terrorists with a road map regarding the Department’s plan to counter their actions, and thus, allow them to take different actions to avoid counterterrorism efforts.
In April of 2009, Infowars.com posted a leaked Department of Homeland Security document warning of a rise in "right-wing extremist groups" bent on violence. According to the DHS, these “hate-oriented” groups “are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.”
The HSAC meeting will be held on January 9, 2012, in Arlington, Virginia, from 8:50 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. EST, at the Transportation Security Administration, 601 South 12th Street, (East Building), Arlington, VA 22202.
Fake profiles used by Department of Homeland Security, says privacy group
List of keywords flags 'danger' signal
DHS may attempt to identify users from their accounts
Keywords include 'virus', 'drill' and 'illegal immigrant'
The Department for Homeland Security announced plans to scan social networks for keywords such as 'human to animal', 'outbreak', 'strain' and 'drill', and then identify users, claims an online privacy group
The Department of Homeland Security makes fake Twitter and Facebook profiles for the specific purpose of scanning the networks for 'sensitive' words - and tracking people who use them.
Simply using a word or phrase from the DHS's 'watch' list could mean that spies from the government read your posts, investigate your account, and attempt to identify you from it, acccording to an online privacy group.
The words which attract attention range from ones seemingly related to diseases or bioweapons such as 'human to animal' and 'outbreak' to other, more obscure words such as 'drill' and 'strain'.
The DHS also watches for words such as 'illegal immigrant'.
The DHS outlined plans to scans blogs, Twitter and Facebook for words such as 'illegal immigrant', 'outbreak', 'drill', 'strain', 'virus', 'recovery', 'deaths', 'collapse', 'human to animal' and 'trojan', according to an 'impact asssessment' document filed by the agency.
When its search tools net an account using the phrases, they record personal information.
It's still not clear how this information is used - and who the DHS shares it with...[Full Article]
A privacy advocacy group is suing the Department of Homeland Security for information about an emerging program designed to monitor social media activity.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center, claiming the "legal authority for the DHS program remains unclear," went to federal court in Washington, D.C., this past week to try and compel the department to turn over documents on the initiative.
Though still in development, DHS is looking to establish a system for monitoring "forums, blogs, public websites and message boards." The idea is to gather and analyze publicly available information, and then use that information to help officials respond to disasters and other situations.
But the program has raised flags among privacy groups like EPIC, which this past April filed a Freedom of Information Act request for records -- a request the group's lawsuit claims DHS has not honored.
The lawsuit filed Tuesday expressed concern that information DHS gathers could be stored for up to five years and shared, noting that Internet users "routinely" post personal information in online communications and "have no reason to believe that the Department of Homeland Security is tracking their every post."...[Full Article]
A decade of billions in spending in the name of homeland security has armed local police departments with military-style equipment and a new commando mentality. But has it gone too far? Andrew Becker and G.W. Schulz of the Center for Investigative Reporting report.
Nestled amid plains so flat the locals joke you can watch your dog run away for miles, Fargo treasures its placid lifestyle, seldom pierced by the mayhem and violence common in other urban communities. North Dakota’s largest city has averaged fewer than two homicides a year since 2005, and there’s not been a single international terrorism prosecution in the last decade.
But that hasn’t stopped authorities in Fargo and its surrounding county from going on an $8 million buying spree to arm police officers with the sort of gear once reserved only for soldiers fighting foreign wars.
Every city squad car is equipped today with a military-style assault rifle, and officers can don Kevlar helmets able to withstand incoming fire from battlefield-grade ammunition. And for that epic confrontation—if it ever occurs—officers can now summon a new $256,643 armored truck, complete with a rotating turret. For now, though, the menacing truck is used mostly for training and appearances at the annual city picnic, where it’s been parked near the children’s bounce house.
“Most people are so fascinated by it, because nothing happens here,” says Carol Archbold, a Fargo resident and criminal justice professor at North Dakota State University. “There’s no terrorism here.”
Like Fargo, thousands of other local police departments nationwide have been amassing stockpiles of military-style equipment in the name of homeland security, aided by more than $34 billion in federal grants since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a Daily Beast investigation conducted by the Center for Investigative Reporting has found.
Atlanta Police S.W.A.T. members searched a building for a shooting suspect in July of 2010., John Bazemore
The buying spree has transformed local police departments into small, army-like forces, and put intimidating equipment into the hands of civilian officers. And that is raising questions about whether the strategy has gone too far, creating a culture and capability that jeopardizes public safety and civil rights while creating an expensive false sense of security.
“The argument for up-armoring is always based on the least likely of terrorist scenarios,” says Mark Randol, a former terrorism expert at the Congressional Research Service, the nonpartisan research arm of Congress. “Anyone can get a gun and shoot up stuff. No amount of SWAT equipment can stop that.”
Local police bristle at the suggestion that they’ve become “militarized,” arguing the upgrade in firepower and other equipment is necessary to combat criminals with more lethal capabilities. They point to the 1997 Los Angeles-area bank robbers who pinned police for hours with assault weapons, the gun-wielding student who perpetrated the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007, and the terrorists who waged a bloody rampage in Mumbai, India, that left 164 people dead and 300 wounded in 2008...[Full Article]
[Webmaster - There is strong evidence that Virginina Tech and Mumbai were false flag operations. Crisis-Reaction-Solution... Militarizing the domestic police state is the "end game".]
Federal agency concerned about riots breaking out in United States
Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com Tuesday, November 1, 2011
The wave of civil unrest that has swept the globe over the past year has prompted the Department of Homeland Security to step up its monitoring of Twitter and other social networks in a bid to pre-empt any sign of social dislocation within the United States.
“Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Caryn Wagner said the use of such technology in uprisings that started in December in Tunisia shocked some officials into attention and prompted questions of whether the U.S. needs to do a better job of monitoring domestic social networking activity,” reports the Associated Press.
Wagner announced that the federal agency would implement new guidelines that would focus on “gleaning information from sites such as Twitter and Facebook for law enforcement purposes.”
Under the new framework, when the department receives information about a “potential threat,” it will then ask its contractors to look for relevant search references using “open source” information.
Although it’s somewhat naive to think that Homeland Security wasn’t already scanning the likes of Facebook and Twitter for social trends and signs of civil unrest, the fact that its now being announced publicly illustrates the increasing concern that riots which have hit the Middle East and Europe over the last 18 months will soon manifest themselves inside the United States.
Indeed, US law enforcement bodies are already scanning Twitter and Facebook for signs of unrest. Having launched a specialized unit to focus on gleaning clues from social media websites, the NYPD Disorder Control Unit recently brought together police from all five of the city’s boroughs to rehearse what the response would be “should out-of-control riots break out here”.
Social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter came in for harsh condemnation following the UK riots, with Prime Minister David Cameron advocating authorities have the power to shut down access during times of public disorder, mimicking the Communist Chinese system of Internet censorship, which is used to curtail political protests.
Although the Occupy Wall Street movement has been the only real expression of civil unrest in the United States thus far, a worsening economic climate almost guarantees the prospect of an increase in social disorder across the globe.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO), a prominent UN agency, warned yesterday that the world faces an imminent “dramatic downturn” in employment, and a new recession which in turn would lead to greater social unrest, particularly in European countries.
The report lays out the strategy for how authorities would respond to “purposeful domestic resistance,” wherein U.S. troops would be deployed domestically to counter civil unrest. The report was issued weeks after the onset of the 2008 financial crisis, and included a potential “economic collapse” as one of the scenarios under which troops would be used inside the U.S. to restore order.
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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.
Homeland Security PSA says paying for hotel room with cash is “suspicious activity”
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Guests checking in at big hotels like the Marriott, Hilton, Sheraton, and Holiday Inn will now be met with the face of Janet Napolitano when they turn on their televisions, as Homeland Security’s ‘See Something, Say Something’ snitch campaign continues to expand.
“The Department of Homeland Security is turning to television and public service announcements to urge U.S. hotel guests to fight terrorism,” reports UPI, adding that PSAs encouraging Americans to “report suspicious activity” which are already playing in hundreds of Wal-Mart stores across the country will be expanded to 5,400 hotels serviced by the television provider LodgeNet.
Indeed, as of Tuesday the messages were already playing as soon as guests turned on their television.
Informing the “millions of guests that stay at hotels and motels each year is a significant step in engaging the full range of partners in our homeland security efforts,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said.
As we have documented, the promotional videos that have accompanied the launch of the ‘See Something, Say Something’ campaign characterize “suspicious activity” as a whole range of mundane behaviors, including opposing surveillance, using a video camera, talking to police officers, wearing hoodies, driving vans, writing on a piece of paper, and using a cell phone recording application.
One PSA specifically targeted at hotel employees and hotel guests (watch it below), characterizes paying for a room with cash as a suspicious activity that potentially indicates terrorism. In the clip, the man paying for the reservation presents and ID but his lack of a credit card causes the receptionist to report the man to her boss.
Not using a credit card to settle a hotel bill “is suspicious behavior,” according to the voiceover in the clip.
As we have documented, every historical example of such informant programs illustrates that they never lead to a more secure society, but instead breed suspicion, distrust, fear and resentment amongst the population. The only “benefit” that such programs have ever achieved is allowing the state to more easily identify and persecute political dissidents while discouraging the wider population from engaging in any criticism against the government.
Catching terrorists is the job of trained professionals, it should not be entrusted to Wal-Mart employees, hotel receptionists or holidaymakers.
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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.
The unmanned Predators will be added to a force used chiefly to patrol the border with Mexico after lobbying by members of the 'drone caucus.'
LA Times
Reporting from Washington — The Homeland Security Department is adding three surveillance drone aircraft to a domestic fleet chiefly used to patrol the border with Mexico even though officials acknowledge they don't have enough pilots to operate the seven Predators they already possess...[Full Article]
