Monitoring America: How the U.S. Sees You

[cory777]

Source: Washington Post

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.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/20/politics/washingtonpost/main7167877.shtml

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Breaking Activist News http://activistnews.blogspot.com/

[bemildred]

1. Big Brother is watching. nt

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. The speed of the data collection and domestic spying is increasing, too.

Now there is the push for conditioning Wal-Mart customers,

plus "Trash collectors(Waste Management) to serve as eyes and ears in the street for police"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4666929

and the infamous Infra-Guard
http://www.infragard.net/

etc etc

[Diclotican]

3. cory777

cory777

And still they are talking about how bad KGB was..... And of course how bad East European communist States was.. And how Evil Stalin was who was ruling USSR for more than 30 year

.... Liberty and freedom......

Diclotican

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. Yet the recent "terrorists" they have "caught" have all been stings and plants.

Including the "bomb in the pants" that they used as an excuse to grope and x-ray.

Even more chilling, Big Sis "compares the undertaking to the Cold War fight against communists".

Oh, goody. THAT little game sucked up taxpayer funds for DECADES and made Hoover a supreme domestic spy master.
Not to mention ruined a lot of lives as they "investigated" people with leftist leanings.

Back to the 50's, then, are we?

Hell of an article, worth saving it.

[Diclotican]

8. dixiegrrrrl

dixiegrrrrl

True, who would belive that in US, the illness of spying on everyone and everyelse should be the norm... If anynoe had said this for, lets say 30 year ago, they would posible be put in a strightjacked and given a trip to a mental ward for some real medicial help.. Today the paranoia is made law in US, by MCA and the Patriot Act who are more or less make the US a autoritan, or outright dictatorship if a president want it to be it... This president wil posible not do it, but you do not know how the next president wil act...

True, the little game "war against communist" really sucked up some taxpayer founds for decades after WW2, and Hoover a man with more power than everyone in US could muster.. Many presidents was afraid of Hoover, mostly becouse he was spying on everyone, specially potential presidents...

Diclotican

[mbperrin]

4. Exactly why I have painted Big Brother's eyes on my own wall -

to remind me.

[bemildred]

6. Obey

[mbperrin]

7. Yes, being a boomer, I am unaccustomed to my neighbors spying

on me, official notice being taken of ordinary conversations, and the sort. I need the reminder that freedom completely ended in this country in 2001, when we surrendered all to the authorities.

[Diclotican]

9. mbperrin

mbperrin

In the 1930s, a crack joke about Stalin could handle you in the prison system for more than a decade.. In the 1930s, if anyone was out for you, you could also end up in the prison system, for many years, becouse "someone" had told the autorites that you was not the good soviet sitizien you claim to be... Millions end up in the prison system, for many years, some for decades...

In 2010, just the suspection of anything, could make your nabours, your friends spying on you, for your government, even tho nothing is coming out of it, and you are clean as a wisle... When is the first one beeing sendt to the US form of Gulag to languiqs for many years?..

What is the difference?

Diclotican

[mbperrin]

10. 3 years ago, a local university professor and his wife got into an argument.

She called the FBI and told them he was a terrorist (he is from another country originally, but has been here since 1980). Three days later, he was taken in "for questioning." He has not been heard from since.

His wife has retained a couple of attorneys, who have tried to explain that she was just angry and somewhat drunk when she made the call. She cannot even find out where he's being held or why.

Now if this can go on right here in west Texas, it behooves me to watch it much more carefully than when I was growing up.

[Diclotican]

11. mbperrin

mbperrin

Oh shit.. Its dangrous to call the FBI, and claim the man you are living with is an terrorist... After 11 sept 2001, I guess the word Terrorist was enough for many... Hope the man is safe, but I fear he might not be that.. FBI, and the rest of the alfabeth soup who is the US government are not excatly known to not keep anyone under arrest if they is not sure about things.. Its a "Old news" that US government can keep peopole out of sight for decades if they shoose to do it..

It is sad what US have become.. Once you was a beacon of freedom and liberty, in a often dark and scary place. Today you are not shining that bright anymore, as the ugly underbelly of your security apparatours is making its debut.. Once in time, maybe many was feeling the same about USSR, many in Europe belived between the wars, that USSR was the home of freedom and true happyness, and that the few who was put to trials, was indeed guilty of what they was claimed to be... My old man, who was growing up in the 1930 Norway, was allways on the "left" political speaking - a old time social democrat-bordering to communist I guess, solid working class hero so to speak.. And he expressed allways some foundness for the idea behind USSR..

It is an expensive idea to call police, when drunk and angry, if the husband is just disaperared and cant be traced anywhere.... It looks like the US government have been doing some really F**** if they are not been able to release the man... He might not even be alive anymore, if he was sendt to other country, who have a more loose habit when it came to use of torture.. It would not be the first time THAT have happend in the history of US government..

If they can do that in Texas, then what can they do, to others?.. It is sad if you need to watch out for what you want to say, becouse "walls have ears" as it was put under the world war two - and then again in some parts of the cold war, when the evil commi was all over the place, wanting to spy, and put what he know back to USSR...

Its scary similar to what happend in USSR both before the war, and after the war, when ten of thousands was sendt to the camps, even if they have been fighting for their life as soldiers of the soviet army... Many was arrested, and sendt to sibir, just becouse Stalin was afraid about what they know what was different from what Stalin was telling everyone. And its also scary similar to the book 1984..

Diclotican