Does complete inactivity trip any flags?

I have two hypothetical scenarios that I am curious about:

1) Say a regular, everyday US citizen completely drops off the radar and lives on public land somewhere. My question is, if there is no record that said person has died, has been put in prison, or has renounced his US citizenship and moved abroad, and also said individual has not, for the past several years, filed tax returns, used any credit cards, opened any bank accounts, etc., then will a flag be tripped in a federal computer, perhaps causing an agent, or agents, to investigate at some level, or at the very least, automatically causing that person to be placed on a watch list?

2) This scenario is identical to the first one, except replace the regular, everyday US citizen, with a US citizen who has previously been placed on a dissident watch list for whatever reason (Internet activity, a letter to the editor, etc.). What is likely to happen in this case?

I am no expert but here are my thoughts.

If Joe Average just poofed out of existence and no one did a missing persons report or looked for Joe, then I could not see where that would be noticed. I think they are pretty busy watching those suspected of whatever they suspect them of.

If Joe Dissident were to suddenly vanish and has been placed on a watch list then perhaps some attention would be given, but whether or not they would look for Joe, I also doubt that. Again, depending on just what he was dissenting and the level of his dissent, of course.

They'd just wait for you to get bored and come back.

reply to post by miragezero


LOL brilliant!

To answer the question though. For Joe Average, the government probably wouldn't care, or notice. If you're not causing trouble, why would you even show up on their computers? The assumption that Big Brother is actually watching absolutely everyone all of the time in today's day and age would require such amazing manpower, even if it's just to service computers in an automated system, that it would be uneconomical. Joe Average probably doesn't have a police record beyond a few traffic tickets, and maybe some dumb tomfoolery in college, nothing that would make them raise any eyebrows. If they drop off the grid, honestly who cares? If he's not bothering anyone, it's not really worth anyone's time.

Now for Joe Dissident, well it depends on what kind of dissident he is. If he's just been to a few anti-war protests or was in the Tea Parties, he's probably no more interesting than Joe Average. If this is someone with a long and repeated history of violent protest though, say a former member of the Weather Underground or a white supremacist group, whom has stayed active in revolutionary political movements, and spoken in public advocating violence against the government, then yes. The FBI might get quite interested in what a person seen as extremely violent or revolutionary would be doing. This is just logical however, as it's not much of a jump from advocating violence and actually following through on it personally.

Matt, 1st off I hate to be a bugger... but you pointed out another use of syntax errors and mispelling (Like that bloddy matters) and here is my showing that it is argumentative to do so...

Your first statement has so many comma's i nearly coma'd. A run on means nothing here on ATS when writing with passion, and love just set it flow, and tell anyone who spells beleive wrong to bugger off because I belive in love !!!!

For a newbie to ATS, I see that you have multiple threads from today. I do that when I'm hammered... Are you drunk mate? LOL

Take your time to read and decipher informnation, you look like a bloddy AGENT man, I hope that your not... Yea they do have Echlon and other huge servers built by sun-micro systems located at FT. Meade. They have computers process things just as your left brain does, but without wisdom... Its just DATA.

Take care man, If I was off base, I'm sorry. Just take your time and you will see the light. Some say it's conciousness and love, I thinks its Kobe Steak and a Pint of bitter....

Originally posted by Jb0311NY
Matt, 1st off I hate to be a bugger... but you pointed out another use of syntax errors and mispelling (Like that bloddy matters) and here is my showing that it is argumentative to do so...

Your first statement has so many comma's i nearly coma'd. A run on means nothing here on ATS when writing with passion, and love just set it flow, and tell anyone who spells beleive wrong to bugger off because I belive in love !!!!

There is nothing grammatically incorrect about my use of commas in that post.

For a newbie to ATS, I see that you have multiple threads from today. I do that when I'm hammered... Are you drunk mate? LOL

I don't drink alcohol.

reply to post by Matt1978


I doubt it. People disappear, literally thousands of them, all the time. Some of them are bound to leave no trace of themselves.