"We don’t spy on Americans, just anti-government Americans"

reply to post by Hopechest

If some guy is walking around saying hes going to blow up the Empire State Building, says he has the bomb making material, and has a date...you would think its inappropriate for federal officials to dig into his life because of his first amendment rights?

Are you being serious? This is the most fallacious argument I’ve read in a while.

Don’t you get it??? ANY ONE OF US they dislike or fear can fit nicely into the targeted group because they change the rules in the middle of the game!!

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Benjamin Franklin

Napolitano equates right-wing Americans with Al Qaeda! And who are right-wing extremists?? Sean Hannity or Timothy McVeigh?? Maybe both? Maybe you and me?? (minute 1)



If we let them violate the rights of ANY group of AMERICANS then we cannot complain when OUR rights are violated. The Americans who are the biggest threat to this country are the usurpers in DC who continue to intentionally strip us of our rights!

They are targeting ALL OF US!!! WHITES, CHRISTIANS, CONSERVATIVES, VETERANS, ETC!

The government is the terrorist that everybody fears. Nobody that I know has been touched by any other terrorist organization. You are more likely to be hit by lightning than be a victim of a terrorist attack.

It's all about money and control. Our senators and congressmen hold stock in the companies that have the contracts and manufacture and deploy the equipment used to spy on and control Americans. Our senators and congressmen are given campaign contributions by the companies that have the contracts and manufacture and deploy the equipment used to spy on Americans.

Democrats and Republicans are responsible for the terrorist nature of the government. We must rid the government of Democrats and Republicans before we can have honest, representative, and transparent government. We need to elect citizen statesmen who love America more than they love power and money. We need to elect citizen statesmen who represent the folks who elected them instead representing power and money hungry criminals.

Folks it is time to go out to the shed and get out the pitchforks, torches, tar, and feathers. We need to run these criminals out of town before our country is totally destroyed.

reply to post by groingrinder

Folks it is time to go out to the shed and get out the pitchforks, torches, tar, and feathers. We need to run these criminals out of town before our country is totally destroyed.

We haven't had a good Tar'n in a loooooong time..... It's way overdue~ I agree~

"Smokey!~ Get the gas, were burnin this b*tc* down~"

Originally posted by Hopechest

Do you really think the federal government has the resources to put 300 million people under surveillance or do you think they prioritize people who have said or done something that makes them a larger threat than the rest of society?

I guess the difference is how much do you trust those in authority to prioritize threats appropriately? I have seen far too much of human nature to feel comfortable granting others that much power over my rights based on what they interpret of my behavior. People are prone to panic induced histrionics, tried and true power tripping just because they are damaged jerks, general laziness, and of course there is always plain ol' idiocy.

Not to mention the slippery slope aspect of this sort of mentality. Any human relationship is in part a struggle for dominance, and the relationship between the commoners and the ruling class is no exception to that rule.
Because of this, historically this only gets worse; the control from authority becomes more draconian, the noose inevitably tightens. Once the general populace stops resisting and pushing back enough against the state the state will only take more, and more, and more... Such is the nature of ANY power struggle. .

Originally posted by Hopechest

I'm sorry but if a government is not keeping an eye on what some extreme people are up to they are not doing their job of protecting society as a whole. I'm sure they have an entire file on me simply because of the kind of forums I hang out in and some of the comments I post and I would expect that.

If there weren't I would be mighty disappointed.

The fact that you would accept such scrutiny and further support it is just sad. The fact that anyone would be moved to do so is just plain scary, and indicative of the spiral that leads to the above mentioned slippery slope. The government conditions the citizenry to not only expect to be treated like children, idiots, and/or criminals but to be grateful for it.

Originally posted by Hopechest

Nope, but I'm also probably not considered a threat.

Not yet. But wait, it is possible. If this does come to pass you will still be completely unwilling to understand or admit your own compliance and contribution in the events that allowed your government to no longer treat you like a human being.

had to go and look this up, i couldn't believe it when i first saw it. it is kinda dated, but i don't think DHS has changed much. and just look at the contempt the man shows.

it appears that the DHS watch list includes dead people, and even our founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin

this from the link below

S.E.: I still don’t see it, Mr. Pistole. Okay, let’s take Thomas Jefferson here. Please tell me how Mr. Jefferson can possibly aid and abet terrorists. J.P.: Have you read this man’s preposterous writings? Have you paid attention to his shameless propaganda against the government? Just listen to this quote: “The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all” This man, this anarchist, is encouraging Americans to resist us; to resist us the government, who are in charge of protecting their national security!! By making us the government the enemy of you the people, he is making the terrorists the friends of you the people. Because you the people are either with us the government or with the enemy! You understand that, Ms. Edmonds?! And while we are at it, here is another one: “And what country can preserve its liberties, if the rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.” We the rulers are the protectors of your security, and this man uses his fame and name to make us the real enemy of the people??! He may as well work for the terrorists!

also this,

As we approached the end of our interview I quickly asked him the following question: S.E.: Sir, these men have been dead for over two hundred years. How can long-dead men be of any threat to our national security?! J.P.: We haven’t found any hard-evidence, any scientific proof of their deaths; have you?! Sure, it is ‘said,’ only ‘said,’ that they in fact died. Can you, with no doubt, prove that the men inside those graves marked with the names Jefferson and Franklin are indeed the real Jefferson and Franklin? Maybe with excavation and DNA samples and …however, that doesn’t seem to be the case here. Come on, these guys were known for their resilience with a propensity for resistance. Who says they couldn’t still be alive today?! When it comes to our national security we do not take any chances, and this is NO EXCEPTION. Americans have trusted us with their security through their private parts and hard-earned dollars, and we are not about to let them down by taking chances on resilient men keen on resistance who may unwittingly and indirectly aid and abet terrorists; whether they are said-to-be-long-dead Founding Fathers or Quaker grandmothers… S.E.: One last question, Mr. Pistole. How about Patrick Henry, John Paine…or even the US Constitution, are those all classified as terror threats and watch-list inhabitants? J.P.: We are not going to divulge classified information, and the names of our suspects are all considered classified. As for the Constitution? Who says there is a Constitution? Last time we investigated we found it to be mythical and highly irrelevant. Now I am going to hang up and wait for your list of names, the sources you pledged to divulge.

these are the kinda of idiots we have in the DHS

DHS-TSA Terror Watch List Includes Dead & Long-Dead US Citizens

reply to post by Hopechest

Now if I were to make some outrageous claims

Yes but who is to define what is "outrageous." You might think things are cozy right now but a future administration might move the goal posts...

People who wish to cause mayhem and harm to others are not so naive as to start waffling about it in public or on a public forum are they? You'd at least think they'd try to be discreet.

I don't know what resources the intelligence agencies have but I'm betting it's far more than you'd even imagine. I don't think the NSA have just built that huge new facility in Utah just to sit and look at it have they?

reply to post by hounddoghowlie


So if that's what they think, what do you think happens to the person who purchases a biography of Jefferson or Franklin online?

Would that be considered some radical reading material?

Crazy...

reply to post by hounddoghowlie


In fact the more I read of that the more I think it has to be parody.

Please tell me it is...

The head of the TSA calls Jefferson and Franklin threats to national security and then tries to argue that they might not actually be dead and could potentially still be alive. What?!

“domestic terrorism and certain groups that are anti-government. We want to kind of take a look at that and receive that information.”

'anti-government'

im pretty sure we are (ATS) on that list somewhere.

I think im on one o those lists. I think I posted a thread 1-2 years ago about Southern Poverty Law Center considering we are change chapters are a political hate speech group.

-facepalm

-Waves to the spies among us.

Originally posted by ugie1028

-Waves to the spies among us.

-Waves back.

I'm with Hopechest on this one. If people don't know how to distinguish outrageous behavior from statements made online, they need help. Help in learning how to read people. True, the Government is among those who need that help, but so are the people who say things like " define outrageous". It should be obvious.

I think people are getting their panties too much in a bind over all this. As another poster pointed out, it's all about money. I'm on the fence about the control theory, but the people with this technology care as much about national security as they do about what you or I say about it. They just want a damn job.

reply to post by Taupin Desciple


See, part of the problem may be what one considers to be a "threat to national security". You or I could perceive a threat to national security as being an attempt for a violent overthrow of government, planting a car bomb in the middle of a busy street during lunchtime, or it could be the unapproved disclosure of sensitive military information that puts soldiers at risk. That's what I personally define as a "threat to national security" and in those sorts of cases, I can understand the need for surveillance even though I get a little twitchy about the Constitution because those gray areas on the First Amendment are basically contrived not directly by the Constitution, itself, but by Supreme Court opinion (ie. Brandenburg v. Ohio or Near v. Minnesota). Being that as it may, I can kind of see their point that some speech is dangerous speech. However, that's just what I define as being a threat to national security. Someone else could have a completely different definition of what is a threat to national security.

I tried to find what our government defines as a "threat to national security". Oddly enough, the first thing that came up was this: www.dlsu.edu.ph...

But that's the Phillipine government--not the US. You'd think that if there was something about defining what is national security and a threat to it here in the US, that would be the first hit, right? Well, there is no hit on Google for a US definition of what is a threat to national security or even how to define national security because such a definition does not formally exist. The reason why a definition doesn't exist is because once you put such a definition down in writing, then it fixes what is defined as a threat and the issues of what was actually a threat or not has been abused in the past. Heck, last time we went through this, apparently subversives were within the FBI, the US Army, the DoD. Oppenheimer was even a problem and homosexuals were a threat to national security, too (see the Lavender Scare--quite enlightening).

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
A statement like that would have seen that sorry excuse for a public "servant" run clear out of any position of authority if he'd babbled a 1984 like statement like that before 9/11. Now? We yawn and barely notice.

What happened to the well justified outrage of the citizen spying and red files of the 1960's? They called it "Un-American Activities" then. Even had Congressional committees with that name with in the title for goodness sakes. The 70's saw some reckoning with the Church/Pike committees holding CIA's feet to a roaring bonfire. I always thought that was overblown and a bit counterproductive to national security to grill CIA that way. Now? I think they didn't do nearly ENOUGH and probably should have disbanded them outright. Formed a new one, perhaps, back to the basics of Intelligence Gathering?

Now...If only the CIA were our problem. They seem like a quaint and almost cute image of the nightmare we have today.

IF THE GOVERNMENT WOULD STOP TALKING ABOUT KILLING US .... We might stop disliking them so strongly.

Heck if it were said during the last administration in the second term it would be headlines everywhere. You see they have "one of them" in the WH now so the liberals and MSM are now the standing fools who will have regrets after the fact, just as many conservatives do after Bush II. They can't attack any of this, for they would have to admit they were wrong and were had.

It's all part of the plan. Many here know, as I'm sure you do, it's divide and conquer. The only way to accomplish it is to cause extremes that each side must either attack or defend.

reply to post by silent thunder


So if you are Republicant under a Democraft Administration--- you will be monitored.

And if you are a Democraft under a Republicant Administration--- you will be monitored.


Sounds like "We don't spy on Americans, just ones who pay attention to politics."

Wow, this is so ridiculous. They say "anti" government but what they really mean is anyone who questions the government. And the government should be questioned, all the time. Especially now when they do things that are not even legal, going against the US Constitution. So anyone who attacks the government is "anti-government," which is a load of crap. Yet people are buying into these lies. It is so sad that only a few of us can see how things like gun control, attacking those who question the government, etc. are all related. There has to be some form of ultimate plan in the works here, because with all of the different things happening to undermine American freedoms and rights, it goes beyond coincidence. Too many people are willing to believe all of this bs spouted by anyone in a uniform or in politics. Just because the MSM or the government says something does not make it so. Because they say that dissenters are against the government, that somehow makes it fact. Give me a break.

reply to post by silent thunder

"We don’t spy on Americans, just anti-government Americans"

That statement would probably be more accurate, if it was worded like this:
[color=DBAA95]"We don’t continue repeatedly spying on all Americans, just anti-government Americans"


Of course it would depend on their actual definition of what an 'Anti-Government American' truly is, but that is most likely something that cannot be positively determined, until after the individual has been under surveillance.







reply to post by groingrinder

Originally posted by groingrinder

The government is the terrorist that everybody fears. Nobody that I know has been touched by any other terrorist organization. You are more likely to be hit by lightning than be a victim of a [color=DBAA95]foreign terrorist attack.

I just felt like adding a word to your comment.



Seemed appropriate.

I doubt it is that bad.

Probably phones are tapped, but not listened to. After some keywords pop up too often, the listening might start, simply to see whether there is something to worry about.

Same is with internet. Keywords, if too much comes from an IP, it will be taken under surveillance to see whether the person might actually something.

If you did nothing wrong, probably there is nothing to worry about, at least as an average person.

reply to post by Cabin

Originally posted by Cabin

I doubt it is that bad.

Probably phones are tapped.....

And you think that's ok.
Herein↑ lies the problem.

reply to post by BrokenCircles


It depends. When somebody truly is talking on the phone about bombing some place or doing something highly illegal, how else would it be possible to prevent it?

There is a difference between tapping and tapping. Probably simply some computer program overhears the talk without even saving it and when somebody talks too much about some illegal acts, like bombings or nukes or something more specific, and it happens a lot, then surveillance might start.

I personally had no problem with something like that, if it existed. I have nothing to hide.

funny ... I know former kgb and stasi agents who said they didnt spy on russians and east germans either ... guess dhs learn from the kgb and stasi public relations manuals ...

reply to post by Cabin

Originally posted by Cabin

It depends. When somebody truly is talking on the phone about bombing some place or doing something highly illegal, how else would it be possible to prevent it?

I cannot know for sure whether or not random 'tapping' has ever prevented such an act.