http://rt.com/usa/fusion-center-director-spying-070/
Fusion center director: We don’t spy on Americans, just anti-government Americans
Published time: March 29, 2013 20:35
AFP Photo / Pascal Guyot
Law enforcement intelligence-processing fusion centers have long come under attack for spying on Americans. The Arkansas director wanted to clarify the truth: centers only spies on some Americans – those who appear to be a threat to the government.
In trying to clear up the ‘misconceptions’ about the conduct of fusion centers, Arkansas State Fusion Center Director Richard Davis simply confirmed Americans’ fears: the center does in fact spy on Americans – but only on those who are suspected to be ‘anti-government’.
“The misconceptions are that we are conducting spying operations on US citizens, which is of course not a fact. That is absolutely not what we do,” he told the NWA Homepage, which supports KNWA-TV and Fox 24.
After claiming that his office ‘absolutely’ does not spy on Americans, he proceeded to explain that this does not apply to those who could be interpreted as a ‘threat’ to national security. Davis said his office places its focus on international plots, “domestic terrorism and certain groups that are anti-government. We want to kind of take a look at that and receive that information.”
But the First Amendment allows for the freedom of speech and opinion, making it lawfully acceptable for Americans to express their grievances against the US government. The number of anti-government groups even hit a record high in 2012, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Many of these groups are ‘hate groups’ that express disdain for minorities. But unless they become violent, these groups are legally allowed to exist.
“We are seeing the fourth straight year of really explosive growth on the part of anti-government patriot groups and militias,” Mark Potok, senior fellow at the SPLC, told Mother Jones. “That’s 913 percent in growth. We’ve never seen that kind of growth in any group we cover.”
And with a record-high number of anti-government groups, fusion centers may be spying on more Americans than ever before – or at least, have the self-proclaimed right to do so.
“I do what I do because of what happened on 9/11,” Davis said. “There’s this urge and this feeling inside that you want to do something, and this is a perfect opportunity for me.”
But Davis’ argument is flawed: in order to determine whether or not someone is considered a threat to national security, fusion centers would first have to spy on Americans to weed out the suspected individuals, and then proceed to spy on the ‘anti-government’ individuals further.
Across the US, fusion centers have reported on individuals who conducted ‘crimes’ like putting political stickers in public bathrooms or participating in movements against the death penalty. In October, the bipartisan Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations finished a two-year investigation on fusion centers, only to find that the centers had directly violated constitutionally protected civil liberties.
“In reality, the Subcommittee investigation found that the fusion centers often produced irrelevant, useless or inappropriate intelligence reporting to DHS, and many produced no intelligence reporting whatsoever,” the report stated.
And the privacy violations could soon become worse: RT previously reported that the FBI’s proposed facial recognition project could provide fusion centers with more personal data to work with. With at least 72 fusion centers across the US and technology that could further infringe upon privacy rights, government agencies will be able to more efficiently collect data on Americans solely for exercising their freedom of speech.
http://www.infowars.com/homeland-security-demands-obedience-in-message-to-agents/
Homeland Security Demands “Obedience” in Message to Agents
The Obama administration and its controversial Department of Homeland Security are under fire for sending what is being described as a “chilling” message to U.S. Border Patrol agents demanding “obedience,”Liberty News Network (LNN) national correspondent and law-enforcement advocate Andy Ramirez revealed in an exclusive video report (see below) calling for Congress to investigate. The word “obedience” was defined on the official TV screens as: “quickly and cheerfully carrying out the direction of those who are responsible for me.”
Reliable sources inside the agency confirmed to Ramirez, who also serves as president of the Law Enforcement Officers Advocates Council (LEOAC), that the controversial message demanding “obedience” was displayed for agents on TV monitors in the San Diego and Tucson sectors last week. In his explosive video for LNN exposing the scheme, Ramirez also provided a picture of the “propaganda” graphic that he obtained from a source within Customs and Border Protection (CBP) who requested anonymity (see photo above).
“This ‘Obedience’ order just continues a long recent history of intimidation going back to the 2004 ‘gag order’ by then-Chief David Aguilar,” Ramirez told The New American in an interview, referring to a controversial non-disclosure agreement purporting to bar agents from releasing important information to lawmakers and the media. “The primary point of this all is to purge the patrol of experienced agents who refuse to go along to get along.”
Calling for congressional hearings to investigate the controversial “obedience” message, Ramirez said the scheme was frightening. “Cheerfully?!” he exclaimed about the graphic, sounding bewildered. “Responses I’m hearing from sources at the Border Patrol include the words Orwellian, creepy, sickening, craziness, Nazi handbook — and those are just the ones I can actually repeat.”
Ramirez also wondered what happens to Border Patrol agents who do not “cheerfully” engage in “obedience” upon demand, especially if orders included instructions to violate the Constitution, for example. “Do they go to one of the long-rumored FEMA camps guarded by employees and DHS armored personnel carriers?” he asked. “Perhaps we hear loudspeakers playing ‘Deutschland, Deutschland Uber Alles’ — something out of Hitler’s Nazi Germany?”
Alternatively, Ramirez speculated half-seriously, there could be an even more chilling fate awaiting those who refuse to carry out unlawful or unconstitutional orders. “Are they now classified as domestic terrorists, in which case a yet-to-be-identified official at the Department of Justice can have them taken out with a drone strike?” he wondered. “As we just heard in recent congressional hearings, that’s pretty much what can now happen; a drone strike on an individual who is considered a terrorist on U.S. soil.”
- A D V E R T I S E M E N T
According to Ramirez, both the Border Patrol and Customs have already engaged in a number of “purges” where agents close to retirement were forced to retire even though they still had room for advancement. “They want employees who are loyal to DHS and CBP, which is why the old BP logos and decals have been pretty much removed off the vehicles,” the LNN correspondent told The New American in an exclusive interview.
“Agencies like CBP, ICE, TSA, and the like were placed under DHS’ roof for command and control purposes,” Ramirez continued. “However the real purpose has been to keep the facts from reaching the public. In point of fact, DHS is a propaganda ministry in its own right, given the blatant misinformation released by top officials. In the wrong hands it could easily act in a way similar to ‘State Security’.”
In addition to exposing the controversial image used to condition Border Patrol agents into blind obedience, Ramirez took the opportunity to blast the agency’s leadership as well. “As the Border Patrol enters its 89th year since it was established, there is no figure who has done more to destroy this honorable agency than David Aguilar and his handpicked cronies, including current national Chief Mike Fisher,” he said.
The longtime advocate for Border Patrol agents, who has testified before Congress on multiple occasions, also noted that management was destroying morale. Among other concerns, Ramirez pointed to pay increases for top leadership amid sequester even as agents face potentially massive pay cuts. He blasted what he said was top officials’ efforts to prevent agents from enforcing U.S. immigration laws, too.
Another concern highlighted by Ramirez was the U.S. government’s willingness to “sacrifice agents as scalps through the Justice Department upon request of the Mexican government.” He was referring, of course, to the now-infamous prosecution of Border Patrol agent Jesus “Chito” Diaz, Jr., after Mexican officials complained that the agent had allegedly pulled on the handcuffs of a young drug smuggler.
Indeed, the Mexican government seems to be rapidly expanding its influence on the American side of the border. Ramirez slammed what he described as the U.S. federal government ceding control over the border to the Mexican military, drug cartels, and human smugglers. Notoriously corrupt authorities from Mexico now have “virtual oversight impunity” at U.S. Border Patrol facilities, he explained.
Finally, Ramirez lambasted top officials’ participation in the cover-up of the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, who waskilled by drug smugglers apparently armed by the Obama administrationunder operation “Fast and Furious.” While the explosive scandal and the subsequent cover-up eventually resulted in Attorney General Eric Holder being held in criminal contempt of Congress, justice has yet to be served.
“It’s no wonder morale has been broken at the Border Patrol,” Ramirez concluded.
The New American reached out to the Department of Homeland Security with a number of questions about the “obedience” scandal. Who approved this? Is it from DHS, CBP, or some other agency? Are such messages being used in other DHS components? How does DHS respond to criticism from Ramirez and agents about this message? Does DHS consider this type of messaging to be appropriate? Are there any exceptions to “obedience”? What happens if agents do not “quickly and cheerfully” carry out “the direction of those who are responsible” for them?
While most of the questions were left unanswered, Bill Brooks with the CBP Office of Public Affairs offered a brief statement about the issue. “Information Display System slides are meant to communicate important and useful information to personnel,” Brooks told The New American in an e-mail. “This example falls short of that criteria, and has already been removed.”
For Ramirez, however, though he was glad to hear that the offensive slides have already been removed, the official “non-denial” response was not enough. “Well apparently CBP has responded to the Obedience slide, but refused to comment on who ordered it, and the other facts I reported for LNN,” he said. “Clearly they’re not denying it.”
Still, even though the slide is supposedly gone, Congress needs to get involved and provide real oversight of DHS, Ramirez explained. The other alternative is to continue allowing the “out-of-control bureaucracy” to run roughshod over their employees, the rights of Americans, and constitutional principles. For Ramirez, doing nothing should not even be an option.
“Congress needs to publicly investigate this ‘Obedience’ slide as well as the DHS purchase of over 1 billion rounds of ammo,FEMA camps, and armored personnel carriers, for there are many serious implications involved here,” Ramirez concluded, calling on officials to make a public apology to agents. “Also, the officials responsible for this blatant attempt to intimidate our Border Patrol agents must be terminated with the same loss of benefits as employees who get terminated on trumped up charges I’ve documented over the past eight years.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/29/domestic-drones-unique-dangers
Domestic drones and their unique dangers
Dismissive claims that drones do nothing more than helicopters and satellites already do are wildly misinformed
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AR Drone: almost certainly the world's first Wi-Fi enabled iPhone-controllable miniature flying device.
The use of drones by domestic US law enforcement agencies is growing rapidly, both in terms of numbers and types of usage. As a result, civil liberties and privacy groups led by the ACLU - while accepting that domestic drones are inevitable - have been devoting increasing efforts topublicizing their unique dangers and agitating for statutory limits. These efforts are being impeded by those who mock the idea that domestic drones pose unique dangers (often the same people who mock concern over their usage on foreign soil). This dismissive posture is grounded not only in soft authoritarianism (a religious-type faith in the Goodness of US political leaders and state power generally) but also ignorance over current drone capabilities, the ways drones are now being developed and marketed for domestic use, and the activities of the increasingly powerful domestic drone lobby. So it's quite worthwhile to lay out the key under-discussed facts shaping this issue.
I'm going to focus here most on domestic surveillance drones, but I want to say a few words about weaponized drones. The belief that weaponized drones won't be used on US soil is patently irrational. Of course they will be. It's not just likely but inevitable. Police departments are already speaking openly about how their drones "could be equipped to carry nonlethal weapons such as Tasers or a bean-bag gun." The drone industry has already developed and is now aggressively marketing precisely such weaponized drones for domestic law enforcement use. It likely won't be in the form that has received the most media attention: the type of large Predator or Reaper drones that shoot Hellfire missiles which destroy homes and cars in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan andmultiple other countries aimed at Muslims (although US law enforcement agencies already possess Predator drones and have used them over US soil for surveillance).
Instead, as I detailed in a 2012 examination of the drone industry's own promotional materials and reports to their shareholders, domestic weaponized drones will be much smaller and cheaper, as well as more agile - but just as lethal. The nation's leading manufacturer of small "unmanned aircraft systems" (UAS), used both for surveillance and attack purposes, is AeroVironment, Inc. (AV). Its 2011 Annual Report filed with the SEC repeatedly emphasizes that its business strategy depends upon expanding its market from foreign wars to domestic usage including law enforcement:
AV's annual report added: "Initial likely non-military users of small UAS include public safety organizations such as law enforcement agencies. . . ." These domestic marketing efforts are intensifying with the perception that US spending on foreign wars will decrease. As a February, 2013 CBS News report noted, focusing on AV's surveillance drones:
"Now, drones are headed off the battlefield. They're already coming your way."AeroVironment, the California company that sells the military something like 85 percent of its fleet, is marketing them now to public safety agencies."
Like many drone manufacturers, AV is now focused on drone products -such as the "Qube" - that are so small that they can be "transported in the trunk of a police vehicle or carried in a backpack" and assembled and deployed within a matter of minutes. One news report AV touts is headlined "Drone technology could be coming to a Police Department near you", which focuses on the Qube.
But another article prominently touted on AV's website describes the tiny UAS product dubbed the "Switchblade", which, says the article, is "the leading edge of what is likely to be the broader, even wholesale, weaponization of unmanned systems." The article creepily hails the Switchblade drone as "the ultimate assassin bug". That's because, as I wrote back in 2011, "it is controlled by the operator at the scene, and it worms its way around buildings and into small areas, sending its surveillance imagery to an i-Pad held by the operator, who can then direct the Switchblade to lunge toward and kill the target (hence the name) by exploding in his face." AV's website right now proudly touts a February, 2013 Defense News article describing how much the US Army loves the "Switchblade" and how it is preparing to purchase more. Time Magazineheralded this tiny drone weapon as "one of the best inventions of 2012", gushing: "the Switchblade drone can be carried into battle in a backpack. It's a kamikaze: the person controlling it uses a real-time video feed from the drone to crash it into a precise target - say, a sniper. Its tiny warhead detonates on impact."
What possible reason could someone identify as to why these small, portable weaponized UAS products will not imminently be used by federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in the US? They're designed to protect their users in dangerous situations and to enable a target to be more easily killed. Police agencies and the increasingly powerful drone industry will tout their utility in capturing and killing dangerous criminals and their ability to keep officers safe, and media reports will do the same. The handful of genuinely positive uses from drones will be endlessly touted to distract attention away from the dangers they pose.
One has to be incredibly naïve to think that these "assassin bugs" and other lethal drone products will not be widely used on US soil by an already para-militarized domestic police force. As Radley Balko's forthcoming book "Rise of the Warrior Cop" details, the primary trend in US law enforcement is what its title describes as "The Militarization of America's Police Forces". The history of domestic law enforcement particularly after 9/11 has been the importation of military techniques and weapons into domestic policing. It would be shocking if these weapons were not imminently used by domestic law enforcement agencies.
In contrast to weaponized drones, even the most naïve among us do not doubt the imminent proliferation of domestic surveillance drones. With little debate, they have already arrived. As the ACLU put it in their recent report: "US law enforcement is greatly expanding its use of domestic drones for surveillance." An LA Times article from last month reportedthat "federal authorities have stepped up efforts to license surveillance drones for law enforcement and other uses in US airspace" and that "the Federal Aviation Administration said Friday it had issued 1,428 permits to domestic drone operators since 2007, far more than were previously known." Moreover, the agency "has estimated 10,000 drones could be aloft five years later" and "local and state law enforcement agencies are expected to be among the largest customers."
Concerns about the proliferation of domestic surveillance drones are typically dismissed with the claim that they do nothing more than police helicopters and satellites already do. Such claims are completely misinformed. As the ACLU's 2011 comprehensive report on domestic drones explained: "Unmanned aircraft carrying cameras raise the prospect of a significant new avenue for the surveillance of American life."
Multiple attributes of surveillance drones make them uniquely threatening. Because they are so cheap and getting cheaper, huge numbers of them can be deployed to create ubiquitous surveillance in a way that helicopters or satellites never could. How this works can already been seen in Afghanistan, where the US military has dubbed its drone surveillance system "the Gorgon Stare", named after the "mythical Greek creature whose unblinking eyes turned to stone those who beheld them". That drone surveillance system is "able to scan an area the size of a small town" and "the most sophisticated robotics use artificial intelligence that [can] seek out and record certain kinds of suspicious activity". Boasted one US General: "Gorgon Stare will be looking at a whole city, so there will be no way for the adversary to know what we're looking at, andwe can see everything."
The NSA already maintains ubiquitous surveillance of electronic communications, but the Surveillance State faces serious limits on its ability to replicate that for physical surveillance. Drones easily overcome those barriers. As the ACLU report put it:
I've spoken previously about why a ubiquitous Surveillance State ushers in unique and deeply harmful effects on human behavior and a nation's political culture and won't repeat that here (here's the video (also embedded below) and the transcript of one speech where I focus on how that works). Suffice to say, as the ACLU explains in its domestic drone report: "routine aerial surveillance would profoundly change the character of public life in America" because only drone technology enables such omnipresent physical surveillance.
Beyond that, the tiny size of surveillance drones enables them to reach places that helicopters obviously cannot, and to do so without detection. They can remain in the sky, hovering over a single place, for up to 20 hours, a duration that is always increasing - obviously far more than manned helicopters can achieve. As AV's own report put it (see page 11), their hovering capability also means they can surveil a single spot for much longer than many military satellites, most of which move with the earth's rotation (the few satellites that remain fixed "operate nearly 25,000 miles from the surface of the earth, therefore limiting the bandwidth they can provide and requiring relatively larger, higher power ground stations"). In sum, surveillance drones enable a pervasive, stealth and constantly hovering Surveillance State that is now well beyond the technological and financial abilities of law enforcement agencies.
One significant reason why this proliferation of domestic drones has become so likely is the emergence of a powerful drone lobby. I detailed some of how that lobby is functioning here, so will simply note this passage from a recent report from the ACLU of Iowa on its attempts to persuade legislators to enact statutory limits on the use of domestic drones:
"Drones have their own trade group, the Association for Unmanned Aerial Systems International, which includes some of the nation's leading aerospace companies. And Congress now has 'drone caucuses' in both the Senate and House."
Howie Klein has been one of the few people focusing on the massive amounts of money from the drone industry now flowing into the coffers of key Congressional members from both parties in this "drone caucus". Suffice to say, there is an enormous profit to be made from exploiting the domestic drone market, and as usual, that factor is thus far driving the (basically nonexistent) political response to these threats.
What is most often ignored by drone proponents, or those who scoff at anti-drone activism, are the unique features of drones: the way they enable more warfare, more aggression, and more surveillance. Drones make war more likely precisely because they entail so little risk to the war-making country. Similarly, while the propensity of drones to kill innocent people receives the bulk of media attention, the way in which drones psychologically terrorize the population - simply by constantly hovering over them: unseen but heard - is usually ignored, because it's not happening in the US, so few people care (see this AP report from yesterday on how the increasing use of drone attacks in Afghanistan is truly terrorizing local villagers). It remains to be seen how Americans will react to drones constantly hovering over their homes and their childrens' schools, though by that point, their presence will be so institutionalized that it will be likely be too late to stop.
Notably, this may be one area where an actual bipartisan/trans-partisan alliance can meaningfully emerge, as most advocates working on these issues with whom I've spoken say that libertarian-minded GOP state legislators have been as responsive as more left-wing Democratic ones in working to impose some limits. One bill now pending in Congress would prohibit the use of surveillance drones on US soil in the absence of a specific search warrant, and has bipartisan support.
Only the most authoritarian among us will be incapable of understanding the multiple dangers posed by a domestic drone regime (particularly when their party is in control of the government and they are incapable of perceiving threats from increased state police power). But the proliferation of domestic drones affords a real opportunity to forge an enduring coalition in defense of core privacy and other rights that transcends partisan allegiance, by working toward meaningful limits on their use. Making people aware of exactly what these unique threats are from a domestic drone regime is the key first step in constructing that coalition.
Harms from the Surveillance State
One of the most difficult challenges in all discussions of privacy rights is articulating what most people instinctively already know: why privacy is so vital and why a ubiquitous Surveillance State is so destructive. Here is the speech I gave last year in Chicago in which I attempted to articulate those reasons:
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