{"id":64277,"date":"2021-01-28T13:31:26","date_gmt":"2021-01-28T19:31:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=64277"},"modified":"2021-01-28T17:01:27","modified_gmt":"2021-01-28T23:01:27","slug":"64277","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=64277","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"
Enemies of the Deep State: The government\u2019s war on domestic terrorism is a trap<\/a><\/div>\n
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By John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThis is an issue that all Democrats, Republicans, independents, Libertarians should be extremely concerned about, especially because we don\u2019t have to guess about where this goes or how this ends. What characteristics are we looking for as we are building this profile of a potential extremist, what are we talking about? Religious extremists, are we talking about Christians, evangelical Christians, what is a religious extremist? Is it somebody who is pro-life?\u00a0[The proposed legislation could create] a very dangerous undermining of our civil liberties, our freedoms in our Constitution, and a targeting of almost half of the country.<\/a>\u201d\u2014Tulsi Gabbard, former Congresswoman<\/p>\n

This is how it begins.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We are moving fast down that slippery slope to an authoritarian society in which the only opinions, ideas and speech expressed are the ones permitted by the government and its corporate cohorts.<\/p>\n

In the wake of the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol, \u201cdomestic terrorism\u201d has become the new poster child for expanding the government\u2019s powers at the expense of civil liberties.<\/p>\n

Of course, \u201cdomestic terrorist\u201d is just the latest bull\u2019s eye phrase, to be used\u00a0interchangeably<\/a>\u00a0with \u201canti-government,\u201d \u201cextremist\u201d and \u201cterrorist,\u201d to describe anyone who might fall somewhere on a very broad spectrum of viewpoints that could be considered \u201cdangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watch and see: we are all about to become enemies of the state.<\/p>\n

In a d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu mirroring of the legislative fall-out from 9\/11, and the ensuing build-up of the security state, there is a\u00a0growing demand in certain sectors for the government to be given expanded powers<\/a>\u00a0to root out \u201cdomestic\u201d terrorism, the Constitution be damned.<\/p>\n

If this is a test of Joe Biden\u2019s worthiness to head up the American police state, he seems ready.<\/p>\n

As part of his inaugural address, President Biden pledged to confront and defeat \u201ca rise of political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism.\u201d Biden has also asked the Director of National Intelligence to work with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security in carrying out a\u00a0\u201ccomprehensive threat assessment\u201d of domestic terrorism<\/a>. And then to keep the parallels going, there is the proposed Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2021, introduced after the Jan. 6 riots, which aims to equip the government with \u201cthe tools to identify, monitor and thwart<\/a>\u201d those who could become radicalized to violence.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t blink or you\u2019ll miss the sleight of hand.<\/p>\n

This is the tricky part of the Deep State\u2019s con game that keeps you focused on the shell game in front of you while your wallet is being picked clean by ruffians in your midst.<\/p>\n

It follows the same pattern as every other convenient \u201ccrisis\u201d used by the government as an excuse to expand its powers at the citizenry\u2019s expense and at the expense of our freedoms.<\/p>\n

As investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald warns:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last two weeks have ushered in a wave of new domestic police powers and rhetoric in the name of fighting \u2018terrorism\u2019 that are carbon copies of many of the worst excesses of the first War on Terror that began nearly twenty years ago. This New War on Terror\u2014one that is domestic in name from the start and carries the explicit purpose of fighting \u2018extremists\u2019 and \u2018domestic terrorists\u2019 among American citizens on U.S. soil\u2014presents the whole slew of historically familiar dangers when\u00a0governments, exploiting media-generated fear and dangers, arm themselves with the power to control information, debate, opinion, activism and protests<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greenwald is referring to the USA Patriot Act, passed almost 20 years ago, which paved the way for the eradication of every vital safeguard against government overreach, corruption and abuse.<\/p>\n

Free speech, the right to protest, the right to challenge government wrongdoing, due process, a presumption of innocence, the right to self-defense, accountability and transparency in government, privacy, press, sovereignty, assembly, bodily integrity, representative government: all of these and more have become casualties in the government\u2019s war on the American people, a war that has grown more pronounced since Sept. 11, 2001.<\/p>\n

Some\u00a0members of Congress get it.<\/p>\n

In a letter opposing expansion of national security powers, a handful congressional representatives urged their colleagues not to repeat the mistakes of the past:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile many may find comfort in increased national security powers in the wake of this attack, we must emphasize that\u00a0we have been here before and we have seen where that road leads<\/a>. Our history is littered with examples of initiatives sold as being necessary to fight extremism that quickly devolve into tools used for the mass violation of the human and civil rights of the American people\u2026 To expand the government\u2019s national security powers once again at the expense of the human and civil rights of the American people would only serve to further undermine our democracy, not protect it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cue the Emergency State, the government\u2019s Machiavellian version of crisis management that justifies all manner of government tyranny in the so-called name of national security.<\/p>\n

This is the power grab hiding in plain sight, obscured by the political machinations of the self-righteous elite. This is how the government continues to exploit crises and use them as opportunities for power grabs under the guise of national security. Indeed, this is exactly how the government added\u00a0red flag gun laws, precrime surveillance, fusion centers, threat assessments, mental health assessments, involuntary confinement<\/a>\u00a0to its arsenal of weaponized powers.<\/p>\n

The objective is not to make America safe again. That has never been the government\u2019s aim.<\/p>\n

Greenwald explains:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy would such new terrorism laws be needed in a country that already imprisons more of its citizens than any other country in the world as the result of a very aggressive set of criminal laws? What acts should be criminalized by new \u2018domestic terrorism\u2019 laws that are not already deemed criminal? They never say, almost certainly because\u2014just as was true of the first set of new War on Terror laws\u2014their real aim is to criminalize that\u00a0which should not be criminalized: speech, association, protests, opposition to the new ruling coalition<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

So you see, the issue is not whether Donald Trump or Roger Stone or\u00a0MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell<\/a>\u00a0deserve to be banned from Twitter, even if they\u2019re believed to be spouting misinformation, hateful ideas, or fomenting discontent.<\/p>\n

Rather, we should be asking whether any corporation or government agency or entity representing a fusion of the two should have the\u00a0power to muzzle, silence, censor, regulate, control and altogether eradicate so-called \u201cdangerous\u201d or \u201cextremist\u201d ideas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This unilateral power to muzzle free speech represents a far greater danger than any so-called right- or left-wing extremist might pose.<\/p>\n

The ramifications are so far-reaching as to render almost every American an extremist in word, deed, thought or by association.<\/p>\n

Yet where many go wrong is in assuming that you have to be doing something illegal or challenging the government\u2019s authority in order to be flagged as a suspicious character, labeled an enemy of the state and locked up like a dangerous criminal.<\/p>\n

Eventually, all you will really need to do is use certain trigger words, surf the internet, communicate using a cell phone, drive a car, stay at a hotel, purchase materials at a hardware store, take flying or boating lessons, appear suspicious, question government authority, or generally live in the United States.<\/p>\n

The groundwork has already been laid.<\/p>\n

The trap is set.<\/p>\n

All that is needed is the right bait.<\/p>\n

With the help of automated eyes and ears, a growing arsenal of high-tech software, hardware and techniques, government propaganda urging Americans to turn into spies and snitches, as well as social media and\u00a0behavior sensing software<\/a>, government agents have been busily spinning a sticky spider-web of\u00a0threat assessments<\/a>, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged \u201cwords,\u201d and \u201csuspicious\u201d activity reports aimed at snaring\u00a0potential\u00a0enemies of the state.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the American police state\u2019s take on the dystopian terrors foreshadowed by George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and Phillip K. Dick all rolled up into one oppressive\u00a0pre-crime<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0pre-thought<\/a>\u00a0crime package.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, the technocrats who run the surveillance state don\u2019t even have to break a sweat while monitoring what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, how much you spend, whom you support, and with whom you communicate. Computers by way of AI (artificial intelligence) now do the tedious work of trolling social media, the internet, text messages and phone calls for potentially anti-government remarks, all of which is carefully recorded, documented, and stored to be used against you someday at a time and place of the government\u2019s choosing.<\/p>\n

For instance,\u00a0police in major American cities have been using predictive policing technology that allows them to identify individuals\u2014or groups of individuals\u2014most likely to commit a crime<\/a>\u00a0in a given community. Those individuals are then put on notice that their movements and activities will be closely monitored and any criminal activity (by them or their associates) will result in harsh penalties.<\/p>\n

In other words, the burden of proof is reversed: you are guilty before you are given any chance to prove you are innocent.<\/p>\n

Dig beneath the surface of this kind of surveillance\/police state, however, and you will find that the real purpose of pre-crime is not safety but control.<\/p>\n

Red flag gun laws merely push us that much closer towards a suspect society where everyone is potentially guilty of some crime or another and must be preemptively rendered harmless.<\/p>\n

This is the same government that has a growing list\u2014shared with fusion centers and law enforcement agencies\u2014of ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and other characteristics that could flag someone as suspicious and result in their being labeled\u00a0potential\u00a0enemies of the state.<\/p>\n

For instance, if you believe in and exercise your rights under the Constitution (namely, your right to speak freely, worship freely, associate with like-minded individuals who share your political views, criticize the government, own a weapon, demand a warrant before being questioned or searched, or any other activity viewed as potentially anti-government, racist, bigoted, anarchic or sovereign), you could be\u00a0at the top of the government\u2019s terrorism watch list<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Moreover, as a\u00a0New York Times\u00a0editorial warns, you may be an anti-government extremist (a.k.a.\u00a0domestic terrorist<\/a>) in the eyes of the police if you are afraid that the\u00a0government is plotting to confiscate your firearms<\/a>, if you believe the\u00a0economy is about to collapse<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0government will soon declare martial law<\/a>, or if you display an unusual number of\u00a0political and\/or ideological bumper stickers<\/a>\u00a0on your car.<\/p>\n

According to one FBI latest report, you might also be classified as a domestic terrorism threat if you espouse conspiracy theories, especially if you \u201cattempt to explain events or circumstances as the result of a group of actors working in secret to benefit themselves at the expense of others<\/a>\u201d and are \u201cusually at odds with official or prevailing explanations of events.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additionally, according to Michael C. McGarrity, the FBI\u2019s assistant director of the counterterrorism division, the bureau now \u201cclassifies domestic terrorism threats into four main categories: racially motivated violent extremism, anti-government\/anti-authority extremism, animal rights\/environmental extremism, and abortion extremism<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, if you dare to subscribe to any views that are contrary to the government\u2019s, you may well be suspected of being a domestic terrorist and treated accordingly.<\/p>\n

Again, where many Americans go wrong is in naively assuming that you have to be doing something illegal or harmful in order to be flagged and targeted for some form of intervention or detention.<\/p>\n

In fact, U.S. police agencies have been working to identify and manage potential extremist \u201cthreats,\u201d violent or otherwise, before they can become actual threats for some time now.<\/p>\n

In much the same way that the USA Patriot Act was used as a front to advance the surveillance state, allowing the government to establish a far-reaching domestic spying program that turned every American citizen into a criminal suspect, the government\u2019s anti-extremism program renders otherwise lawful, nonviolent activities as potentially extremist.<\/p>\n

In fact, all you need to do these days to end up on a government watch list or be subjected to heightened scrutiny is\u00a0use certain trigger words<\/a>\u00a0(like cloud, pork and pirates), surf the internet, communicate using a cell phone,\u00a0limp or stutter<\/a>,\u00a0drive a car<\/a>, stay at a hotel, attend a political rally,\u00a0express yourself on social media<\/a>,\u00a0appear mentally ill<\/a>, serve in the\u00a0military<\/a>,\u00a0disagree with a law enforcement official<\/a>,\u00a0call in sick to work<\/a>, purchase materials at a hardware store, take flying or boating lessons,\u00a0appear suspicious<\/a>, appear confused or nervous, fidget or whistle or smell bad, be seen in public waving a toy gun or anything remotely resembling a gun (such as a water nozzle or a remote control or a walking cane),\u00a0stare at a police officer<\/a>, question government authority, or\u00a0appear to be pro-gun or pro-freedom<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Be warned: once you get on such a government watch list\u2014whether it\u2019s a terrorist watch list, a mental health watch list, a dissident watch list, or a red flag gun watch list\u2014there\u2019s no clear-cut way to get off, whether or not you should actually be on there.<\/p>\n

You\u00a0will\u00a0be tracked wherever you go.<\/p>\n

You\u00a0will\u00a0be flagged as a potential threat and dealt with accordingly.<\/p>\n

This is pre-crime on an ideological scale and it\u2019s been a long time coming.<\/p>\n

The government has been building its pre-crime, surveillance network in concert with\u00a0fusion centers<\/a>\u00a0(of which there are 78 nationwide, with partners in the corporate sector and globally), data collection agencies, behavioral scientists, corporations, social media, and community organizers and by relying on cutting-edge technology for surveillance, facial recognition,\u00a0predictive policing<\/a>, biometrics, and behavioral\u00a0epigenetics<\/a>\u00a0(in which life experiences alter one\u2019s genetic makeup).<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re not scared yet, you should be.<\/p>\n

Connect the dots.<\/p>\n

Start with the powers amassed by the government under the USA Patriot Act, note the government\u2019s ever-broadening definition of what it considers to be an \u201cextremist,\u201d then add in the government\u2019s detention powers under NDAA, the National Security Agency\u2019s far-reaching surveillance networks, and fusion centers that collect and share surveillance data between local, state and federal police agencies.<\/p>\n

To that, add tens of thousands of armed, surveillance drones and balloons that are beginning to blanket American skies, facial recognition technology that will identify and track you wherever you go and whatever you do. And then to complete the picture, toss in the real-time crime centers being deployed in cities across the country, which will be attempting to \u201cpredict\u201d crimes and identify so-called criminals before they happen based on widespread surveillance, complex mathematical algorithms and prognostication programs.<\/p>\n

Hopefully you\u2019re starting to understand how easy we\u2019ve made it for the government to identify, label, target, defuse and detain anyone it views as a\u00a0potential\u00a0threat for a variety of reasons that run the gamut from mental illness to having a military background to challenging its authority to just being on the government\u2019s list of\u00a0persona non grata.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s always a price to pay for standing up to the powers-that-be.<\/p>\n

Yet as I make clear in my book\u00a0Battlefield America: The War on the American People<\/a>, you don\u2019t even have to be a dissident to get flagged by the government for surveillance, censorship and detention.<\/p>\n

All you really need to be is a citizen of the American police state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Enemies of the Deep State: The government\u2019s war on domestic terrorism is a trap By John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead \u201cThis is an issue that all Democrats, Republicans, independents, Libertarians should be extremely concerned about, especially because we don\u2019t have to guess about where this goes or how this ends. What characteristics are we … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rights","category-scratch-a-lib-find-a-tyrant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64277"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64305,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64277\/revisions\/64305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}