Homeland Security

[srijantje]

ACLU: America is riddled with politically motivated surveillance
Cory Doctorow at 12:28 AM Wed
A new ACLU report, "Policing Free Speech: Police Surveillance and Obstruction of First Amendment-Protected Activity," documents recent cases of politically motivated surveillance across America -- cases in which people were put under surveillance "for doing little more than peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights."


At a California State University, Fresno lecture on veganism, six of the 60 in attendance were undercover officers from the local and campus police. The Oakland Police Department in California had infiltrated a police-brutality demonstration, and its undercover officers selected "the route of the march."
A vegetarian activist in Georgia was arrested for jotting down the license plate of a Department of Homeland Security agent who was snapping photos of a protest outside a Honey Baked Ham store. A Joint Terrorism Task Force in Illinois went on a three-day manhunt in Chicago searching for a Muslim man for his suspicious activity of using a hand counter on a bus. As it turned out, the man was counting his daily prayers.

A Kentucky minister was detained at Canadian border trying to enter the United States because he had purchased copies of the Koran on the internet following the 2001 terror attacks. A New York, Muslim-American student journalist was detained for taking pictures of Old Glory outside a Veterans Affairs building as part of a class project. The authorities deleted the pictures before releasing her an hour later

[billy]

i think it's the same all over.

sometimes they just seems to go that extra mile
down the road of stupidity.

[srijantje]

I think they just have to justify their jobs and the loads of money being spend,after all we are at war

[billy]

maybe but some of things they do
beggar belief. do you think it (the h?land security )
serves a purpose or should it be disbanded or
integrated into say, the FBI or CIA

[srijantje]

everything is taken totally out of context,that's the problem,i think it has a lot to do with media,commerce and hype,with politicians making clever use
here in india something like 18ooo people died in traffic last year and they sort of talk about it a bit,yet somebody blows a bomb and the whole country wants to go to war with pakistan.

[billy]

thats the case the world over.

i think the reason is that someone detonating a bomb is an
out and out act of murder. while someone being run over is more or less accidental.
fear plays it's part with the bomb stories and fear is what the media feed off
often the homeland security will also play on these fears as well. sometimes they go way over the top and when that happens they just lay low for a while before doing the same or similar thing again.

[srijantje]

yes,that's exactly my point,people are made to fear the wrong things,usually what suits authorities and than hiped up by competing media companies.

by the way,what happened to the oil leak?completely taken out of the headlines as so often happens

[billy]

i still follow the oil thing on cnn's andersons cooper.
but yes, i think its because they think people are bored with it and i know i'm for one isn't.

what do think the role of homeland security should be?

[srijantje]

shouldn't exist,it was just created to show the government is doing something,public relations.the FBI is enough i would say.same as invading a whole country to find one guy,overkill

[billy]

i think yu have a point.
that said i think it exists because the fbi per se is accountable.
homeland security on the other hand can just shut the doors
and shout national security

[altezon]

I think the Homeland Security concept is idiotic, and I hate that stupid name. They might as well call it Fatherland Security.

Sig heil.

[srijantje]

well,they're the same mold of people i would say,now you say terrorist and get away with murder literarily,making you the same as people with bombs who kill baby's.blowing yourself up or shooting rockets from drones is the same thing although the latter could be called more cowardly

[altezon]

Or equally as cowardly. What to do when your enemy hides among civilians? Espionage would probably produce less collateral damage if done right. But back in the 1970's we had a large negative reaction in this country to CIA operations that pretty much crippled the agency.

[srijantje]

i meant it more like the difference of blowing yourself up or sit behind a screen with a joystick,but ,yes killing innocent people is cowardly

[altezon]

Right. Murdering yourself along with the innocents is less cowardly. Not that the victims can appreciate the difference.

[srijantje]

no,dead is dead

[billy]

the people who kill by wearing an exploding vest are probably not cowards, delusional maybe but not cowards. the cowards are the one that get them to wear the ball bearing laden waistcoats. and as long as the cowards who cohearse the non cowards to wear their bombs, you'll get the organizations like homeland security. these organizations will always go too far and operate outside their area of enforcement. by doing so they maintain as wide an area as possible to work in. i def agree that homeland security isn't needed and could very easily be soaked up by the fbi and the cia.
and yes. it's the shittiest name an organization has ever been called.