Government Makes It Easier To Deem Critics, Tax Evaders, Hobbyists, Hotel Guests Terrorists
February 8, 2012 by Sam Rolley
When you use your computer in a crowded café do you tend to shield the screen from the view of other patrons? Do you sometimes use programs that protect your machine from being hacked in public places? Have you ever traveled to a coffeehouse or café that wasn’t the closest to your area of residence to avoid being distracted by people you know as you work? When you purchase your $2 to $5 dollar coffee or specialty beverage do you opt for cash instead of credit or debit?
Well, you’re probably a terrorist.
According to a series of flyers that are distributed to local government agencies, news organizations and businesses throughout the Nation by the FBI and the Department of Justice, any number of innocuous activities can be reasonably interpreted as possible terror plotting. The flyers, emblazoned at the top with the words “Communities Against Terrorism” in bright red lettering, each have two prompts for private citizens — “What should I consider suspicious?” and “What should I do?” — followed by a series of bulleted suggestions.
Following are some of the locations and establishments targeted by the posters and the suggested “terrorists’ activities” for the venue:
Tattoo Shops
Possible terrorists might demand identity privacy, insist on paying in cash, make racist or religious comments, make anti-U.S. comments and include a group who request identical tattoos or people who inquire about the best places to conceal tattoos.
Hobby Shops
Possible terrorists may be people who demonstrate “unusual” interest in remote-controlled aircraft, want to learn how to fly large-scale remote control aircraft and purchase large quantities of paintball equipment among other things.
Hotels And Motels
A terrorist could be anyone who requests a specific room location, arrives with too much or too little luggage, refuses cleaning services, avoids the lobby when entering and leaving, parks vehicles in isolated areas and makes “unusual” inquiries about local landmarks, government or public facilities, among other things.
General Public
Many activities that journalists, citizen journalists and everyday citizens do in public places are considered red flags for terrorism in public spaces. Among them are taking notes, shooting “inappropriate” photographs or videos, drawing, using maps or avoiding social situations.
This is just a sampling of some of the information included on a few of the flyers. There are other flyers that are specialized for airports, fuel suppliers, construction sites, financial institutions, military surplus stores, etc. that can be viewed at publicintelligence.net. While the posters do include some activities that likely would be red flags such as leaving personal belongings in public squares, many people have decried the agencies’ inclusion of normal activities.
Last summer, Prison Planet began reporting on a new Department of Homeland Security “If you See Something, Say Something” campaign that involved releasing a series of videos that portray white, middle-class Americans as the most likely terrorists.
The recent passage of the National Defense Authorization Act with its provisions designating the country a battlefield and all citizens potential terrorists combined with the recent push to encourage citizens to spy on one another represent a new trend that will likely affect all Americans. A report by The Associated Press names a new white collar form of extremism, “sovereign citizenry,” or more simply, people who evade Federal taxes and denounce Federal authority by renouncing citizenship.
Stuart McArthur, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, said in a press conference Monday that “sovereign citizens” are becoming an increasingly important focus for the agency.
“The thing about generally sovereign citizen extremists is that because their ideology just intrinsically deals with the rejection, complete rejection, of the constitutional authority of the United States or any other government for that matter … that when you have an encounter with law enforcement, we have seen that has a potential to go high and right very fast,” he told reporters.
The agency says that people in the sovereign citizen movement do not tend to gravitate to one specific part of the Nation and reside in nearly every State; there are also no age, gender and race indicators of typical followers of the movement.
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