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Capitol Siege Shines Light On Vast Underground Tunnel Network

Even before this week’s unprecedented siege of the U.S. Capitol by a mob of supporters of President Donald Trump, which you can read about in the War Zone‘s rolling coverage of the events as they unfolded, there were ominous indicators of what was to come. This included the discovery of pipe bombs in the vicinity of nearby Congressional office buildings earlier in the day, which had prompted evacuations, at least in part through underground tunnels. When the Capitol itself was breached, members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence, among others, were also ushered to safety via subterranean passageways.

These incidents highlighted the large tunnel network that lies under Capitol Hill, as well as other underground links throughout Washington, D.C. Many of these are used on a day-to-day basis just to conveniently get between government buildings without going outside, but, as was shown yesterday, they also have a clear value in helping people escape to safety during a crisis. Legislators had already been advised to make increased use of them on Jan. 6, simply to avoid encountering pro-Trump protesters.

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Police Robots Are Not a Selfie Opportunity, They’re a Privacy Disaster Waiting to Happen

The arrival of government-operated autonomous police robots does not look like predictions in science fiction movies. An army of robots with gun arms is not kicking down your door to arrest you. Instead, a robot snitch that looks like a rolling trash can is programmed to decide whether a person looks suspicious—and then call the human police on them. Police robots may not be able to hurt people like armed predator drones used in combat—yet—but as history shows, calling the police on someone can prove equally deadly.

Long before the 1987 movie Robocop, even before Karel Čapek invented the word robot in 1920, police have been trying to find ways to be everywhere at once. Widespread security cameras are one solution—but even a blanket of CCTV cameras couldn’t follow a suspect into every nook of public space. Thus, the vision of a police robot continued as a dream, until now. Whether they look like Boston Dynamics’ robodogs or Knightscope’s rolling pickles, robots are coming to a street, shopping mall, or grocery store near you.

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Capitol Incident a Dress Rehearsal

With the normalization of mass shootings in the United States it is more than understandable that members of Congress feared for their lives when they learned protestors had forced their way into the Capitol in unknown numbers and were roaming around at will. 

But by the time it was over we knew that: only five weapons were seized by police so most of the intruders were probably unarmed; the only shots fired were by police who killed an unarmed female protestor; video and photos showed the demonstrators taking pictures of chambers and art work like they were tourists; and the occupiers were peacefully led out of the Capitol six hours later.  (Had they been anti-racism protestors one wonders how differently it would have ended.)

A dramatic event such as this is an old-time reporter’s dream, to just describe the facts and details as they emerged, painting a picture in words in print or on the radio. With so many mobile phone pictures and video as well as TV cameras everywhere, that journalistic function has been greatly diminished if not extinguished. In its place are preaching, partisan, editorialists masquerading as mainstream journalists.  

By the time it was over it was clear what had not happened:  it wasn’t a “coup,” it wasn’t an “insurrection,” it had nothing to do with Putin, or China or Iran and it wasn’t like Pearl Harbor, as Sen. Chuck Schumer ridiculously tried to call it. 

It wasn’t the storming of a “temple of democracy,” interrupting Congress’ “sacred duty,” or “desecrating” the “hallowed halls” of the Capitol. Such quasi-religious rhetoric inflates the self-importance of officials elevating themselves above the people they are supposed to serve. 

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Biden state media appointee advocated using propaganda against Americans and ‘rethinking’ First Amendment

The head of the Joe Biden transition team for the US Agency for Global Media, Richard Stengel, has branded himself the “chief propagandist,” urged the government to use propaganda against its “own population,” and called to “rethink” the First Amendment.
Richard Stengel, the top state media appointee for US President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team, has enthusiastically defended the use of propaganda against Americans.

“My old job at the State Department was what people used to joke as the chief propagandist,” Stengel said in 2018. “I’m not against propaganda. Every country does it, and they have to do it to their own population. And I don’t necessarily think it’s that awful.”

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The Boot Is Coming Down Hard And Fast

A recent Morning Joe appearance by CIA analyst-turned House Representative Elissa Slotkin eagerly informed us that the real battle against terrorism is now inside America’s borders.

“The post 9/11 era is over,” Slotkin tweeted while sharing a clip of her appearance. “The single greatest national security threat right now is our internal division. The threat of domestic terrorism. The polarization that threatens our democracy. If we don’t reconnect our two Americas, the threats will not have to come from the outside.”

“Before Congress, Elissa worked for the CIA and the Pentagon and helped destabilize the Middle East during the Bush and Obama admins,” tweeted journalist Whitney Webb in response. “What she says here is essentially an open announcement that the US has moved from the ‘War on [foreign] terror’ to the ‘War on domestic terror’.”

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