Tag: police state

The Military-Industrial Complex and American Fascism

President Dwight D. Eisenhower (Ike) had it right. The military-industrial complex (MIC) is fundamentally antidemocratic The national security state has become the fourth branch of government and arguably the most powerful one. It gets the most money, more than half of the federal discretionary budget, even as the military remains America’s most trusted institution, despite a woeful record in wars since 1945.

A colleague, Christian Sorensen, says that when we look closely at the MIC we see something akin to American fascism. As he put it to me: “Our fascism certainly doesn’t look like past European movements, but it is far more durable, has killed millions and millions (SE Asia, Indonesia, Central America, Middle East), and has manifold expressions: wars abroad, wars at home, surveillance state, digital border, militarized law enforcement, economic warfare in the form of sanctions, militarization of space.”

It’s hard not to agree with him, not in the sense of Hitler’s Germany or Mussolini’s Italy but in the sense of concentrated government/corporate power that draws sustenance from nationalism at home and imperialism abroad. It’s true that America doesn’t have goose-stepping soldiers in the street. There are no big military parades (though Donald Trump once wanted one). It still seems like we have contending political parties. But when we look deeper, a militant nationalism and aggressive imperialism powered by corporations and enforced by government, including notably the Supreme Court, is the salient feature of this American moment.

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The UK Lockdown Files: Text Messages Reveal How Top British Health Officials Conspired to “Scare the Pants Off Everyone” and Asking “When Do We Deploy the New Variant?”

The British Telegraph has obtained 100.000 text messages from former UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock, showing how the British government conspired to “frighten the pants off everyone” and asking “when do we deploy the new variant?”

The Telegraph received the WhatsApp messages from journalist Isabel Oakeshott, who wrote a book with Hancock called “The Pandemic Diaries”. They show former Health Secretary Matt Hancock discussing with his media advised Damon Poole on Dec. 13, 2020, who warned that Tory MPs were “furious already about the prospect” of stricter lockdown measures over Christmas and suggested “rather than doing too much forward signalling we can roll pitch with the new strain.”

“We frighten the pants off everyone with the new strain,” Hancock wrote back.

“Yep that’s what will get proper bahviour [sic] change,” Poole replied.

“When do we deploy the new variant?” Hancock asked.

“Been thinking about this and think we need to be more cautious. The strain that is,” Poole wrote back. “Think you made the point earlier, but we need to keep schools off paperwork / agenda.” The Christmas lockdown 2020 was surprisingly announced Dec. 19.

In Jan. 2021, Hancock was discussing further measures with Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, including “more mask wearing … in all settings outside home”.  Case wrote that “the fear/guilt factor” is “vital” in getting more lockdown compliance.

“Basically, we need to get compliance up,” Case wrote, but said some measures – like a ban on fishing – “will be parodied galore if it looks like we have suddenly decided fishing is the first step towards tier 5!”

“I honestly wouldn’t move on any small things unless we move on a lot. The only big reamaining [sic] things are nurseries and workplaces,” Hancock wrote.

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US State Department entity flagged thousands of accounts to Twitter for censorship

A United States (US) government department and a government-funded think tank collectively flagged tens of thousands of tweets to Twitter for censorship.

This secret censorship was exposed in the latest batch of “Twitter Files” (internal communications from the previous Twitter regime that reveal numerous examples of clandestine censorship) which was published by journalist Matt Taibbi.

One of the entities that compiled lists of accounts for Twitter to censor was the Global Engagement Center (GEC) — a State Department entity that was established through a President Barack Obama Executive Order in March 2016.

Taibbi said that the GEC flagged 5,500 accounts to Twitter because it believed they were Chinese accounts engaging in “state-backed coordinated manipulation and 499 accounts to Twitter because they had been branded as “foreign disinformation.” Yet many of the accounts on the Chinese list were non-Chinese. Some were Western government accounts and three accounts were those of CNN employees based abroad.

Twitter also deduced that many of the accounts were not Chinese with then-Twitter Head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth describing the list as “a total crock.”

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Florida bill would require bloggers who write about governor to register with the state

Florida Sen. Jason Brodeur (R-Lake Mary) wants bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody, and other members of the Florida executive cabinet or legislature to register with the state or face fines.

Brodeur’s proposal, Senate Bill 1316: Information Dissemination, would require any blogger writing about government officials to register with the Florida Office of Legislative Services or the Commission on Ethics.

In the bill, Brodeur wrote that those who write “an article, a story, or a series of stories,” about “the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, a Cabinet officer, or any member of the Legislature,” and receives or will receive payment for doing so, must register with state offices within five days after the publication of an article that mentions an elected state official.

If another blog post is added to a blog, the blogger would then be required to submit monthly reports on the 10th of each month with the appropriate state office. They would not have to submit a report on months when no content is published.

For blog posts that “concern an elected member of the legislature” or “an officer of the executive branch,” monthly reports must disclose the amount of compensation received for the coverage, rounded to the nearest $10 value.

If compensation is paid for a series of posts or for a specific amount of time, the blogger would be required to disclose the total amount to be received, upon publication of the first post in said series or timeframe.

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ATF Honors Agents Who Kicked Off the Waco Slaughter of Women, Children

The ATF is honoring its agents who were killed as they kicked off the slaughter of American women and children at the Waco, Texas Branch Davidians compound in 1993, in an event widely known as the “Waco Massacre.”

The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives Houston, Texas office posted to Twitter this week to mark the 30th anniversary of the beginning of the Waco Siege, that led to the Waco Massacre. Included in the ATF’s tweet was a photograph of four agents “standing post” at the “Waco Peace Officer Memorial in Waco, TX in honor of Special Agents Conway LeBleu, Todd McKeehan, Robert Williams, and Steve Willis.”

The ATF was blasted in the responses to its tweet by a chorus of Twitter users, including prominent accounts like those of Jake Shields and Mindy Robinson.

“We mourn for the innocent women and children you burned alive,” Shields commented on the ATF’s tweet.

“Oh, you mean the baby killers?” Mindy Robinson wrote. “Are they standing guard so real patriots don’t dance on their graves? Yea, it takes a real man to shoot, kill, poison, and set innocent women and children on fire for their own “safety.”

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UK Considered Mandating Killing of All Pet Cats to Stop COVID

UK health authorities considered ordering the euthanization of all pet cats in the country during the first COVID outbreak, it has been revealed.

Ex-Deputy Health Minister Lord James Bethell made the admission while trying to argue that governments were caught unawares in how to respond to the virus, remarking, “We shouldn’t forget… how little we understood about this disease.”

“There was a moment we were very unclear about whether domestic pets could transmit the disease,” he said. “In fact, there was an idea at one moment that we might have to ask the public to exterminate all the cats in Britain. Can you imagine what would have happened if we had wanted to do that?”

Bethell claimed that “for a moment” there was “a bit of evidence around” the idea after a Siamese cat became the first in Britain to contract COVID-19, but that the plan was “closed down” fairly quickly.

Cat owners were told not to kiss their pets and to observe “observe very careful hygiene” around them while keeping them indoors if a member of the household caught COVID.

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The Department of Homeland Security Turns 20. Its Legacy Is Disastrous.

To those who don’t remember the events of September 11, 2001, it can be difficult to convey the sense of dread and uncertainty that followed. As horrible as the attacks were, many of us wondered: What’s next?

It was in this context that Congress quickly passed, and President George W. Bush signed, such legislation as the USA PATRIOT Act, less than two months after 9/11. While that law was drafted with the best of intentions—strengthening the nation’s defenses against potential future attacks—in practice, authorities overwhelmingly use it to circumvent Americans’ basic freedoms like privacy and due process.

Similarly, less than a month after the attacks, Bush signed an executive order establishing the Office of Homeland Security. The office would “coordinate the executive branch’s efforts to detect, prepare for, prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from terrorist attacks within the United States.”

But that was apparently not enough: In June 2002, Bush proposed an entirely new Cabinet department dedicated to “transforming and realigning the current confusing patchwork of government activities into a single department whose primary mission is to protect our homeland.” Bush’s proposal promised that by consolidating multiple agencies under a single director, the new department would “improve efficiency without growing government.”

In November of that year, Congress passed the Homeland Security Act of 2002, which established the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and brought nearly two dozen disparate agencies, including the Transportation Security Agency (TSA), the U.S. Secret Service, and the Coast Guard, under its purview. The newly incorporated department officially opened 20 years ago today, on March 1, 2003.

The department’s stated intent was to prevent terrorist attacks and protect the homeland. Twenty years later, what is there to show for it?

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Ohio Woman Says Cops Broke Her Wrist for Recording During Traffic Stop

A new lawsuit alleges that an Ohio woman suffered a broken wrist and other injuries after being violently arrested during a traffic stop, in part due to filming the police who pulled her over.

In February 2020, Amanda Mills was pulled over for speeding in Walton Hills, a small town outside Cleveland, Ohio. According to the suit, a police officer, identified in the lawsuit only as “Officer Schmidt” exited his cruiser “irate” and “screaming.” Nervous, Mills began recording the encounter. Schmidt ordered Mills to get out of her vehicle. According to the suit, “Amanda asked ‘why?’ without making any other statement or any sudden movement. At this point, Officer Schmidt realized Amanda was filming him with her cellphone, and he became even more agitated.”

According to the complaint, Schmidt “opened Amanda’s driver-side door, grabbed her by the wrist and arm, and ripped her out of her vehicle.” Another officer helped Schmidt pin Mills to the side of her vehicle. The suit alleges that “Amanda screamed that she was not resisting arrest and continued to cry out in pain.” However, rather than releasing her, officers handcuffed Mills and put her in the back of their cruiser while they searched her vehicle. Eventually, Mills was released from custody after officers could not find illegal substances or outstanding warrants for her arrest. While Mills was initially charged with a first-degree misdemeanor for “failing to comply” with police orders, that charge was eventually dropped.

According to the suit, Mills was left with a broken wrist and other injuries to her arm and breasts. The complaint alleges that the officers’ excessive force violated Mills’ Fourth and 14th Amendment rights. The complaint also says that the Walton Hills Police Department’s practices are the “moving force behind the injuries suffered by Amanda,” and the department is guilty of “failing to adequately train, adequately supervise, as well as failing to investigate and discipline, its police officers when it comes to the excessive use of force.”

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Michigan may soon enact red flag laws. Implementation could make all the difference.

After a mass shooting on Michigan State University’s campus that left three students dead and another five wounded, Democratic lawmakers set their sights on altering gun ownership practices in Michigan.

The bills, introduced days after the shooting, fall into three categories: Requiring universal background checks for the sale of all firearms; establishing penalties for failing to safely store a gun when around a minor under the age of 18; and creating a process to implement extreme risk protection orders – otherwise known as red flag laws – in the state of Michigan.

These specific laws are frequently touted from anti-gun violence groups as being the start of true reform in curbing firearm-related deaths. But opponents of the bills say that the better solution comes from focusing on mental health supports instead of penalizing all gun owners for the actions of a specific few.

Legislative Republicans have pointed toward work done by the Bipartisan School Safety Task force as being a better solution to curbing firearm violence, especially in Michigan schools. The package, born in the wake of a 2021 shooting at Oxford High School which left four students dead, deals primarily with K-12 school safety while installing more security and mental health coordinators.

But to researchers like Shannon Frattaroli, a professor and course faculty member with the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, it’s not a question of which is better – mental health or gun safety supports – but how best to combine the two with preventing community violence.

“Implementation is really a key component to gun policy and the potential to realize an effect,” she said. “It’s critically important to focus on guns … but there’s also a lot of progress to be made on some sort of community violence prevention interventions, thinking about how it is that we can really start to address the root causes of violence.”

That’s especially true of implementing red flag laws, Frattaroli added. As of 2022, 19 states including Florida, Maryland, Colorado, Illinois and Oregon – as well as Washington D.C. – possess a form of risk-based gun removal laws.

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How Social Networks Became a “Subsidiary” of the FBI and CIA

The US Congress last tried to grapple with what the country’s ballooning security services were up to nearly half a century ago.

In 1975, the Church Committee managed to take a fleeting, if far from complete, snapshot of the netherworld in which agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and National Security Agency (NSA) operate.

In the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, the congressional committee and other related investigations found that the country’s intelligence services had sweeping surveillance powers and were involved in a raft of illegal or unconstitutional acts.

They were covertly subverting and assassinating foreign leaders. They had co-opted hundreds of journalists and many media outlets around the world to promote false narratives. They spied on and infiltrated political and civil rights groups. And they manipulated the public discourse to protect and expand their powers.

Senator Frank Church himself warned that the might of the intelligence community could at any moment “be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything… There would be no place to hide.”

Since then, the technological possibilities to invade privacy have dramatically increased, and the reach of the intelligence agencies, especially after 9/11, has moved on in ways Church could never have foreseen.

This is why establishing a new Church Committee is long overdue. And finally, in the most controversial of circumstances and for the most partisan of reasons, some sort of revival may finally be about to happen.

A protracted battle last month within the Republican Party to elect Kevin McCarthy as the new speaker of the House of Representatives forced him to cave to the demands of his party’s right wing. Not least, he agreed to set up a committee on what is being called the “weaponization” of the federal government.

It held its first meeting last week. The panel said its task would be to look at “the politicization of the FBI and DOJ and attacks on American civil liberties”.

Earlier, in a speech to the House on the new committee, Republican Representative Dan Bishop said it was time to cut out the “rot” in the federal government: “We’re putting the deep state on notice. We’re coming for you.”

Democrats are already decrying the committee as a tool that will be wielded in the interests of Donald Trump and his supporters, saying the Republican right wants to discredit the security services and suggest malfeasance in the treatment of the former president.

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