By John W. Whitehead
\nApril 25, 2016<\/p>\n
\u201cYou had to live\u2014did live, from habit that became instinct\u2014in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.\u201d\u2014George Orwell, 1984<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In past ages, those who dared to speak out against tyranny\u2014viewed as an act of treason\u2014were blinded, castrated, disfigured, mutilated, rendered mute by having their tongues cut out of their heads, and ultimately crucified.<\/p>\n
In the American police state, the price to be paid for speaking truth to power (also increasingly viewed as an act of treason) is surveillance, censorship, jail and ultimately death.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a diabolically ingenious tactic for muzzling, disarming and ultimately eliminating one\u2019s critics or potential adversaries.<\/p>\n
However, where many Americans 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
In fact, as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People<\/em><\/a>, all you 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
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 behavior sensing software<\/a>, government agents are spinning a sticky spider-web of threat assessments<\/a>, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged \u201cwords,\u201d and \u201csuspicious\u201d activity reports aimed at snaring potential<\/em> enemies 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 pre-crime<\/a> and pre-thought<\/a> crime 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 now do the tedious work of trolling social media, the internet, text messages and phone calls for potentially anti-government remarks\u2014all 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
While this may sound like a riff on a bad joke, it\u2019s a bad joke with \u201cwe the people\u201d as the punchline. Yet it is no laughing matter that Americans are being jailed for growing orchids, feeding whales, collecting rainwater, and praying in their backyards. There is nothing humorous about Americans having their families terrorized by SWAT teams, their pets killed, their children shot, their homes trashed and their privacy shredded. And there\u2019s really not much comic relief to be found when the citizenry is forced to pay their own government to jail, spy on, censor, terrorize and kill them.<\/p>\n
The following activities are guaranteed to get you censored, surveilled, eventually placed on a government watch list, possibly detained and potentially killed.<\/p>\n
Laugh at your own peril.<\/p>\n
Use harmless trigger words like cloud, pork and pirates<\/strong>: The Department of Homeland Security has an expansive list of keywords and phrases it uses to monitor social networking sites and online media for signs of terrorist or other threats. While you\u2019ll definitely send up an alert for using phrases such as dirty bomb, Jihad and Agro terror<\/a>, you\u2019re just as likely to get flagged for surveillance if you reference the terms SWAT, lockdown, police, cloud, food poisoning, pork, flu, Subway, smart, delays, cancelled<\/a>, la familia, pirates, hurricane, forest fire, storm, flood, help, ice, snow<\/a>, worm, warning or social media.<\/p>\n
Use a cell phone: <\/strong>Simply by using a cell phone, you make yourself an easy target for government agents\u2014working closely with corporations\u2014who can listen in on your phone calls, read your text messages and emails, and track your movements based on the data transferred from, received by, and stored in your cell phone. Mention any of the so-called \u201ctrigger\u201d words in a conversation or text message, and you\u2019ll get flagged for sure.<\/p>\n
Drive a car: <\/strong>Unless you\u2019ve got an old junkyard heap without any of the gadgets and gizmos that are so attractive to today\u2019s car buyers (GPS, satellite radio, electrical everything, smart systems, etc.), driving a car today is like wearing a homing device: you\u2019ll be tracked from the moment you open that car door thanks to black box recorders and vehicle-to-vehicle communications systems<\/a> that can monitor your speed, direction, location, the number of miles traveled, and even your seatbelt use. Once you add satellites, GPS devices, license plate readers, and real-time traffic cameras to the mix, there\u2019s nowhere you can go on our nation\u2019s highways and byways that you can\u2019t be followed. By the time you add self-driving cars into the futuristic mix, equipped with computers that know where you want to go before you do, privacy and autonomy will be little more than distant mirages in your rearview mirror.<\/p>\n
Attend a political rally: <\/strong>Enacted in the wake of 9\/11, the Patriot Act redefined terrorism so broadly that many non-terrorist political activities such as protest marches, demonstrations and civil disobedience were considered potential terrorist acts, thereby rendering anyone desiring to engage in protected First Amendment expressive activities as suspects of the surveillance state.<\/p>\n
Express yourself on social media<\/strong>: The FBI, CIA, NSA and other government agencies are investing in and relying oncorporate surveillance technologies that can mine constitutionally protected speech<\/a> on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in order to identify potential extremists and predict who might engage in future acts of anti-government behavior. A decorated Marine, 26-year-old Brandon Raub was targeted by the Secret Service because of his Facebook posts<\/a>, interrogated by government agents about his views on government corruption, arrested with no warning, labeled mentally ill for subscribing to so-called \u201cconspiratorial\u201d views about the government, detained against his will in a psych ward for having \u201cdangerous\u201d opinions, and isolated from his family, friends and attorneys.<\/p>\n
Serve in the military<\/strong>: Operation Vigilant Eagle<\/a>, the brainchild of the Dept. of Homeland Security, calls for surveillance of military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, characterizing them as extremists and potential domestic terrorist threats because they may be \u201cdisgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war.\u201d Police agencies are also using Beware, an \u201cearly warning\u201d computer system that tips them off to a potential suspect\u2019s inclination to be a troublemaker and assigns individuals a color-coded threat score<\/a>\u2014green, yellow or red\u2014based on a variety of factors including one\u2019s criminal records, military background, medical history and social media surveillance.<\/p>\n
Disagree with a law enforcement official<\/strong>: A growing number of government programs are aimed at identifying, monitoring and locking up anyone considered potentially \u201cdangerous\u201d or mentally ill (according to government standards, of course). For instance, a homeless man in New York City who reportedly had a history of violence but no signs of mental illness was forcibly detained in a psych ward for a week after arguing with shelter police<\/a>. Despite the fact that doctors cited no medical reason to commit him, the man was locked up in accordance with a $22 million program that monitors mentally ill people considered \u201cpotentially\u201d violent. According to<\/a> the Associated Press, \u201cA judge finally ordered his release, ruling that the man’s commitment violated his civil rights and that bureaucrats had meddled in his medical treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Call in sick to work<\/strong>: In Virginia, a so-called police \u201cwelfare check\u201d instigated by a 58-year-old man\u2019s employer after he called in sick resulted in a two-hour, SWAT team-style raid<\/a> on the man\u2019s truck and a 72-hour mental health hold. During the standoff, a heavily armed police tactical team confronted Benjamin Burruss as he was leaving an area motel, surrounded his truck, deployed a \u201cstinger\u201d device behind the rear tires, launched a flash grenade, smashed the side window in order to drag him from the truck, handcuffed and searched him, and transported him to a local hospital for a psychiatric evaluation and mental health hold. All of this was done despite the fact that police acknowledged they had no legal basis nor probable cause for detaining Burruss<\/a>, given that he had not threatened to harm anyone and was not mentally ill.<\/p>\n
Limp or stutter<\/strong>: As a result of a nationwide push to certify a broad spectrum of government officials in mental health first-aid training<\/a> (a 12-hour course comprised of PowerPoint presentations, videos, discussions, role playing and other interactive activities), more Americans are going to run the risk of being reported for having mental health issues by non-medical personnel. Mind you, once you get on such a government watch list\u2014whether it\u2019s a terrorist watch list, a mental health watch list, or a dissident watch list\u2014there\u2019s no clear-cut way to get off, whether or not you should actually be on there. For instance, one 37-year-old disabled man was arrested, diagnosed by police and an unlicensed mental health screener as having \u201cmental health issues,\u201d apparently because of his slurred speech and unsteady gait, and subsequently locked up for five days in a mental health facility against his will and with no access to family and friends. A subsequent hearing found that Gordon Goines, who suffers from a neurological condition similar to multiple sclerosis<\/a>, has no mental illness and should not have been confined.<\/p>\n
Appear confused or nervous, fidget, whistle or smell bad<\/strong>: According to the Transportation Security Administration\u2019s 92-point secret behavior watch list for spotting terrorists, these are among some of the telling signs of suspicious behavior<\/a>: fidgeting, whistling, bad body odor<\/a>, yawning, clearing your throat, having a pale face from recently shaving your beard, covering your mouth with your hand when speaking and blinking your eyes fast. You can also be pulled aside for interrogation if you \u201chave \u2018unusual items,\u2019 like almanacs and \u2018numerous prepaid calling cards or cell phones.\u2019\u201d One critic of the program accurately referred to the program as a \u201clicense to harass.\u201d<\/p>\n
Allow yourself to 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, for instance<\/strong>: No longer is it unusual to hear about incidents in which police shoot unarmed individuals first and ask questions later. John Crawford was shot by police in an Ohio Wal-Mart for holding an air rifle<\/a> sold in the store that he may have intended to buy. Thirteen-year-old Andy Lopez Cruz was\u00a0shot 7 times in 10 seconds<\/a>\u00a0by a California police officer who mistook the boy\u2019s toy gun for an assault rifle. Christopher Roupe, 17, was\u00a0shot and killed after opening the door to a police officer<\/a>. The officer, mistaking the Wii remote control in Roupe\u2019s hand for a gun, shot him in the chest. Another police officer repeatedly shot 70-year-old Bobby Canipe<\/a> during a traffic stop. The cop saw the man reaching for his cane and, believing the cane to be a rifle, opened fire.<\/p>\n
Stare at a police officer<\/strong>: Miami-Dade police slammed the 14-year-old Tremaine McMillian to the ground, putting him in a chokehold and handcuffing him after he allegedly gave them \u201cdehumanizing stares<\/a>\u201d and walked away from them, which the officers found unacceptable.<\/p>\n
Appear to be pro-gun, pro-freedom or anti-government: <\/strong>You might be a domestic terrorist in the eyes of the FBI (and its network of snitches) if you: express libertarian philosophies<\/a>\u00a0(statements, bumper stickers); exhibit Second Amendment-oriented views (NRA\u00a0or gun club membership); read survivalist literature, including apocalyptic fictional books; show signs of self-sufficiency (stockpiling food, ammo, hand tools, medical supplies); fear an economic collapse; buy gold and barter items; subscribe to religious views<\/a>\u00a0concerning the book of Revelation; voice fears about Big Brother or big government; expound about constitutional rights<\/a>\u00a0and civil liberties; or believe in a New World Order conspiracy. This is all part of a larger trend in American governance whereby dissent is criminalized and pathologized, and dissenters are censored, silenced or declared unfit for society.<\/p>\n
Attend a public school<\/strong>: Microcosms of the police state, America\u2019s public schools contain almost every aspect of the militarized, intolerant, senseless, overcriminalized, legalistic, surveillance-riddled, totalitarian landscape that plagues those of us on the \u201coutside.\u201d From the moment a child enters\u00a0one of the nation\u2019s 98,000 public schools<\/a>\u00a0to the moment she graduates, she will be exposed to a steady diet of draconian zero tolerance policies that criminalize childish behavior, overreaching anti-bullying statutes that criminalize speech, school resource officers (police) tasked with disciplining and\/or arresting so-called \u201cdisorderly\u201d students, standardized testing that emphasizes rote answers over critical thinking, politically correct mindsets that teach young people to censor themselves and those around them, and extensive biometric and surveillance systems that, coupled with the rest, acclimate young people to a world in which they have no freedom of thought, speech or movement. Additionally, as part of the government\u2019s so-called ongoing war on terror, the FBI\u2014the nation\u2019s de facto secret police force\u2014is now recruiting students and teachers to spy on each other<\/a>\u00a0and report anyone who appears to have the potential to be \u201canti-government\u201d or \u201cextremist\u201d as part of its \u201cDon\u2019t Be a Puppet<\/a>\u201d campaign.<\/p>\n
Speak truth to power<\/strong>: Long before Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden were being castigated for blowing the whistle on the\u00a0government\u2019s war crimes<\/a>\u00a0and the National Security Agency\u2019s\u00a0abuse of its surveillance powers<\/a>, it was activists such as Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lennon who were being singled out for daring to speak truth to power. These men and others like them had their phone calls monitored and data files collected on their activities and associations. For a little while, at least, they became enemy number one in the eyes of the U.S. government.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s always a price to pay for standing up to the powers-that-be.<\/p>\n
Yet as this list shows, 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
WC: 2355<\/p>\n