Mike mentioned this in his Round Up, but it definitely merits its own post. Denver Post:
Hundreds of police, firefighters, paramedics and even utility workers have been trained and recently dispatched as “Terrorism Liaison Officers” in Colorado and a handful of other states to hunt for “suspicious activity” - and are reporting their findings into secret government databases.
It’s a tactic intended to feed better data into terrorism early-warning systems and uncover intelligence that could help fight anti-U.S. forces. But the vague nature of the TLOs’ mission, and their focus on reporting both legal and illegal activity, has generated objections from privacy advocates and civil libertarians.
“Suspicious activity” is broadly defined in TLO training as behavior that could lead to terrorism: taking photos of no apparent aesthetic value, making measurements or notes, espousing extremist beliefs or conversing in code, according to a draft Department of Justice/Major Cities Chiefs Association document.
All this is anathema to opponents of domestic surveillance.
Yet U.S. intelligence and homeland security officials say they support the widening use of TLOs - state-run under federal agreements - as part of a necessary integrated network for preventing attacks.
“We’re simply providing information on crime-related issues or suspicious circumstances,” said Denver police Lt. Tony Lopez, commander of Denver’s intelligence unit and one of 181 individual TLOs deployed across Colorado.
“We don’t snoop into private citizens’ lives. We aren’t living in a communist state.”
No, just sliding more and more inexorably into a fascist state.
Filed Under: Homeland Security
Tags: Civil Liberties, Homeland Security, Terrorism
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I know this one dude who, like, attacked a whole country that didn’t attack us first, calling it some crazy shit like “the doctrine of pre-emption.” Where can I report that terrorist motherfucker?
Are kids supposed to turn in their parents if the parents don’t wear flag fu*king pins?
The govt didn’t even listen to the FBI before 9-11 and now they will listen to a fu*king utility worker? Aren’t cops supposed to do that anyway? If they see something strange or questionable don’t they follow up?
The right is so opposed to communism and anything socialist that they welcome fascism…
Welcome to 1933… Your Volkswagen will be ready soon.
What a f*cking country. The powers that be continue to grow more and more terrified of what desperate people are going to do.
Ooooops, apparently I’ve been having a dream where I’ve been living in the future, looks like the actual year is 1983. I’m not looking forward to the new year.
bring those little junior G men cocksuckers to my neighborhood!!!
PLZ!!
colorado!
you can’t get more unamurKKKan than that!
Build a cadre of thugs to spread fear. Tried and true method in the process of destroying a free society.
The Red Guard. The SA. The Hitler Youth…
Reminds me of the scene from 1984 where the little boy denounces his father as a thought criminal.
If a real patriot were going to be the next president, one of her/his first acts would be to submit legislation to abolish the Dept. of Homeland Security. Or at least remane it to the Department of Internal Terror.
You really have to watch out in colorado!
utility workers?
I’ve met some people that end up being utility workers because no one would trust them with a bigger job.
This all sounds familiar. Didn’t this sort of thing try to get going several years ago. They were telling repairmen to report anything suspicious when they went into someones home to make repairs. Then there was another time people who drove 18 wheelers were asked to keep an eye out when they were on the road.
I hope these people have federal protection because this shit screams for a lawsuit if someone is falsely turned in by a medic or any of the other occupations mentioned.
Do these people get rewards if they turn in someone that is convicted?
The good people at the Minitrue have told me to just repeat these simple statements to myself all day long and everything will be ok.
“WAR IS PEACE,” “FREEDOM IS SLAVERY,” “IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.”
2+2= ?
what defines aesthetic value? as a photographer, anything and everything can qualify. f’n morons. morons! I guess it’s time to start back up guerilla artwork again -.-
The PATRIOT ACT ensures that any and all crimes that you can commit are acts of terrorism.
From smoking herb .. to getting into a fight.. and all sub sections in between.. they are all ACTS of TERRORISM…
Glad to see this light just starting to shine here now…
911 happens by “surprise”.. and all of a sudden 3 days later this 10,000 page document is rolled out and passed before anyone could read it… Its all in there.. Patriot act 1 and 2 sucking out and super ceding all of our rights…
What a co-inky-dink…
I guess I better hide my, Obama ‘08, sweatshirt before I call any sort of repairmen to the house and if god forbid I should need an ambulance and a paramedic. Remind me to also hide my large bottles of shampoo, rinse and cologne too. I don’t believe we own a box cutter, so I’m safe there.
their New World Order has a Third Reich odor..
Paul @ 8:
Wouldn’t this be more akin to the Gestapo?
pissed off patricia @ 2:
I wonder if it matters where one wears said flag pin. Because I’m starting to want to wear one pinned to my ass.
And what’s next? Checkpoints at the state borders like they used to have in Europe? They track your money, they track your actions and they track your emails and phone calls… next thing you know you won’t really be free to move about the Country, will you?
I visited Germany for the first time back in the 80’s and I was so surprised at the men with machine guns roaming the airports… I had never seen that before… but more and more, it looks like we are pretty soon going to have them at the malls… No, I take that back, not the malls, that might discourage shopping, eh?
Looking for a realistic alternative here…havent seen it yet.
I suppose liberal blogging would be a fine example of “conversing in code”.
pissed off patricia @ 16:
I’m pretty sure that if the “Thought police” hadnt knocked down your door yet for posting here…you’re gonna be OK…
pissed off patricia @ 11:
I think they wanted to get firemen to investigate places that they were doing their building inspections as well.
Does pig latin count as code? If it is, it’s the only code I know.
Exotic Blue Lensman @ 21:
!@#$ the $%^%&*@#ers!
I’d better take my picture of McCain out of the window. The one with NOPE written on it.
“Hundreds of police, firefighters, paramedics and even utility workers have been trained and recently dispatched as “Terrorism Liaison Officers” in Colorado and a handful of other states to hunt for “suspicious activity” - and are reporting their findings into secret government databases.”
Okay and then after the info gets into the spooky secret government databases, what happens next? I’m guessing not a damned thing. This all sounds like a whole lot of bullshit to me. This simply tries to make people believe anyone could blow up shit so they should be suspicious of everyone and be afraid of every damned thing in the name of safety and America and patriotism and whatever.
pissed off patricia @ 27:
Horrible thing it is to live one’s life in fear…
Looking for the bad in everyone or suspicious sounds a bit paranoid to me… is this what we have become? Honestly? I can’t believe it.
Living in fear isn’t really living.
Now living for happy hour, that’s living.
Wow - I wonder if the repair guy who came the other day saw my refrigerator. I’ve got a page from a poliltical ad from a couple years ago - a photo of Bush looking especially stupid with “Had Enough? under the photo. My family has, er, decorated it over time, so it’s pretty clear what we think of him. And I think I might have said something in French. Guess I’m screwed.
Bush lives his life in fear and he wants everyone else to, also. Well, fuck him and the Cheney he rode in on.
pissed off patricia @ 27:
Remember when your teachers in grade school would warn you that your fuck-ups were gonna “go into your Permanent Record”? LOL.
This is all part of the mendacious Total Information Awareness paradigm of “If we just had ALL of the hay, we’d know EXACTLY where the Terrorist needles are. They’re RIGHT THERE IN THE HAY!”
Powkat @ 32:
Maybe they have wi-fi in gitmo by now, so you can still come to C&L and chat with us.
Powkat @ 32:
LOL! I’m beyond screwed.
BobbyG @ 34:
That’s so funny. I hadn’t thought of my “permanent record” in ages and ages. Wonder what that rascal has in it by now? It must be pretty big.
Don’t worry. If anything goes wrong Faux News will honestly report it.
Anyone have photoshopping skills? I think Doocy and not Steve Doocy need a makeover.
BobbyG @ 36:
Yep! What size orange jumpsuit do you think you’ll need?
“…reporting their findings into secret government databases.”
________
Like, uh, the one at the FEC, which can’t handle 2008 campaign finance reporting, because it’s limited to 65 536 rows of data (16=bit record addressing)?
Meaning that they’re using an Excel spreadsheet for their “database.” Or, no, wait, maybe it’s Lotus 1-2-3 or VisiCalc.
antihero @ 14:
That which the government finds beautiful. Guns, terrorists, armaments, money…
pissed off patricia @ 37:
I’m good, though. I promptly ratted myself out to TIA long ago. In actual USPS hardcopy, to the Director himself (yes, I really did that). Nothing to hide here.
Nothing new for the Denver police department. They kept “spy files” on left-wing organizations as recently as a few years ago, until they were found out by the ACLU.
That program seems to be back on line, especially with the convention coming to town.
http://www.aclu-co.org/spyfiles/chronology.htm
Lt. Tony Lopez is the problem as much as the Bushevites in that the ability to halt this fascism lies with every citizen. When the petty bureaucrats like Lopez accept a position of ‘Intelligence Unit Commander’ instead of asking, ‘WTF do you think this is, pre-WW-II Italy, or Friedman’s Chile? Go gestapo yourself!’, we are IN, not “sliding more and more inexorably into a fascist state.” And the institutionalization of the Office of Faith-based Initiatives merely trowels on more layers that need to be blasted away from the cement shoes fixed to the Constitution.
“Suspicious activity” is broadly defined in TLO training as behavior that could lead to terrorism: taking photos of no apparent aesthetic value, making measurements or notes, espousing extremist beliefs or conversing in code, according to a draft Department of Justice/Major Cities Chiefs Association document.
_________
Not too long ago here some dude mouthed off some anti-Bush stuff in the locker room at 24 Hour Fitness. He got a visit from the feds shortly thereafter (I lost the link to that story).
Snitch society. As I observed on my TIA page (from my bank job days, 2000 - 2005):
BobbyG @ 42:
Was that really written by you? That’s funny as hell! Plus you saved your govt. the time and money they would need to monkey around in your business. Now I call that true patriotism.
Anyone watching my whereabouts would drop dead of boredom.