Sly

Please note #1 and #3, in particular.

--

The FBI is assembling a massive database on thousands of Americans, many of whom have not been accused of any crime, the Washington Post's Dana Priest and William Arkin report. The reporters' latest look at the country's ballooning national security system focuses on the role that local agencies -- often staffed by people with little to no counter-terrorism training -- have played in combating terrorism since 2001.

Here are five striking revelations in their piece:

1. The FBI's Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative currently contains 161,948 suspicious activity files, into which authorities can put information they've gathered about the people at the center of the files: employment history, financial documents, phone numbers, photos. In many cases, the people in the files have not been accused of any crime but have attracted the suspicions of a local cop, FBI agent or even fellow citizen. The files have led to five arrests but no convictions, the FBI says. Some of the files are unclassified so that local police agencies and even businesses can submit reports on anyone they deem suspicious.

2. The Department of Homeland Security does not know how much it spends in funding state fusion centers, which synthesize security information from all state agencies and feeds information to the FBI's "Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative." But since 2001, DHS has doled out $31 billion to states and localities for homeland-security initiatives.

3. Local officials at these fusion centers are tasked with understanding terrorism with little or no training. To fill the void, self-styled experts with fairly extreme views on the scope of the Muslim terrorist threat are asked to come in and train local authorities, the Post reports.

Expert Walid Shoebat told a group at the first annual South Dakota Fusion Center Conference in Sioux Falls this year that they should monitor local Muslim student groups and mosques and try to tap their phones. "You can find out a lot of information that way," he said.

National intelligence officials told the Post they preferred that people with "evidence-based" approaches to Islam were lecturing instead, but that no guidelines are in place to determine the qualifications of a given speaker.

4. The localities are often left without guidance from DHS, which can lead to confusion about the counter-terror activity they're supposed to be carrying out. Virginia's fusion center named historically black colleges as a "potential" terrorism hub, Maryland State Police infiltrated local groups that lobbied for bike lanes and human rights, and a contractor in Pennsylvania writing an intelligence bulletin flagged meetings of the Tea Party Patriots Coalition and environmental activists.

5. Many states and towns are taking the unprecedented amounts of money handed out to fight terrorists and are using it instead to fight crime. "We have our own terrorists, and they are taking lives every day," Memphis Police Director Larry Godwin said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theloo...-investigation

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Agent 488

goddamn obama ...

just a punk

"The Department of Homeland Security" Am I the only here who think there is something ominous and Nazi in this name?

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Obey the Cowgod

amateurbfs

Thanks for keeping me safe!

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baddog

161k out of 300 million?

I have a policy when I go to places like Sturgis when there are 500,000 other bikers around. If I draw the attention of the law, I probably fucked up. I would say those 161k probably deserve additional attention paid to them. I will agree that the money spent seems a little excessive though.

_Richard_

that's one big slippery slope. what happens if some guy down the line comes in and decides all bikers are a threat to national security

does 'his' opinion trump your constitutional rights?

DaddyHalbucks

This is a reaction to 9/11 ?

There weren't any Americans involved in that plot.

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baddog

We are talking a lot more than 161k if you add all bikers . . . and I would be willing to bet there are a decent number of bikers on that list of 161k already.

Amputate Your Head

typical "they must have deserved it" response.

wait until they decide you've "deserved it".

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Sly

$30B for 161k potentials and 4 failed arrests.

Sounds like a screaming success.

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WarChild

Is there a reporting number available? I have a few GFYers to add to their files ...

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just a punk

A typical Western-Russian (Ukrainian or Belorussian) face there. I believe it's about the "Soviet occupation of the USA". Nope this didn't happen. The only big brother who's watching you is your own government.

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baddog

Like I said, the money seems excessive, but to be fair, there is nothing in that article that says the $30b was spent solely on the investigation of those 161k people.

MetaMan

how do you figure?

the FBI probably has millions of files on people who COMMIT CRIMES.

They are holding files on innocent people who dont necessarily have committed a crime.

You would think time would be better spent investigating CRIMINALS out of the thousands if not more unsolved files in their already database.

what is the point of investigating pre crime?

dyna mo

or whoever is close by with a camera phone.

czarina

I'm probably in that list: I make my money from home, travel abroad a lot, have properties in other countries...

_Richard_

and i wouldn't be willing to bet you. it is disturbing to contemplate what sort of society we'd be if this 'relaxation of the rules' continues on the path set now.

Phoenix

germany did the same thing...they were able to get rid of all non homogeneous people that way...people were snitching on their neighbours and then would be shocked when one day, they just vanished.

i sure hope i get to just sit on the sidelines of this, but i suspect it is coming here as well

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CYF

the FBI has always investigated and kept files on people that haven't committed crimes, this isn't exactly a new thing.

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TheStout

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/

Great movie. Its called "The Lives of Others" and it is about the Stasi (Secret Police). It is said that 1 in every 6 people were involved with the Stasi in Germany during the time this film was based on.

Scary stuff imho

Phoenix

that is correct.
however these particular files can be added by almost anyone.

if the fbi decides you are a threat, they probably have good reason to keep tabs on you....no one is debating that

the issue is that the moron down your street is probably the one doing the reporting in your area...reporting what exactly?

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webairalex

Is this Germany? In the 1940's? Does anyone know WTF is going on?

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just a punk

Indeed .

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Obey the Cowgod

just a punk

Like almost every webmaster

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Obey the Cowgod

Amputate Your Head

history always repeats itself.

welcome to the police state.

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webair

They probably added you to the list for posting this ;)

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beerptrol

Nothing new, the FBI has always kept files on people. It wouldn't surprise me if the head of the FBI dressed in women's clothes too

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tiger

I have been thinking there was something weird about that name since they created it.

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baddog

I govern my actions with the presumption that I am already on it. Everyone should.

TheKeyMaster

Papers please!

MetaMan

Agreed, but only 200+K? i wonder where this article makes the classification. If it really is that low i wonder.

And what is the protocol of "suspicious".

Really base wording makes me very suspicious myself on whom and how they get to interpret it.

ottopottomouse

Don't worry about them they will be too busy videoing someone who has just been hit by a bus and is spraying blood everywhere like a fountain.

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↑ see post ↑
13101

_Richard_

well that's just another way of saying 'do the right thing'. That's granted. My concern is are they targeting bikers due to old biases? There are a lot of messed up people in this world, and it would be upsetting to find out we're still investigating bikers dealing grass rather than mislead people with explosives.

Kiopa_Matt

Must suck to be brown people these days.

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dyna mo

or miley cyrus taking a bong rip!

GregE

That Big Brother image is clearly cobbled together from three well known sources:

a) The gloved hand pointing and the word "YOU" was copied from a famous British WWI army recruiting poster.

b) The face, from the mustache on down, is Stalin.

c) The face, from the nose on up, is Hitler.

As for the fugitive cringing in front of the poster, he looks like he was lifted straight off the pages of a 1950's era USA comic book.

The source material here is so blatantly obvious I gotta figure that it was intended to be seen as such.


Agreed.

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IllTestYourGirls

People are already "disappearing" no one is reporting it.

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Fuseblown

"But since 2001, the department has doled out $31 billion to states and localities for domestic security initiatives."

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Fuseblown

u-Bob

That's nothing compared to what the EU is planning. They've already stated that in order to determine that you are most likely innocent, they need to know everything about you.

BIGTYMER

In the name of freedom you will lose all privacy.

Welcome to Amerika. One World. One Gov.

Amputate Your Head

all are assumed guilty until you can prove you're not.

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SIG TOO BIG

u-Bob

Amp, got icq?

MrCain

They are slowly turning the world into one big police state.

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Sigmund

dyna mo

you know they monitor the icq too, right?

BIGTYMER

arock10

they are behind you right now!

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Vendzilla

Homeland security has been training an elite squad of counter terrorist soldiers at a cost of 27 millions dollars each


More money will be used to fund the illegal alien problem


and to use them to further the Obama Agenda














all the money the US spends on security, you would think the border states would have some security?

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Carbon is not the problem, it makes up 0.041% of our atmosphere , 95% of that is from Volcanos and decomposing plants and stuff. So people in the US are responsible for 13% of the carbon in the atmosphere which 95% is not from Humans, like cars and trucks and stuff and they want to spend trillions to fix it while Solar Panel plants are powered by coal plants
think about that

dyna mo

shit! my dog is one of them, that little bastard!!!1 checking his collar now for a monitoring device.

IllTestYourGirls

Did you know the government stepped in and stopped the airing of his FEMA Camp episode? Ive never watched any of the series but now that the government stepped in and shut down an episode I might have to check it out.

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