Tag Archives: Department of Homeland Security

Truth Cops, by Ken Klippenstein and Lee Fang

Posted on November 1, 2022 | Leave a comment

So, the Department of Homeland Security is becoming the information Gestapo. From Ken Klippenstein and Lee Fang at theintercept.com:

Leaked Documents Outline DHS’s Plans to Police Disinformation

The Department of Homeland Security is quietly broadening its efforts to curb speech it considers dangerous, an investigation by The Intercept has found. Years of internal DHS memos, emails, and documents — obtained via leaks and an ongoing lawsuit, as well as public documents — illustrate an expansive effort by the agency to influence tech platforms.

The work, much of which remains unknown to the American public, came into clearer view earlier this year when DHS announced a new “Disinformation Governance Board”: a panel designed to police misinformation (false information spread unintentionally), disinformation (false information spread intentionally), and malinformation (factual information shared, typically out of context, with harmful intent) that allegedly threatens U.S. interests. While the board was widely ridiculed, immediately scaled back, and then shut down within a few months, other initiatives are underway as DHS pivots to monitoring social media now that its original mandate — the war on terror — has been wound down.

Behind closed doors, and through pressure on private platforms, the U.S. government has used its power to try to shape online discourse. According to meeting minutes and other records appended to a lawsuit filed by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican who is also running for Senate, discussions have ranged from the scale and scope of government intervention in online discourse to the mechanics of streamlining takedown requests for false or intentionally misleading information.

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Destroying Western Values To Defend Western Values, by Caitlin Johnstone

Posted on November 1, 2022 | Leave a comment

America has been destroying morality to save it for a long time. From Caitlin Johnstone.com:

So it turns out the US intelligence cartel has been working intimately with online platforms to regulate the “cognitive infrastructure” of the population. This is according to a new investigative report by The Intercept, based on documents obtained through leaks and an ongoing lawsuit, on the “retooling” of the Department of Homeland Security from an agency focused on counterterrorism to one increasingly focused on fighting “misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation” online.

While the DHS’s hotly controversial “Disinformation Governance Board” was shut down in response to public outcry, the Intercept report reveals what authors Lee Fang and Ken Klippenstein describe as “an expansive effort by the agency to influence tech platforms” in order to “curb speech it considers dangerous”:

According to a draft copy of DHS’s Quadrennial Homeland Security Review, DHS’s capstone report outlining the department’s strategy and priorities in the coming years, the department plans to target “inaccurate information” on a wide range of topics, including “the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine.”

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Newest Homeland Security Bulletin Labels Many Americans “Domestic Threat Actors”, by Hailey Sanibel

Posted on February 18, 2022 | Leave a comment

You might get the DTA tag just reading this post. From Hailey Sanibel at thebluestateconservative.com:

Just when you thought your government couldn’t hate you more, it turns out that the Department of Homeland Security has been meticulously crafting memorandums outlining ways to silence its critics with an umbrella term they’re calling MDM: Misinformation, Disinformation, and Malinformation.

The entire Newspeak bulletin can be read here, and opens this way:

“The United States remains in a heightened threat environment fueled by several factors, including an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information (MDM) introduced and/or amplified by foreign and domestic threat actors.”

You got that? That’s you and me they’re talking about. We are now “domestic threat actors.” Apparently noticing something that becomes common knowledge a month or two later is grounds for being labeled not only a conspiracy theorist but a domestic terrorist as well. It’s not just this thought, though; every single sentence, not just the opening salvo, reads like a Pravda’s Greatest Hits number, utilizing such phrases as “exacerbate societal friction” and “sow discord or undermine public trust in U.S. government institutions.”

Of course, this memo is not saying anything new. All it’s doing is saying the quiet part out loud. For two years, there has been an active campaign on the part of Big Brother, Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Business to control a tight narrative on Covid, from its origins to its treatments. Remember when it was considered misinformation to wonder if the virus were artificial and leaked from a lab? Remember when level-headed people once wondered if boosters would be required to be considered fully vaccinated?

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Posted in Civil Liberties, Collapse, Government, Insurrection, Intelligence, Politics, Propaganda, Tyranny

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Exclusive: We Have Acquired The Department Of Homeland Security’s Complete List Of Terror Threats

Posted on August 14, 2021 | Leave a comment

From The Babylon Bee:

The Babylon Bee has obtained a leaked copy of the complete list of red flags the Department of Homeland Security looks for when assessing terror threats. Is your neighbor a terrorist? Are YOU a terrorist? Read the list below and find out!

And remember, if you see something, SAY something!

Does anyone you know fit any of these descriptions? They’re probably a terrorist. Be sure to notify federal authorities immediately.

https://babylonbee.com/news/exclusive-we-have-acquired-the-department-of-homeland-securitys-complete-list-of-terror-threats

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Another Whistleblower Suicide: The Immediate and Unquestioned State Narrative of Philip Haney’s Death, by Gary D. Barnett

Posted on February 28, 2020 | 2 comments

How many people commit suicide by shooting themselves in the chest? Granted, suicidal people often aren’t thinking very clearly, but why would you do it in a way that doesn’t usually kill you instantly and inflicts a lot of pain before death? From Gary D. Barnett at lewrockwell.com:

A shocking crime was committed on the unscrupulous initiative of few individuals, with the blessing of more, and amid the passive acquiescence of all.

~ Cornelius Tacitus (1964). “The histories”

It seems due to the brainwashing of the American commoner, and the almost total indoctrination machine of the state that is used to dumb down the populace at large, that apathy has become so rampant as to allow the general acceptance of fallacious state narratives. These narratives that concern the very suspicious deaths of any that challenge the ruling class or their political puppets, and almost without question, seem to be never-ending these days. There are an unbelievable number of victims of so-called “apparent suicides,” assassinations, outright murder, disappearance, strange car crashes, poisonings, and any other number of unlikely death scenarios of those that have damning information about the state, its wars, and its secrets, and have the guts to tell the truth. Coincidence is no longer a reasonable argument concerning these deaths, and actually never has been legitimate.

This tragedy of mass acceptance of lies is based on a monstrous propaganda machine that has attained a level of false credibility that belies the imagination of any with the ability to think. In order to gain this advantage over the bulk of society, the state has spared no amount of money, power, or manipulation in order to be able to commit heinous crimes without fear of exposure. This requires not only the complicity of the state apparatus, but also the almost total control of all mainstream media as well. This could never have been achieved without the mind control efforts of the compulsory government schooling system, its monopoly over the children of this country, and its use of false curriculum meant to corrupt the population from an early age, breeding state worship, nationalism, and a belief in herd mentality.

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A Badge of Shame: The Government’s War on America’s Military Veterans, by John W. Whitehead

Posted on November 6, 2018 | Leave a comment

We send our military on pointless interventions and wars and when they get back home, they’re treated like shit. From John W. Whitehead at rutherford.org:

“For soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, coming home is more lethal than being in combat.” ― Brené Brown, research professor at the University of Houston

Not all heroes wear the uniform of war.

In the United States, however, we take particular pride in recognizing as heroes those who have served in the military.

Yet while we honor our veterans with holidays, parades, discounts at retail stores and restaurants, and endless political rhetoric about their sacrifice and bravery, we do a pitiful job of respecting their freedoms and caring for their needs once out of uniform.

Despite the fact that the U.S. boasts more than 20 million veterans who have served in World War II through the present day, the plight of veterans today is America’s badge of shame, with large numbers of veterans impoverished, unemployed, traumatized mentally and physically, struggling with depression, suicide, and marital stress, homeless, subjected to sub-par treatment at clinics and hospitals, and left to molder while their paperwork piles up within Veterans Administration offices.

Still, the government’s efforts to wage war on veterans, especially those who speak out against government wrongdoing, is downright appalling.

Consider: we raise our young people on a steady diet of militarism and war, sell them on the idea that defending freedom abroad by serving in the military is their patriotic duty, then when they return home, bruised and battle-scarred and committed to defending their freedoms at home, we often treat them like criminals merely for having served in the military.

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Posted in Civil Liberties, Crime, Government, Imperialism, Law, Military, Morality, Politics, Surveillance, War

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The Department Of Homeland Security Plans To Compile A List Of All Bloggers, Journalists And “Social Media Influencers”, by Michael Snyder

Posted on June 5, 2018 | Leave a comment

If you’re afraid of running afoul of the government, SLL is not the site you should be visiting. We’ll see if SLL makes the list, in the unlikely chance that DHS releases it publicly. From Michael Snyder at endoftheamericandream.com:

Many were hoping that once Barack Obama was out of office we would see less of this Big Brother surveillance nonsense, but instead it seems to be getting even worse.  In fact, the Department of Homeland Security has just announced that it intends to compile a comprehensive list of hundreds of thousands of “journalists, editors, correspondents, social media influencers, bloggers etc.”, and collect any “information that could be relevant” about them.  So if you have a website, an important blog or you are just very active on social media, the Department of Homeland Security is going to put you on a list and will start collecting information about you.  The DHS has already announced that it will hire a contractor to aid in monitoring media coverage, and they will definitely need plenty of help because it is going to be a very big job…

As part of its “media monitoring,” the DHS seeks to track more than 290,000 global news sources as well as social media in over 100 languages, including Arabic, Chinese and Russian, for instant translation into English. The successful contracting company will have “24/7 access to a password protected, media influencer database, including journalists, editors, correspondents, social media influencers, bloggers etc.” in order to “identify any and all media coverage related to the Department of Homeland Security or a particular event.”

“Any and all media coverage,” as you might imagine, is quite broad and includes “online, print, broadcast, cable, radio, trade and industry publications, local sources, national/international outlets, traditional news sources, and social media.”

If this sounds extremely creepy to you, that is because it is extremely creepy.

I run several prominent websites including The Most Important News and The Economic  Collapse Blog, and so without a doubt I will be on this list.  And if I was just a name on a list in some database somewhere, that would be bad enough, but instead it sounds like the DHS will be collecting any “information that could be relevant” about all of us…

As Gizmodo noted, the DHS’ vagueness is also a concern. It leaves itself an opening for collecting “any other information that could be relevant” about these influencers, and there’s no hint as to what that could be. Is it strictly functional information like work histories, or sensitive data that could be abused? Either way, the database could be troublesome for bloggers and social media stars who aren’t usually under such close government scrutiny.

To continue reading: The Department Of Homeland Security Plans To Compile A List Of All Bloggers, Journalists And “Social Media Influencers”

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The Surveillance State: An Inexorable March Toward Totalitarianism, by Jeremiah Johnson

Posted on November 12, 2017 | 1 comment

The surveillance state gets creepier and creepier, and it’s even creepier in China. From Jeremiah Johnson at shtfplan.com:

mass-surveillance2

Gizmodo released an article entitled “US Homeland Security Wants Facial Recognition to Identify People in Moving Cars,” on 11/2/17 by Matt Novak. The Surveillance State has slowed down its rate of growth since the President took office, however, it has not halted that growth. Instead, it lies festering below the veneer of daily events, inexorably growing its tentacles and extending their reach. Akin to an infestation of weeds, the roots are deep within the fabric of our communications networks: telephones, CCTV (Closed-Circuit Television) cameras, the Internet…all are thoroughly permeated.

Here is an excerpt from that article:

The proposed program would allow Homeland Security to maintain a database of everyone who leaves and enters the US that would now include photos taken by spying robot-cameras at every border crossing. Not only does DHS want this new facial recognition program to work without anyone having to exit their vehicle, the agency wants it to work even if the travelers are wearing things like sunglasses and hats. DHS also wants it to work without cars having to stop.

Seems they really want our information for their database. There is something more. One of the readers on the article’s website who uses the handle “Artiofab” posted this comment that is important, as he lives on the Texas border with Mexico:

 “11/02/17 12:31pm  Hi everybody I live near the US-MX border so I’m happy to give informed opinions on this topic, since I know that a lot of the audience at Gizmodo dot com apparently lives closer to the US-CA border.

Near the US-MX border along major US highways there are these interior checkpoints. If you’re traveling “into” the US (e.g., if you’re in New Mexico and you’re driving north) you stop your car, a USBP agent asks if you’re all US citizens, you say yes, they let you keep going.

(I have no personal anecdote about what happens if you don’t say yes. I have some secondhand anecdote about what happens if you are transporting a small amount of substances that the US considers illegal. But that’s tangential…)  If you’re traveling “towards” Mexico, you don’t have to stop. Instead you drive past one of these.

surveillance

To continue reading: The Surveillance State: An Inexorable March Toward Totalitarianism

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