Are you, your family or your community at risk of turning to violent extremism? That’s the premise behind a rating system devised by the National Counterterrorism Center, according to a document marked “For Official Use Only,” and obtained by The Intercept.
The document — and the rating system — is part of a wider strategy for Countering Violent Extremism, which calls for local community and religious leaders to work together with law enforcement and other government agencies. The White House has made this approach a centerpiece of its response to terrorist attacks around the world, and in the wake of the Paris attacks, announced plans to host an international summit on Countering Violent Extremism on February 18th.
The rating system, part of a 36-page document dated May 2014 and titled “Countering Violent Extremism: A Guide for Practitioners and Analysts,” suggests that police, social workers and educators rate individuals on a scale of one to five in categories such as: “Expressions of Hopelessness, Futility,” “Talk of Harming Self or Others,” and “Connection to Group Identity (Race, Nationality, Religion, Ethnicity).” The ranking system is supposed to alert government officials to individuals at risk of turning to radical violence, and to families or communities at risk of incubating extremist ideologies.
Families are judged on factors such as “Aware[ness] of Each Other’s Activities,” as well as levels of “Parent-Child Bonding,” and communities are rated by access to health care and social services, in addition to “presence of ideologues or recruiters” as potential risk factors.
A low score in any of these categories would indicate a high risk of “susceptibility to engage in violent extremism,” according to the document. It encourages users of the guide to plot the scores on a graph to determine what “interventions” could halt the process of radicalization before it happens.
“The idea that the federal government would encourage local police, teachers, medical and social service employees to rate the communities, individuals and families they serve for their potential to become terrorists is abhorrent on its face,” said Mike German, a former FBI agent who is now with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. German called the criteria used for the ratings “subjective and specious.”
Arun Kundnani, a professor at New York University, said that enlisting communities in the way the administration suggests in the guide, “leads a range of non-policing professionals to cast particular suspicion on Muslim populations and profile them for behaviors that have no real connection to criminality.”
Kundnani also questioned the science behind the rating system. “There’s no evidence to support the idea that terrorism can be substantively correlated with such factors to do with family, identity and emotional well-being,” he said.
The guide itself notes that the effects of Countering Violent Extremism programs are “not easy to quantify.”
The U.S. government isn’t alone in its attempts to spot youth allegedly at risk of becoming terrorists. The government of France recently issued a widely mocked graphic demonstrating ostensible warning signs of radicalization, which suggested that abrupt diet or lifestyle changes are correlated with proclivities for violent extremism. (White House counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco last April warned parents and community members to look out for “subtle” signs, like “sudden personality changes in their children at home — becoming confrontational.”)
The British government has put forward a plan to begin monitoring signs of radicalization at the pre-school level, and in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, children in France as young as eight years old have been detained and questioned by police for allegedly espousing radical views.
Experts have suggested that intervention by law enforcement or other branches of the government in individuals’ lives, particularly young people, based solely based on the views they express, can potentially criminalize constitutionally protected behavior.
In some cases, as The Intercept has reported, community outreach from law enforcement has also crossed the line into intelligence gathering.
Most of the document is a review of the literature on a variety of approaches to dealing with the threat of radicalization. Examples given include a community policing program in Lewiston, Maine (population 36,000), and Saudi Arabia’s rehabilitation program for former jihadists, including Guantánamo detainees.
Though the White House has insisted that Countering Violent Extremism is not directed at any specific group, the NCTC guide only cites examples drawn from Muslim communities.
“It is obvious that, in practice, [this] would mostly only be applied to Muslim communities,” said Kundnani, the NYU professor.
A public affairs officer for the National Counterterrorism Center declined to answer questions about the rating system, the methodology behind it or why the document was marked “For Official Use Only.”
See the full document here (or download it as a PDF.)
Photo: Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images
I was very disappointed in the photo that accompanied this article. I expected better from The Intercept.
Here’s how to stop this dead in its tracks, in the US at least (sorry, Brits). Just add the following category: “Family Members’ Access To Guns”
“The document–and the rating system–is part of a wider strategy for Countering Violent Extremism, which calls for local community and religious leaders to work together with law enforcement and other government agencies.”
Straight from Hitler’s Nazi playbook. Granpappy Presscott Bush’s legacy to the AmeriKKKan people.
The joke here is that they have a valid approach. Give the people jobs, create community activities and benefits, and they are less likely to turn to terrorism. But of course, if they really gave the people they think are Islamic/racist radicals, immigrants, talk about harming themselves or others these benefits, while denying them to ordinary people, they would soon have a domestic terrorism problem on their hands. And so, by common sense, nobody believes that they are making this unscientific and haphazard attempt to spot potential terrorism with anything but bad intentions for those so identified, and the whole scheme falls apart like a rotten cloth. So long as the society is run by a few wealthy people who honestly believe they are gods, and that the mass of the population are useless eaters to be pitted against one another in perpetual competition to winnow down their numbers, and that those losing the battle are just the necessary sacrifice to the great god Molech of the radical-capitalist utopians, then the terrorists remain firmly in place as the dutiful servants of the system they have created.
“Extemism in the defense of Liberty is no vice” Barry Goldwater .
Poor blacks with family ties to Islam are likely to get screwed by this. The questions might be good to identify issues with family and community cohesiveness, but these are things we as a society should try to correct, and not by removing those effected by it, imprisoning them and branding them as ‘terrorists’.
Obviously, an extreme violation of provider/client confidentiality (hipaa). I would rate this a 1 on their own scale.
Lombrosian method is not scientific method. Most of the questions defines social environment to a new terrorist grown up. In fact and figures, most of terrorist attacks in USA was made by bullying in schools, psychopaths and ultimate social stress caused by social and economic pressures towards an ordinary citizen. But it can be easily taken as ordinary crime also. Try to find a tied in social environment and crime or terrorism by making such inquiring is useless, that full established before. Surveillance of all dangerous individuals are itself a way to force them to become a criminal. What such decision makes want to do? Avoid such potential dangerous persons to occupy key rules and increase their chance to develop criminal behavior, just because they have no other way? In such condition, even Pope Francis are able to put a bomb somewhere. Just to illustrated: He, Pope Francis, were able to remain silent face two friends death to save thousands. It is a Machiavellian choice, don’t do the right behavior in many times is the best to do. MacArthur was proud to change any coward and religious man into a killing machine. When Lombroso wrote his theories, more than hundred years ago, he has on hand an unequal society were physical traits were related from where they born. The unfair on it, the poorest regions are also ethnic distinct, he just reproduce Gobineau theories with a scientific mask, but it is fake. If we took his patterns, Hitler and Stalin will be saints, and Ghandi a dangerous criminal. This survey will never detected that a member or one the most preeminent and rich Saudi Arabian families will become the most dangerous terrorist in the world. And it will never encompass Unabomber, and it will classified Timothy McVeigh as an ordinary criminal. In short, it does not help to prevent to terrorism at all; and worst, increase prejudice and chances to create more terrorists. as well, so it not useless, it is apologetic idea.
thanks…
Oh get a life,what a bunch of hideous nonsense!
Oh, lordy. This, in Eugene Volokh’s WaPo law blog, regarding the climate in at least one school.
When blowing the whistle = shouting “the sky is falling” (with bonus sockpuppetry + Minecraft)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/02/10/when-blowing-the-whistle-shouting-the-sky-is-falling-with-bonus-sockpuppetry-minecraft/
Now, class, define “ludicrous.”
Does this questionnaire list The GOP and fundamentalists as extremist groups? How about the police, Fox News and Rush, are they extremists? I’m confused who they are talking about. Oh wait I get it, they are talking about the extremist groups the CIA created. Now I get it.
lol… it would most definitely be everyone else but the criminals who wage cockamamie wars.
Does indoctrination by the American military to kill “gooks” and “ragheads” count as “extremism” ?
From what I’ve experienced, it appears some alphabet soup folk — with the help of private contractors, first responders, state and local police, and quite a few folks under some form of correctional control — are testing out ‘learned helplessness’ theory by using negative ‘anchors’ from neuro-linguistic programming in replace of actual shocks and using the homes of ‘subversives’ in replace of actual cages.
No need for expensive, exotic directed energy weapons, just a few ethically-challenged foot soldiers.
My last statement was way off-topic and incomplete: What I didn’t say is this frightening rating system, like the current domestic counterintelligence program, is purported to be part of a “wider strategy” to “counter violent extremism,” but in reality is just another trickle-down surveillance system which will result in more community-based witch-hunts.
And while I applaud genuine efforts to reach out to and help out the Bantu community in Lewiston, Maine, that rating system is, as Michael German said, “abhorrent on its face” and it’s got to go.
Nicely done. What is this program, Race to the Cop? :)
Ha! A more apt description than No Child Left, Pre-Crime.
These morons just don’t have enough to do.
In the US, Stasi rodentry begins at home, in the family.
What better way to replace the (hopefully, soon to be waning number of) inmates from the War on Drugs? Not only will this program do a more than adequate job of refilling those empty prison beds to ensure the continued profitability of that sector of the economy, it will serve the dual purpose of enabling the government to identify opposition at an early age to ensure intervention and proper re-education. Or, failing that, lifelong incarceration. Where have we seen that before?
What a load of old codswallop. I was the whipping child, the eldest of three, the other two being my father’s favorite and my mother’s “darling baby” so neither of them could do any wrong and I took the beatings for both. I had my head beaten against the chimney-breast so often as a result of the lies told because of my youngest sibling’s enjoyment of my agony and also for not making sure that my other sibling didn’t do anything wrong that I’m amazed I survived with enough braincells to boil an egg. In fact I hold a doctorate and my siblings nothing.
Yemeni children dream about drones: http://goo.gl/xYWJ9R
Gee looking at those questions you can see the average fundy christian would score very high (terrorist wise that is) but I bet this is never used against them
High scores correspond to low risks (somewhat counter-intuitively, but done so that if a question is not answered, it equates to the highest possible level of risk). Religious fundamentalists of any stripe are therefore considered to be low risk. This is also somewhat counter-intuitive, but then so are the results of climate change models – so it’s probably just an artifact of the scientific method.
Based on the questions, the highest risk is an atheist from a dysfunctional family with a pessimistic outlook and poor social skills who lives in an unsafe neighborhood. No one person could possess all these attributes, but it is a useful profiling tool.
An Army of One
What most people don’t realize is that this checklist was just repurposed from the winning proposals for advertising and promoting US military recruitment.
What we are looking for in an enemy is exactly what we are looking for in a soldier.
I initially thought the checklist part of Obama’s Insider Threat Program.
The call is coming from inside the house!
At this point, the name “Insider Threat” is a confession.
I love how people that need the most help and support from a modern society are rated the biggest terrorism risks, and the lesson we take from this is to put Ayn Rand in charge of Homeland Security.
You can’t make this shit up.
If the Saudi Arabian rehabilitation program is one of the standards in this, Obama’s latest witch hunt for idological deviancy, then rest assured that the program itself will cause even further radicalization of nominally unhappy young people. The Saudi al-Munasaha (rehabilitation program) was administered to all Saude releasees from Gitmo, where it produced the entire leadership of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen. It was also used as the basis of the reconditioning program at US prison Camp Bucca in Iraq, which all of the leadership of “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)” was subjected to it. https://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/yemen-al-munasaha-saudi-re-education/
https://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/2014/09/03/what-is-the-truth-about-isis/
Unfortunately I do not have kids. Do I have to be the terrorist or is someone else interested in the job?
There is that movie of that french woman about herself and her husband and their little boy exploring “unschooling”. Very interesting, but challenging…
How many other examples of violent extremism can you think of aside from Muslim violent extremism? There are malitia types like mcveigh. Some groups from the sixties. And there are lone mass murderers (particularly in high school and college). But how many of even these examples are organized groups bent on killing innocent people?
JSOC
Well this article certainly raised a lot of comment. My question is what do the posters think could and should be done to to apprehend terrorists before they go into action and kill a lot of Americans? If anything.
According to the sample form shown in this article, a deep involvement in religious activities lowers the risk factor for terrorism. I know the federal government is broke, but Saudi Arabia has lots of money, and has indicated an interest in funding Madrassas in foreign countries. The President should visit the new king and appeal to his generosity.
It does not automatically mean that the right side of the sample form (e.g. very connected to identity group) goes for the great. Sometimes they alternate to force people to think more deeply about the content.
If you read the full document, linked in the article, it is clear that a score of 5 is always the lowest risk indicator. This isn’t a self test – it’s designed for teachers, police and social workers – and they want to make it easier for them to just tick off all the boxes in the ‘1’ column, without having to read the questions.
It has not to be rated by a psychologist? I mean psychologists work without guns or injections so the police should not misuse the instrument of another profession too.
keller, which spychologists? The two who got paid $83 million to cook up harebrained torments for US interrogators? The American Psychological Association members who retroactively changed their ethics rules to approve that? The ones who peddle sexual-orientation conversion therapies? I fear that that profession has long since misused itself as well.
Besides, according to the story, “police, social workers and educators” can do the ratings. Not a Freud in the bunch.
I agree. The scoring is so simple that even a teacher or policeman could do it, providing they had access to a smart phone with a calculator app. Simply add the points for each answer and compare the total with the following table (according to the linked document):
0-24 High Risk
25-47 Moderate Risk
48-60 Low Risk
Note that if the evaluator doesn’t know the answer to a specific question, it is assigned a ‘0’ score, which puts it in the highest risk category of all. In other words, until more data is collected about everyone, the majority will fall into the High Risk category. This is the prudent and safe ‘high risk’ until proven ‘low risk’ approach. Of course, anyone falling in the low risk category should be placed under even closer observation, since they may be trying to hide their terrorist proclivities from the authorities.
@coram nobis Because it is their job to design those questionnaires and use them? Freud was not a psychologist but a neurologist and psychiatrist, so he studied medicine and not psychology. But it seems that I was wrong that a psychologist did the design. One or two black sheeps less… Or maybe we talk about zebras here.
@keller: It’s a program for Jung people.
@coram nobis C. G. Jung was a huge fan of mandalas. I can´t see any self-made mandalas in the rating system.
They don’t WANT psychologists in the loop. In fact the ultimate goal is to give anyone who works for “The State” or “Government” supreme authority and power of guardianship over you, regardless of the constitution, despite the lack of any criminal wrong doing, without charge or trial.
Simply put, the idea it to turn “the people” into nothing but a commodity. A taxible resource. Essentially cattle.
The entire “war on terror”, increasing security over the past decade+, changes in laws which restrict rights and freedoms, even changes to the health care system which not only make health care manditory, but force health care providers to digitize all of their records…
It’s all aimed at making YOU easily accessable to the state and federal government executive branches (ie: law enforcement) for the purpose of knowing you, determining who you are, what threat you pose, and more easily controlling you.
In Maryland (where I live), a police officer, doctor, or other other “qualified person” can essentially have you forcibly kidnapped against your will and taken to a hospital for an emergency psychiatric evaluation based on nothing more than their say so.
No crime needs to have been committed. No charges need be filed. The individual submitting you for evaluation simply needs to say you demonstrated odd behavior. They could lie and get away with it.
As a result of this you could be handcuffed, forced into a police car, taken to an ER, made to wait for hours while handcuffed to a chair and guarded by a police officer, forced to take a drug test against your will, forced to change while being watched, then depending on how the actual evaluation goes you may or may not be held their against your will for up to 72 hours.
Again, all of this can be done to you without you having broken ANY law, or committed ANY wrong doing in any way/shape/form.
In fact, this can happen to you due to someone calling the police and falsely telling them that you are suicidal, or for a number of other reasons. Due to this it can be (and is) abused by upset individuals wishing to cause trouble for someone else.
Mutual empathy and connection is also on the list indicating a lower risk.
If they dream about drones …
… “In their eyes, we don’t deserve to live like people in the rest of the world and we don’t have feelings or emotions or cry or feel pain like all the other humans around the world.”
“He wasn’t a member of al-Qaida. He was a kid.”
Speaking from al-Zur the day after his brother’s death, Meqdad said: “After our father died, al-Qaida came to us to offer support. But we are not with them. Al-Qaida may have claimed Mohammed now but we will do anything – go to court, whatever – in order to prove that he was not with al-Qaida.”
“We live in injustice and we want the United States to recognise these crimes against my father and my brothers. They were innocent people, we are weak, poor people, and we don’t have anything to do with this.”
However, he added: “Don’t blame us because we sympathise with al-Qaida, because they were the only people who showed their faces to us, the government ignored us, the US ignored us and didn’t compensate us. And we will go to court to prove this is wrong.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/10/drones-dream-yemeni-teenager-mohammed-tuaiman-death-cia-strike
Having a strong connection to an identity group (religious, racial or ethnic) also indicates a lower risk of terrorism. So this would eliminate people with close ties to Izz ad-Din al Qassam Brigrades (a Palestinian group), ETA (a Basque group), the IRA (an Irish group). or the KKK (a racial group).
LBJ took the IRA down to 4th street USA and found the youth of America on LSD (*BHO was only in a POT club.).
*you’re lucky I have a strong connection to your niece (?) Sophia Loren.
I just watched that, the Yemeni boy and his family — it should be shown *everywhere*.
Thank you, Duce, for returning a smile to my face and laughter to my heart many mornings! It is greatly appreciated.
Why not stop killing their parents/wives/children/other loved ones and stop terrorizing their lives before they become “terrorists?”
Even better than apprehending them before they act, let’s prevent the little devils from becoming terrorists in the first place.
No, I don’t mean by droning them to dust while they’re still children. I mean by not invading the countries they inhabit, not exploiting their land and people, and not supporting corrupt dictators who oppress and torture their people.
Bulk profiling.
TI has a savvy readership, but NCTC’s role within Homeland Security deserves a bit of background, no?
https://privacysos.org/node/863
Yahoo Answers:
“Does my terror score affect my credit score?”
Thats seems like a reasonable way of grading for disenfranchisement, which would also seem to be the largest reason for youth to join any violent tribal group, be it a gang, or a violently fundamentalist religious group.
My concerns revolve around potentisl misuse and misgradings, and of course the failure to correct the disenfranchisement in the first place.
“It encourages users of the guide to plot the scores on a graph to determine what “interventions” could halt the process of radicalization before it happens.”
Put enormous pressure on the US and other Western governments to stop killing Muslims?
Wouldn’t most kids wanting to be a marine or a ranger score high on the list?
They forgot to ask them if they read The Intercept — which is known and loved by terrorists the world over.
WOW! Can you believe somebody thought this up and was proud it? The article even mentions Saudi re-education camps. Only intellectuals could think up this kind of BS, and find some self-deceiving justification for it. Again, WOW!
Sounds like a Cass Sunstein project…..
My first reaction to your observation was,
Why not include his wife, (the “humanitarian”)Samantha Power?
I then realized that if Samantha Power had a role in this scheme there would be some mention of using bombs
to help save the possible terrorists from themselves.
Community health issues aren’t really the issues for the federal security police state. They are issues for doctors, families, and community organizations to deal with. These aren’t issues that are best solved by surveillance, violation of civil rights, entrapment and imprisonment. Public figures who overtly endorse these medieval authoritarian practices are on the wrong side of history and those who offer it tacit approval by indifference do the same.
The federal government clearly collects too much money and doesn’t know how to spend it all–if it is wasting funds on these kinds of violations of civil liberties. A person cannot be unlawfully singled out and deprived of life, liberty, or other rights simply for their lawful religious, political, or community affiliations simply because those ideas are unpopular or abhorrent to others.
Here in Los Angeles I suggest someone go to the next Board of Supervisors meeting and put this on the agenda then ask for one minute to make a remark/pose a question.
Right now in L.A. County the Department of Social Services is in such disarray and is so seriously over-worked and under-staffed that many truly abused children are falling the cracks and are dying from neglect and are even being outright murdered by their parents/guardians are mom’s “boyfriend”.
The idea of professional social workers now being asked to take on the role of out and out SPYS looking for signs of future violent extremism is a JOKE.
So now entire families are being judged to determine if the kid will become a terrorist. I think There are a bunch of kooks in charge. Every family with kids knows that sometimes kids and teens display this kind of behavior. Anyone ever deal with a teen girl with PMS or a teen boy who has been dumped by a girl? Almost everyone I know could be considered potential terrorists using that criteria. Instead of trying to label all Americans as potential terrorists we should start identifying all nutcases in the government and they should be fired or voted out of office.
When the “psychiatrists” to which the government outsourced this anti-terror child assessment scheme are named, do let us know. More disturbingly, they are probably on staff these days…
“Suddenly they were both leaping around him, shouting ‘Traitor!’ and ‘Thought-criminal!’, the little girl imitating her brother in every movement. It was somehow slightly frightening, like the gamboling of tiger cubs which will soon grow up into man-eaters.” – George Orwell, 1984
If you didn’t click the authors’ link to the “widely mocked” French version of the quiz, do: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/01/29/chart-are-you-a-jihadist-the-french-government-made-this-checklist/ Highschool French is pretty much all you need to read it, or look for cognates. Or you can just behold the helpful universal pictures!
Hahahahahahahahahahaha! I’ve seen it all now. The insane have taken over the Cuckoo’s nest. Lord help the planet.
An article well worth reading, question is how to connect left wing communism with traditional islam in immigrant communities.
http://fpif.org/left-failed-frances-muslims/
And which first signs of “behavioral changes” supposedly ought to lead to concern in Saudi-financed schools and centers in the west.
They really do not leave any table unturned or small corner of human activity unnoticed. Everything is a potential building block to terrorist activity, which in turn means that there is money to be spent on “patrolling public transit for fare evaders, according to the department’s former top transit officer.”
Former Muni top cop says fare-evasion enforcement is in line with anti-terrorism efforts
Fare-evasion enforcement is a way to catching more serious criminals, Ali said, “who in some cases possess firearms while on Muni coaches.”
Increased police presence is a deterrent to acts of terrorism, he said. “That’s a good thing.”
In essence, terrorists could be more likely to be fare cheats.
“In a nutshell, the priority is safety on Muni, safety on our coaches, safety in our stations,” Ali said. “How do we accomplish that? We are proactive.”
The link to the “Fair Evasion” article from my comment above.
“Big Brother is Watching You” used to be ridiculous, apparently. But look at us now, using it to speak of irony instead of screeching this BS to a sudden halt and seriously saying WTF.
Don’t Let Them Mold Your Mind, They Want To Control Mankind
Seems Like Their Only Intention Is To Exploit The Earth,
And You Trust In Their Deceit, Your Mind Causes Your Defeat,
And So You Become An Invention To Distort This Earth
Propaganda And Lies, Is A Plague In Our Lives
How Much More Victimized, Before We Realize (Hey)
Its Mind Control, Mind Control
Corruption Of Your Thoughts (Yeah), Destruction Of Your Soul
Mind Control, Its Mind Control, Corruption Of Your Thoughts
Destruction Of Your Soul
*Stephen Marley – from his fine song “Mind Control”
“Fare-evasion enforcement is a way to catching more serious criminals… – Kitt
Thus making “fare-evasion” and any other minor incident the “gateway drug”inevitably leading to terrorism. Those at the helm have learned absolutely nothing about human behaviour since “Just Say No.” That, and since they’re losing that “war” they’ve decided to make up real ones to fill the void.
And we continue to let them.
“Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration…” – The Bene Gesserit, Dune
Has your teenager ever said the following:
“Fuck the police. No really, Mom, fuck them.”
“But I LIKE hummus. Oh, and not hurting animals for food.”
“Why does all authority seem so corrupted?”
“How come we can bomb them but they can’t bomb us?”
“How come we say it’s a war, a ‘battle,’ but the enemy can’t actually shoot back? Not only are our airstrikes and drone strikes are impervious to their weapons, we just blow them away from the sky while just walking around, having weddings or sitting at a café or something.”
“How come we, America, get away with torturing people? Why is Barack ‘Dandy Gandhi’ Obama protecting torturers, war criminals, Wall Street criminals, murdering policemen, polluting corporations and other complete reprobates?”
“American movies about the military unrealistically show the poor, deluded soul-destroyed grunts who serve as ideal figures.”
“Why does that ‘General” have so many merit badges on his smart little uniform when he’s only sent other people to kill and die from the safety of his office?”
“But I LIKE Noam Chomsky. And John Lennon. And Ron Paul.”
“How come we’re allowed to just drone strike people? And how come we can just keep on a-warring without specific congressional approval?”
“Most TV is shit.”
“I can’t identify with either Democrats or Republicans, but I feel strongly that political activism is significant.”
“How come people talk about MLK Jr. but always conveniently forget he was a vibrant antiwar activist who condemned America’s militarism?”
* * *
If you’ve answered ‘yes, my teen talks like this’ to most of these questions, congratulations, you’re being a good parent. The establishment is possibly watching you and your kids, however, or at least storing what you and they do to review later (but hey, they’re trying to do that with everyone), so kudos on being brave, too.
If you’ve answered ‘no,’ you and your progeny are probably conformists, or ‘good Germans.’
Speaking of ‘terrorist’ children…
“Although family members of Mohammed Saleh Qayed Taeiman call him a normal sixth grader who was eager to have fun, the US military in January unleashed a deadly drone strike that killed the ‘al-Qaeda militant’ along with two others. Taeiman’s father and brother were in 2012 similarly killed by US strikes, and another brother was wounded in a different attack, dealing multiple blows to the family even before the death of the young boy. With this in mind, RT’s Ben Swann and Reema Abu Hamdieh speak in an exclusive interview with Mohammed’s cousin, Hussein Taeiman.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_1vNNN7E-M
If you use Lebanese bread with Hummos you are giving material support to terrorists.
Before most everyone moves on to the next danged reminder of the state of things, brought to our attention by the next post, I want to say that your “Has your teenager ever said the following” post hits on a whole lot of points in a succinct and also entertaining way. It’s just a really all around fine piece of thoughtful, inspirational writing.
I can’t really agree with EVERYTHING you said… a lot of it is a bit too left leaning for me (or just too huggy feely)… But I think you pretty much nailed it on the head!
BTW, I’m literally a card carrying libertarian. I’ve also had a detective show up at my door worried I was might be a threat to them because of comments I made of facebook about police brutality, so I KNOW I’m being watched by someone. LOL
“…this would be a significant step forward in the United States’ global war on itself.” – Benito
Physician, heal thyself.
“The idea that the federal government would encourage local police, teachers, medical and social service employees to rate the communities, individuals and families they serve for their potential to become terrorists is abhorrent on its face,” said Mike German, a former FBI agent who is now with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. German called the criteria used for the ratings “subjective and specious.”
The Brennan Center for Justice should rank governments in much the same way, but based on quantifiable data, such as defense spending, wars, conflicts and interventions over the last 50 years, the number of military and civilian casualties from those conflicts and interventions, the value of property destroyed. Rank the categories from 1 to 5 and let’s see how the US stacks up.
The evidence to date shows that the FBI targeted bipolar and indigent individuals for terrorist activities. Note well, that these are casualty of the disappearing social net. Thus, the government can eliminate the need for anyone turning to terrorism by addressing the issues of poverty and the resultant effects brain development due to prolonged poverty. It’s the same methodology in solving drug addiction. Remove the need for people to have a desire to use drugs.
France supported the Palestinians in their ICC bid. Then they had their charlie hebdo. France attempted to keep Netanyahu away from the funeral march. As they didn’t succeed, they invited Abbas.
So don’t let’s be bothered by fearmongerers, it’s simply a distraction from the truth. Enjoy when your pre-teen finds his/her own style, changes the eating habits for the better, starts fitness training … :)
I have changed my hairstyle & am crazy about couscous. :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adavMcwoc68
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF_68DvAKko
How exactly do young innocent Americans become radicalized into becoming drone murderers and torturers?
What turns people from a decent life of honest hard work into spying on Americans and fraudulently evicting them from their homes?
How did the three branches of government created by the Founding Fathers morph into today’s cesspits of corruption?
Public school… that’s one cause. Those places are indoctrination centers.
When I was in school I was labeled a “trouble maker” and “problem child” by the school system because I stood up for myself, defended myself, and didn’t simply accept things “as is”.
When I was told things that made no logical sense, I questioned it. I questioned the intelligence and authority of those in charge, and for good reason.
Teachers would use tactics like trying to get the entire class to gang up on one student due to their failure (this was in 2nd grade). That is something used in marine boot camp! They would shame students in front of others. You would be taught to be helpless, to never defend yourself, to not stand up for yourself, to always get help. Any time to questioned anything, or tried to be self sufficient, you would get in trouble, and regardless of what happened they would add on “insubordination”.
If there was a conflict between 2 or more students, those 2 or more were at fault usually only one was singled out and punished.
At the same time you were supposed to get along with everyone else, you were also supposed to compete with everyone else… Mentally, physically.
I hated school.
It’s funny how it subconsciously implies everyone is a terrorist until proven otherwise!
See how there’s an inverted relation between the score and the likelihood of being a terrorist! You essentially start of with 0 points (a terrorist) and you start to defend yourself/your family against being terrorists. All without even having a defined meaning for what “terrorist” means!
Fun things are happening in the democratic US.
It kind of reminds me of a movie called “The Parallax View” I saw it again recently on Netflix. A privatized spy agency was using similar tests to find potential …um I guess you’d call them terrorists these days. Once they identified someone, they would bring them in for a weird psychological probing program where you sit in a chair and watch images while they test for arousal, heart rate, skin conductivity, brain wave etc. If you were psycho enough, they would make them you a job offer.
I hear they do this at Google now. Probably the same test.
I would have to consider what our government has been doing, in secret, to be a form of violent extremism itself. They have rewritten the law, and reinterpreted it in fascist grammar and meaning, to mean the very opposite of what it was intended to say, and they have done this behind closed doors in concert with the enemies of democracy…the fascists!. It cannot be argued anymore that America was ever a real constitutional democracy. It has its defenders of this thought, but they are just those who believe what authority tells them, or are paid lackeys of the same.. You will find very few investigative journalists, if any, who would argue that this is, or ever was, a democracy. What investigative journalism has been telling me for quite some time, long before the Snowden revelations, is that this country is under terrorist attack by the same aforementioned fascists who have used their wealth as a weapon against the citizens of this country. Money is being used as a bomb, or a cannon, or a Drone missile strike, to destroy the very infrastructure that we need to even feed and clothe ourselves…..It must stop and we must stop our so called government from giving away the house to these fascists for a few bucks and their perceived security (false) after the deed has been done.
First question: does subject read The Intercept?
a samson-like rage is the only proper reaction to the oil and blood thirsty pax americana…apathy, willfull ignorance, “well-adjustedness”, or surrender is for monsters and “good germans”…was it herbert marcuse or erich fromm who said “in an insane society, the sane person appears insane”…
on a scale of one to five i’m a ten…capitalism is the biggest fucking disease on the planet…i’d rather be dead…and if i ever run into obama, bush, cheney, rumsfeld, etc. i’m gonna fucking kill them…
I know its infowars but still,
they are not only coming for the children, they are coming for the adults as well.
http://www.infowars.com/church-asks-followers-to-submit-to-government-call-911-on-suspicious-neighbors/
Church Asks Followers to Submit to Government, Call 911 on Suspicious Neighbors
“I pledge to call 911 if I see someone suspicious in my neighborhood”
by Mikael Thalen | Infowars.com | February 9, 2015
A church hosting a law enforcement appreciation sermon asked its followers to pledge their allegiance to government this weekend, arguing that all state authorities throughout history have been ordained by God.
According to an anonymous visitor of the Gold Creek Community Church in Mill Creek, Washington, who provided exclusive photos to Infowars, attendees were ordered to submit to the state without question.
snip
“Dearly beloved, what would Judas do?”
Take his thirty pieces of silver and serve the sanhedrin and the Romans.
Not much has changed.
It’s no longer called the Department of Romeland Security.
The DRS had many good ideas that are worth exploring – paying people for turning in terrorists being one. I can’t imagine teachers being too enthusiastic about filling in a 36 page form for each student, in addition to their current workload. But paying them a bounty for each terrorist they turn in might unlock their inner entrepreneur. Why shouldn’t teachers cash in on the Homeland Security bonanza? Academi (formerly known as Blackwater) may already have anticipated this, as their name change suggests.
The government could set up preteen and teen Gitmos for the furure terrorists. The CIA could be let loose with their Mind Kontroole Ultra programs and produce obedient slaves as future assets. These would be more suitable than the failed real Gitmo trauma based (tortured) subjects
A clockwork orange jumpsuit for every child and no child left behind.
“Is it better for a man to have chosen evil than to have good imposed upon him?”
“Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses to be bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?”
When a man cannot chose, he ceases to be a man.”
? Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange
A guide to criminalization of civil rights.
“………police, social workers and educators rate individuals on a scale of one to five in categories such as:
“Expressions of Hopelessness, Futility”—- As a result of Martin Seligman’s learned helplessness manuals , Two-Tiered Justice System, poverty, ethnical discrimination, failure of national political achievement, in combination with the governmental monitoring, secrecy and oppression?
“Connection to Group Identity (Race, Nationality, Religion, Ethnicity).” —- In other words, everyone who says, je sui Eric Gardner ,is non obedient and deserves to be suffocated.
I wonder what score Barack Obama would get on the Terror Scale?
Any party member of the Democratic-Republican Corporate DUHopoly Party, Inc. would score high as a terrorist… against the people, but not against the government, or its owner, the global corporate elite oligarchy.
Imaginative word creation there Kevin(DUHopoly), and spot on. It’s truly amazing how clueless these people are. Instead of dealing with their assumptive causes of violent radicalization, they would rather deal with the individuals, trying to show them the wisdom of accepting the police state surveillance apparatus war mongers. The government just doesn’t get it. DUH.
Obama is a muslim loving American hating socialist and the only terror he wreaks is on the people of this great country. He’d be a 10 on my terror scale
Young Barry would have been off-scale and suspect. An early childhood spent in Indonesia, a Muslim country, and then of course there’s his high-school “Choom Gang” (you can google it, esp. the picture of them posing with the cake). Funny how these things work out.
The best way to Counter Violent Extremism? SHARE THE WEALTH.
SHARE the wealth? What kind of socialist crap is that? That’s a quick way to the end of time for the great USA…didn’t you morons see what share the wealth did to russia?
Huh. Perhaps they should consider fetal DNA testing. Surely they can find some correlation between certain genetic markers and future terrorist adventurism. Of course then, they would have to address the thorny question of intervention pre- or post- natal. This sorta reminds me of troubled individuals who have been falsely convinced by their therapists that they were abused as children but in the opposite direction.
When it comes to the DNA testing and Brain scans,I would like to suggest that we start with our politicians and choose them wisely through selection and not election in the future. It makes the world a better place for all of us. I am sure, many of them won’t pass the test.
But of course there is always a risk that APA changes the content of it’s terminology for what is regarded as normal healthy or abusive sick.
So its a future “naughty and nice” list for satan (not a typo).
If they were really interested in getting to know what brews terrorism, they wouldn’t have to look any further than the U.S. war machine and the destruction it’s wreaked in the Middle East and around the world through the decades. But, they already know that. Who they are really after is anyone who opposes or interferes with in virtually any degree, anything that the U.S. does. The U.S. is just looking for a way to eliminate the possibility of suffering any consequences for its imperialist exploits, and I can’t think of any other way to put it.
Agree. What to do about it?
My thought is that whatever solution there may be won’t happen without the American people starting to care about what their government is doing in their name behind their backs. This will be a major stumbling block as millions of people don’t care about and don’t want to know what their government is doing in their name behind their backs. This kills me as many of these people are conservatives who otherwise don’t trust that the government can even tax and spend fairly or run a school. But when it comes to, ostensibly, homeland security or terrorism, they put on the blinders and give enormous, secret and unaccountable government entities and individuals carte blanche to do, literally, whatever they wish in the name of defending America from terrorism.
I’m not optimistic. Millions of Americans are much more interested in the exploits of the latest Disney girl gone bad, or the latest fashions worn by the Kardashians, whoever they are, than they are in knowing that their government has a secret assassination program, or is destabilizing a democratic nation to benefit an American corporation at the expense of the local population. People have to care enough to want to know. Even if they did know, well, you can lead a horse to water…
This is an ironic development, since there is only one whole-hearted, dedicated, wholesale terrorist organization in the USA: the federal government. It is responsible for millions of deaths, a similar number of maimings and bereavements, the frequent obliteration of weddings, funerals and other harmless social gatherings, and the destruction of several whole nation states. It is doubtful whether any other criminal organization has done so much harm in the whole of history – even Timur Lenk and his pyramids of skulls pale into insignificance in comparison. Only such enthusiasts as Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot are in the same league.
Thanks for the article. I dont have much to add other then we need to stand together against this bald-faced racial profiling against muslim brothers. The american government is truly rotten.
Looks like a pile of crap to me.
Even if not that, it is the work of agency that has too much money and not enough to do. Since this is such a crass enterprise, let’s also be crass also an make some comparisons of dollars spent per lives saved. Spend billions on this, and you might save a handful of lives by catching a few pre-terrorists. Maybe, but I have my doubts. Try spending the same billions on food for the poor, education for those who cannot afford to stay in school, and medical care for children who do not get enough, and you will save lives and save money in the long run, affecting thousands of lives.
1) One of the most violent, repressive regimes on the planet, The Saudi government, has a “Violent Extremist Rehabilitation Program”. The program apparently uses “rehabilitation”, “aftercare”, “monitoring”, et cetera. In the words of Inigo Montoya, I do not think that word means what you think it means.
2) The aggregate scores for the survey place subjects into high, medium, and low risk. Implicit: Every single person constitutes a risk. I’m not sure that core belief is compatible with any notion of a society at peace.
Contrary to popular believe, Saudi Arabia is NOT, I repeat, is NOT a supporter of extremism!
It’s actually one of the most fierce enemies of Mujahideen (aka extremists) and Islam as a whole. Yet one of the strongest allies to the US (more like a puppet of the US).
Thus, Saudi Arabia’s government is, to what you call extremists, an Apostate government that will be wiped out of the face of the Earth soon! Unfortunately, their media is Godamn strong and have “brainwashed” the public Muslims of the country into being secular ignorants.
“Implicit: Every single person constitutes a risk. I’m not sure that core belief is compatible with any notion of a society at peace.” – mcmikey
Very good point. It’s not. It’s indicative of a jingoistic, greedy, sick, and uninformed culture that is more afraid of the “unknown unknowns” than it is in gaining any kind of civil and collaborative discourse with the rest of the members of the human race.
“But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.” – Former US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld
Darned glad this questionnaire wasn’t around 50+ years ago. Probably a better than even chance that every one of my five sibs and myself would have been flagged by it. And, for pity’s sake, we’re all just old and creaky now. “Double Face Palm” doesn’t even begin to address this one.
Considering that “violent extremism” is the least of our problems, the resources put into these programs are wasted if the purported goals of such programs are for a more stable and just society.
We all know that the actual goal of these programs is to make it easier for the oligarchs to control us. not only do the police have more powers to invade our lives and crack down on us for no good reason (the FBI create their own terrorist plots all the time in order to appear to be doing their job), but these programs also help to spread fear and distrust amongst the population so that we are more divided against each other rather than arrayed against the wealthy and set on taking back our government from them.
Nothing is better for pre-crime tracking, Duce, than finding out if an eight-year-old has a propensity for future anti-state activity, especially once they “report for testing and observation,” every facial tic, whiny complaint and dirty fingernail could, in the hands of the right child spychologist, confirm the diagnosis and mark him as a suspect for the rest of his/her natural life. And as for this —
— that pretty much covers most teenagers. Can’t miss.
It starts younger than 8 – studies have shown that a child’s personality is almost fully formed at that age; successful intervention must begin much sooner. From a recent day care job posting (bolded part is my own addition to demonstrate how easy it is to incorporate the new requirements):
Indeed, Duce, and there’s this —
— because nothing says “totalitarian” better than having parents inform on children and vice-versa. “Eat your broccoli or I’ll report you to Homeland Security.”
Ah, Duce, I think you’re onto something here. Such programming could also be easily incorporated into another existing ritual of earliest education by just adding 3 little words, “…except possible terrorists,” to the end of the Pledge of Allegiance. That way even the very young might become convinced the enemy is everywhere, to always be looking over their shoulder and stay afraid of their shadow because it just might be one of those – terra-ists. Brilliant!
It seems that with each passing year, each passing election, we slip further and further towards totalitarianism. It’s not just Muslims that have to worry; what’s also worrisome is how this could be applied as a form of political persecution against investigative journalists and political groups/parties that the Establishment Democrats and Republicans view as a threat to their continued hold on power. Personally, as a Green I find this program rather alarming. Will I be subjected to something like this in 2016 because some McCarthyist Republican or “spoiler theorist” Democrat notices the political signs in my front yard and decides to take advantage of these purportedly “anti-terrorist” programs? I’m not about to change my views because of this; if anything, it makes me even more determined to participate in the electoral process as part of the true opposition because giving up and going along with the corrupt Establishment is becoming ever more costly to one’s morality.
Participating in the process, as a Green, might get you marked as a pre-crime suspect as well. It’s already under way. This story isn’t exactly on point to the pre-school pre-crime screening above but it makes a very good sidebar.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/02/09/3620703/tar-sands-fbi-visits/
Very thoughtful comment. My first reaction–much as yours must have been–was, “It’s really here.” That thought was followed quickly with the knowledge that the system has been inching in this direction for years and I’m not so sure it can be stopped. It can and may get much, much worse. People have to counter these measures for us to have any chance. I’m not optimistic.
Terrorist or Patriot?? WAR MONGER or TRAITOR…. Our WAR – is on terror?? or a WAR OF TERROR drones killing civilians
Troops in over 100 countries ?? Without declared hostilities……LIES….We don’t TORTURE??
Terrorist or PATRIOT ?.? WAR MONGER or TRAITOR?? Our WAR – is it of TERROR – or a war on terror? Drones killing civilians – citizens -WITHOUT ANY JUDICIAL REVIEW…..LIES….. We don’t TORTURE?? troops in over 100 countries….no declared hostilities…..
Nation of Change has an article that states $.67 ( 67 cents) of every tax dollar is spent on the Military BUT WE AREN’T AT WAR??????
Unfortunately, police, social workers and educators often only have a limited knowledge of the individuals in their communities. So it would be much better to subcontract this work to one of the Big Data companies, since they already have software which maps each person’s phone contacts, social network, main interests and probably even mood and personality.
Each week, everyone would receive a message with a color coded TI (Terrorist Index). On weeks when it increased, the message could provide a list of ‘recommended’ activities to help lower it again. If it increased for three weeks in a row, the recipient would be asked to report for testing and observation.
This seems like only a small imposition, would not be targeted towards any particular community, and would enhance security. It is widely recognized that for most Americans, the highest risk is posed by other Americans. I think this would be a significant step forward in the United States’ global war on itself.
Pogo approves this message.
It’s an excellent way to raise the overall fear level.
East Germany achieved the feat of having children inform against their own parents. The US is trying to outdo them, by having parents and teachers inform against their own children. I believe this is a sound approach, as a three year old can only bottle up their terrorist tendencies for so long – then you’ve got them.
The Communists mastered that technique. However, there are many (not sure if here) who wouldn’t hear of their beloved “red ones” being exactly the same as the Nazis and every other repressive regime known to man.
Re: Benito Mussolini – 09 Feb 2015 at 1:11 pm
BM (Benito Mussolini), some time ago, while contemplating what might be done to redirect the inclination of those who seek violent means to impose their belief systems on others, I considered a plan similar to your “TI” proposal. It also co-opted a popular and respected acronym, the “AAA”.
This new incarnation of AAA would be Atheists & Agnostics Anonymous, and its efforts would also be out-sourced to a consortium of already existing private and government data-mining entities, publicly administered by a decommissioned, reorganized, and privatized NSA under the co-leadership of Ralph Nader and Human Rights Watch; and monitored by the ACLU in concert with the EFF.
Your idea of adopting the color coding of extremist behavior, ostensibly due to its success in enhancing security at transportation hubs, is worthy of consideration; likewise the congenial and empathetic approach of allowing suspected miscreants up to three weeks to begin showing signs of rehabilitation.
Phase two, the redirecting of 80% of DOD funding into The Peace Corps, and the elimination of all military outsourcing, is still in the planning stages.
Thank you, once again, for your erudite and insightful satire.
As Usual,
EA
This comment is so great I can’t stop laughing!
As a retired white educator, the above questionnaire applies to the white population very nicely as well. The number of emotionally bankrupt, uninvolved white parents with their child’s life’s is enormous. Perhaps instead of spending trillions are war machines one might look at how better they might be able to glue the family unit back together. Neglect of any kind creates increased tendencies for youth, and even adults to find some place to belong.