DHS Tells Firefighters to Spy on Americans

[Nullifidian]

[YOUTUBE=8E31_TQHpus]DHS Asks Firefighters to Spy on Fire Victims[/YOUTUBE]

The Department of Homeland Security tells Fox DHS is training firefighters that when they're working in private homes and businesses, they should look out for things like bomb manuals, blueprints, strange chemicals, night-vision goggles, or flight manuals. Then there are the behaviours, like someone who is hostile to Americans or spouting hate speech.

Now how long is it going to take them to come to the conclusion that if "hostility to Americans" is a suspicious behavior, then reading materials or documentaries that indicate a "hostility to Americans" (say Noam Chomsky, John Pilger, Chalmers Johnson, Emma Goldman, Assata Shakur, etc.) should also be deemed suspicious?

And what, precisely, are they planning to do with the information that a fire victim has been seen being publicly "hostile to Americans" anyway?

[Ari]

"hostility to Americans"
So does that mean DHS is watching most NYC residents as possible terrorist threats?

I wonder how many airline pilots are going to get investigated for having flight manuals.

[Clutch Munny]

"...firefighters don't need a warrant to go into private houses, and critics say that's where things get sticky."

Good grief. "Get sticky!"

How about, "...that's where this proposal is a horrifying new attempt by an authoritarian federal regime to set aside the Constitution"?

[Naru]

And how many architects are going to get investigated for having blueprints...

[Caligulette]

This is reminiscent of the idea that postal workers "keep an eye" on the people to whom they deliver mail.

[Artemis Entreri]

Oh come on now. If you've done nothing wrong then you have nothing to worry about. Oh and while we are tearing through your home with axes and flood waters would you mind peeing in this cup?

[ZEZOZE]

Originally Posted by Nullifidian

(say Noam Chomsky, John Pilger, Chalmers Johnson, Emma Goldman, Assata Shakur, etc.)

is this who you consider a threat? ha.

[Nullifidian]

Originally Posted by InTheServiceOfZeke

is this who you consider a threat? ha.

Well, I would have added Carlos Marighella and Luigi Galleani to the list, but I don't think the firefighters would be trained to recognize them. That's the nature of thought police. They care about the intellectual framework for a revolutionary program far more than they care about the manuals for carrying out that revolutionary program.

Or are you just bothered that you didn't make the cut?

In all frankness, I don't regard offering up your own house to be picketed as likely to be the thing that ignites the revolution.

[Javaman]

BTW, many folks are making the link between this and Fahrenheit 451 what with Montag's profession and all.

[Nullifidian]

Originally Posted by Javaman

BTW, many folks are making the link between this and Fahrenheit 451 what with Montag's profession and all.

I've been thinking the same thing for a while. Finding good hiding places for some of my books might not be a bad thing in the short term, since the thought police are already accustomed to seizing books and pamphlets as part of their investigation.

I wrote about the Sherman Austin case on my blog, which is on point here:

The government's 29-page search warrant, containing the so-called 'evidence' that formed the basis of this search, called for seizing "documents" and other things related to "...NEW WORLD ORDER, NWO, INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND, IMF, WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM, WEF..." (caps in original). One might well suspect that they were on a fishing expedition for any anarchist and radical materials, and that is exactly what they took away. Boxes and boxes of radically-oriented books and pamphlets, down to even the flyers for upcoming protests, were confiscated, in an act reminiscent of Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, all of which should have been far outside the scope of a warrant that should have never been issued.

[ZEZOZE]

Originally Posted by Nullifidian

Or are you just bothered that you didn't make the cut?

In all frankness, I don't regard offering up your own house to be picketed as likely to be the thing that ignites the revolution.

thanks for remembering. guess i made the cut

[Caligulette]

Half my library would have to be hidden. Absurd.

[Corona688]

1 2

Originally Posted by Bertolt Brecht, Die Bücherverbrennung

"When the regime ordered
Books with dangerous knowledge
To be burned in public and everywhere
Oxen were forced to pull, carts with books
to the bonfires, one of the persecuted poets
discovered one of the best
studying the list of the burned
disconcerted, that his books were forgotten.
He rushed to his desk, flying on wings of rage
and wrote a letter to the the authorities.
Burn me! he wrote with a quick stroke
Burn me! don't do this to me! Do not spare me!
Have I not always reported the truth in my books?
Yet now you treat me as were I a liar!
I command you: Burn me! "

[ZEZOZE]

Originally Posted by Corona688

1 2

well i wouldn't worry...these are firefighters- i'm sure they won't burn the books...it could spread!

I don't have tons of those types of works. However, I have a fairly decent Occult library, which would be trouble if a fundy firefighter came to the rescue.

The Guy Fawkes mask probably would not help me, either.

[California Tanker]

Getting information by proxy is hardly new. AMA is requests doctors to inquire of patients (Preferably kids, as they're more likely to be honest) if anyone else in the household has firearms, for example. How this affects any ailments or diseases are beyond me. Similarly, teachers' groups have been known to encourage kids to report firearm ownership.

NTM

[Nullifidian]

Originally Posted by InTheServiceOfZeke

thanks for remembering. guess i made the cut

Well, I'm not likely to forget reading something that silly and self-absorbed, nor would I take any pride in having it remembered.

But I suppose you take what you can get.

[ZEZOZE]

Originally Posted by Nullifidian

nor would I take any pride in having it remembered.

don't be too hard on yourself

Originally Posted by Nullifidian

But I suppose you take what you can get.

indeed.

[Nullifidian]

Originally Posted by Caligulette

Half my library would have to be hidden. Absurd.

Yeah, mine too, but if I had to I think I could manage it. I'm not sure I need to yet, but still if Sherman Austin can have charges trumped up against him and have all his lit taken away on the flimsiest of pretexts, I really don't see anything that protects me from being next. Cases like that form a new baseline for what's considered an acceptable use of 'law enforcement', and every time it goes unremarked or even applauded the political atmosphere shifts ever so slightly. I'm not even sure if these people have an end goal in view beyond seeing how far they can push it, but that's a view that's caused quite enough damage already.

[Nullifidian]

Michael, I have a serious question: do have anything to say that will ever be worth the time taken to read it?

If you don't, can't you go create your own thread to play around in, rather than hijacking everybody else's?

If you do, can you say it and have done?

[ZEZOZE]

how the hell did i hijack this thread? because i poked fun at your choices (on topic)? because i made a light joke about firefighters burning books (on topic)? or is it just because i didn't take this seriously?

sheesh again. somebody giving out grumpy pills around here today?

[Nullifidian]

It wasn't on topic. The topic was the DHS asking firefighters to spy on Americans (which, not coincidentally, happens to be the thread title, so I made it doubly easy for you) and not your subjective and self-serving notions of what constitutes a threat to the social order.

And I'm not just asking for myself. I ask because you hijack threads every fucking day. If there's a point to be made despite this tedious behaviour, I don't think I'm the only one who would love to have the point plainly stated without the rigamarole.

[ZEZOZE]

Originally Posted by Nullifidian

and not your subjective and self-serving notions of what constitutes a threat to the social order.

just yours.

sorry you don't like my style. your list of rebels was subjective...i played off that.

enjoy your threat...i mean thread....

[Nullifidian]

Originally Posted by InTheServiceOfZeke

just yours.

No, not mine. I wasn't attempting to list people I saw as rebels—seriously, would Chomsky be on anyone's list of rebels?—but instead just posting some of the most recognizable names among current and historical left-wing authors, without going overboard with names like Marx. Everybody reads Marx, and it doesn't mean a thing.

sorry you don't like my style. your list of rebels was subjective...i played off that.

Again I didn't list them because I consider them rebels. And what you were doing was attempting to establish your "I'm a bigger contrarian" dickwaving cred. But, fundamentally, you're a reactionary because you're a contrarian for contrarianism's sake. If the social order were ever to teeter on the verge of collapse, you'd be howling for its reinstatement just so that you could have something to rail against.

Being the Alexander Cockburn of FF is too easy and doesn't give anyone else a reason to care about anything you say.

[ZEZOZE]

Originally Posted by Nullifidian

Again I didn't list them because I consider them rebels. And what you were doing was attempting to establish your "I'm a bigger contrarian" dickwaving cred. But, fundamentally, you're a reactionary because you're a contrarian for contrarianism's sake. If the social order were ever to teeter on the verge of collapse, you'd be howling for its reinstatement just so that you could have something to rail against.

that's simply not true. i wasn't comparing myself to those people. i happen to like reading noam chomsky...i just don't think they would be on any list of books to be burned.

i actually agree with people here...it just doesn't get noticed as much.