U.S. Gov't. says bumper stickers & possession of maps means you're a terrorist.
A leaked training manual used in the State and Local Anti-Terrorism Training (SLATT) program for law enforcement and funded by the Department of Justice lists political bumper stickers expressing opposition to the United Nations and support for the bill of rights as indications of terrorist activity.
The SLATT program is very similar to the aggressive fear mongering operations of other government-affiliated entities like the Counterterrorism Education Learning Lab (CELL) in that it is designed to create an absurd fear and hyper-vigilance in police.
The presentation documents, leaked to the Public Intelligence website, are entitled Terrorism Training For Law Enforcement and are marked “law enforcement sensitive.” The program is funded by grants from the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance. Slides for the presentation depict the kind of behavior that law enforcement officials should be wary of in spotting potential terrorists during highway patrols. One of the slides – entitled “Fourth Amendment Issues” – notes that “a suspicious map located on the passenger seat” could warrant further investigation as a potential indicator of terrorism. Another slide entitled “General Right Wing Extremist” – depicts suspicious bumper stickers that should warrant further investigation by cops conducting traffic stops. The bumper stickers read, “Know Your Rights Or Lose Them,” and “If You Love Your Country, the U.N. Is Not Your Friend!,” and “Get US Out Of the United Nations”. Under the category of “Special-Interest/Single Issue Terrorism,” the slide characterizes people who hold political opinions that “represent a fairly popular point of view” as terrorists. Anti-abortion activists are also listed as terrorists under this category. Another slide lists people who are “antigenetic engineering” as terrorists. Presumably, that includes people who are concerned about a new study which found that rats fed with genetically-engineered Monsanto corn suffered premature deaths. Apparently, the Department of Justice considers Americans who have a good grasp of the bill of rights, are concerned about the food they eat, those who politically oppose the United Nations, and even those who hold “fairly popular” opinions, to be likely terrorists. Perhaps the DOJ is drawing inspiration from the Department of Defense, who in 2009 characterized the First Amendment right to protest as “low level terrorism”. Some of the more strange points in the presentation include the instruction to watch for bootlegging schemes including cigarettes, baby formula schemes and grocery store coupons.
They also point out that investigators should look for “charities that do not fit the area,” which is far from clear.
Some items to look for in residential searches which seem far from incriminating are travel documents, trade school or educational information, phone bills with overseas phone calls, cell phones, foreign-language documents, weapons, “extremist religious literature and paraphernalia,” ham-operator guides, and other items which could very likely be completely innocuous.
One thing I find especially troubling is the mention of “extremist religious literature” since it is never defined and thus leaves the designation of such literature to the individual. This opens the door to an incredible amount of personal prejudice to come into the picture.
This is further reinforced by a quite disturbing point on slide 67 of the particular presentation we have been discussing.
“Follow your hunches; they are usually correct,” the slide states. Teaching law enforcement that their baseless assumptions and first impressions are “usually correct” is far from conducive to positive and meaningful police work.
Think someone looks like a terrorist just because they’re Middle Eastern? Well, according to the SLATT program, they probably are!
This clearly flawed notion is drilled into the heads of trainees from earlier on in the presentation, starting from slide 18, where they’re told that general observations which should be taken note of include, “Middle-Eastern males living together, money with no furnishings, disputes among close-knit groups of Middle-Eastern males,” and even “Loud, boisterous behavior in a Middle-Eastern group.”
I guess the SLATT program would teach police that if one sees a group of loud, boisterous Middle Eastern men together, occasionally engaging in disputes or living together for monetary reasons, they’re probably terrorists. After all, if that’s the first thing that jumps to mind or you think it is “a hunch,” it’s probably correct!
It gets even worse when we read some more of the “general observations” on slide 19 which include, “Repeated use of ‘God’ not coupled with profanity, use of foreign terms/phrases not in context, misstatements of common American terminology,” all of which are in no way indicators of terrorism.
Apparently the people who created the SLATT program think you’re suspicious if you don’t blaspheme and believe in God or if you’re an immigrant or non-native English speaker struggling with American idioms.
These may actually be some of the most unbelievably absurd reasons to believe someone might be a terrorist that I have come across so far and that’s saying a lot coming from the United States government.
It is a truly sad to realize that the government has created so many indicators of a potential terrorist that just about anyone could fit at least one of them but unfortunately it is hardly arguable at this point.
Hopefully in bringing these types of training programs to the public’s attention we can show just how insane and paranoid our government has become in dealing with the supposed threat of terrorism and just how much it is warping the minds of law enforcement around the nation.
http://endthelie.com/2012/09/20/state-and-local-anti-terrorism-training-program-teaches-cops-bumper-stickers-are-indicator-of-terrorism/#axzz277U36XHI
http://www.infowars.com/doj-funded-training-manual-lists-bumper-stickers-as-terrorism/