Sorry. This is not an Onion article. It looks like I will need to post The Hangman poem again. You are being watched all the time by your government. It’s all in the name of security. They are really trying to protect you by keeping you under constant surveillance. Trust them. When have government thugs ever misled you? DHS is a plague upon this nation. Their purpose is to control you. Their purpose is to treat you like a suspect. Their purpose is to intimidate you and keep you from questioning the ruling oligarchs. They continue to tighten the noose in the name of safety and security. Do you feel safer now?
Homeland Security Uses Local Police to Set Up Surveillance Buffer Zones
Written by Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.
In order to sweeten the pot of federalization, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is giving gifts of expensive gadgets to local police forces.
Cops in North Jersey, for example, were showered with gifts from their would-be overseers. As reported by The Record:
Oradell, Emerson, Closter and Harrington Park police have car-mounted night-vision technology and video and recording equipment that can watch over the Oradell Reservoir and dam — and the hikers and anglers entering it. West Milford can do the same around the Newark watershed. Wayne police are scanning … the license plates of vehicles outside the Willowbrook Mall, while East Rutherford officers patrol hotel parking lots near the Meadowlands and the Federal Reserve building off Route 17.
How is all this new technology being used? Who is being watched? Why are they being targeted for surveillance? Neither law enforcement nor federal agents are talking.
When contacted by The New American, the DHS representative in New Jersey refused to answer these questions, saying that revealing what information is being collected, how long it will be stored, or who will have access to it would threaten national security. Of course.
The web of surveillance being woven by the Department of Homeland Security among local law enforcement agencies is part of the secretive effort known as the Buffer Zone Protection Program. According to DHS:
The Buffer Zone Protection Program (BZPP) is a Department-administered infrastructure protection grant program to help local law enforcement and first responders identify and mitigate vulnerabilities at the highest-risk critical infrastructure sites. A buffer zone is the area outside a facility that an adversary can use to conduct surveillance or launch an attack. The term is associated with identified critical infrastructure and key resources (CIKR).
BZPP provides funding to local law enforcement for equipment acquisition and planning activities to address gaps and enhance security capabilities. The program brings together private sector security personnel and first responders in a collaborative security planning process that enhances the buffer zone.
Local police who participate in the program will have access to a shockingly broad array of personal information of citizens. Facial recognition technology, license plate readers, and stop light camera video feeds will all be funneled to a Regional Operations Intelligence Center where FBI, police, and DHS agents can watch the live feeds. These hubs are part of a larger operations complex known as a Fusion Center.
The following information is taken from a fact sheet on fusion centers posted on the DHS website: “A fusion center is a collaborative effort of two or more agencies that provide resources, expertise and information to the center with the goal of maximizing their ability to detect, prevent, investigate, and respond to criminal and terrorist activity.”
A description of the functioning of these incubators for the forthcoming federal police force is also provided on the DHS site:
State and major urban area fusion centers (fusion centers) serve as primary focal points within the state and local environment for the receipt, analysis, gathering, and sharing of threat-related information among federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) partners…. Fusion centers conduct analysis and facilitate information sharing, assisting law enforcement and homeland security partners in preventing, protecting against, and responding to crime and terrorism.
The literature promoting the acceptance of fusion centers lists several ways the new federal agency will impose its will on the formerly autonomous and accountable police chief or county sheriff.
First, the feds will decide where and when to deploy local police department personnel. The chief, if he still exists, will be no more than a functionary required to make sure that the orders of the federal government are carried out. More likely than not, these new missions, in addition to preventing crime in the city or county, will engage in the collection of information about and apprehension of those local citizens identified by a committee in Washington as posing a threat to national security. Consider the revelation in 2009 that Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis released a document entitled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalism and Recruitment,” which listed war veterans, anti-abortion activists, small-government advocates, and those concerned about immigration as terrorist risks.
Second, DHS (or whichever one of the federal agencies eventually takes over law-enforcement duties) will train new recruits. Policies, procedures, and purposes will not reflect traditional (and constitutional) goals of law enforcement, but will be tailored to training officers to perform those duties associated with the new, national emphasis of the force, with a slant toward federalism.
Finally, funds for this conversion from local police department to outpost of the federal law-enforcement agency will be provided by the bureaucrats on Capitol Hill. This carrot will be tied to the stick of federal control.
So far, the DHS has marked 1,849 locations scattered throughout the 50 states that will serve as regional surveillance collection centers. As part of the department’s 2010 budget $48 million was spent establishing the centers. As The Record reports, “in Bergen and Passaic, 18 police departments have received federal grants totaling nearly $1.4 million since 2005 for equipment to watch over more than a half-dozen North Jersey locations.”
There is a major constitutional obstacle to such constant monitoring of citizens — the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment reads:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Such sweeping surveillance technology does not conform to the constitutional requirement that all searches be reasonable and be conducted with warrants based on probable cause.
Given the power of the tools being brought by DHS into cities and towns as they take effective control of local law enforcement, it is difficult to determine who is being watched, why they are being watched, and who is doing the watching.
Again, The Record reports:
State officials won’t say how long the surveillance information is kept, but the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] argues that license plate scans, for example, could be kept indefinitely. In late July, the group filed public records requests with 21 New Jersey police departments seeking information on how they are using automatic license plate readers.
“The American people have a right to know whether our police departments are using these tools in a limited and responsible manner, or whether they are keeping records of our movements for months or years for no good reason,” the ACLU said in a statement.
Apparently, the people’s elected representatives are being kept in the dark, as well. An investigation by The Record discovered that DHS officials preferred preventing local elected leaders from discovering the full extent of the surveillance being carried out by the Fusion Centers as part of the Buffer Zone Protection Program. Freedom of Information Act petitions requesting such information have been rebuffed by the DHS.
The Record reports on the futile efforts by town leaders to pull back the shroud covering the covert federal/local law enforcement collaboration:
In West Milford, the police chief asked the Township Council last fall to authorize spending for a covert surveillance camera program, funded through the Homeland Security grant. When council members asked about its purpose, Chief Gene Chiosie said the project was meant to be secret and something “civilians shouldn’t know.”
“You know what concerned me: When I asked how the cameras were going to be used, I was just told ‘It’s part of Homeland Security,’?” said former Councilman Daniel Jurkovic, who resisted the purchases. “Not everything that is right for the federal government is right for the citizens of West Milford.”
From the DHS, to the NSA, to the federal courts, every branch of the federal government is stretching the surveillance net to cover all Americans and to place us under the never-blinking eye of Big Brother so that no act of defiance will escape recognition and reprisal.
And now, with the Buffer Zone Protection Program and the Fusion Centers, the Obama administration is bribing local law enforcement to participate in the unconstitutional undertaking by giving the struggling agencies high-tech gifts and bags of cash, all tied like juicy carrots to the end of the stick of federalization.
Joe A. Wolverton, II, J.D. is a correspondent for The New American and travels frequently nationwide speaking on topics of nullification, the NDAA, and the surveillance state. He can be reached at jwolverton@thenewamerican.com This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
TeresaE says:
The unholy alliance started long before this program.
Money and grants flow into financially struggling police departments, loyalty and silence flow back.
For our own good.
I wish, gawd how I wish, we could make people see the evil of this “safety.”
Side note, with these thousands of new departments, programs, centers – drones, cameras, emails, texts, website plants, etc., etc., etc., – jobs that did not EXIST prior to 9/11, how is it that government employment has stayed level/shrunk?
What complete bullshit dream has occurred that we now have thousands and thousands (if not millions, we have no way of knowing) of jobs doing nothing but spying on us yet the cost of this – and the employment derived – is not included in the government financials and reports? How strange.
As with ALL issues we face, the complexity is such – and the propaganda/ingrained thoughts so great – that a full 80% of our fellow comrades couldn’t read the article and end it with an understanding of what is going on. Or they would never make it that far and be distracted by the latest email on boots from JustFab.
Embrace the doom Teresa, embrace the damn doom.
Else it is going to make me crazy(er).
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30th November 2012 at 9:53 am
KaD says:
When I read ‘buffer zone’ I thought this was referring to our border with Mexico. Now there’s a ‘buffer zone’ we could really use.
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30th November 2012 at 9:55 am
sangell says:
We’ve gone far beyond anything the Gestapo or KGB had available. NCIC computer data bases are awesome and when combined with license plate scanners have created a whole new class of criminal in Florida. The low income motorist. A nasty piece of work this individual is too. Caught by a red light camera for failing to come to a complete stop before making a right turn at a stop light the miscreant is sent a ticket for $168.00 but the itinerant criminal may have moved and not updated his drivers license address so he may not receive the ticket or maybe he is one of those cruds that thinks buying groceries for his kids is more important than sending the county $168 that month. No matter he is on the legal treadmill now.
Next stop license revocation, or ‘D-6′ as it is called in Florida. Unpaid fines, for driving or any other offense, result in automatic drivers license revocation. This is entered into the NCIC data base and now the cops have you in the sights of their license plate scanner. The low income motorist/criminal may sneak into his car the next day to go to his low wage part time Obama job but he won’t get far. The cop riding in his super duper patrol vehicle is alerted by his license plate scanner that the dangerous scofflaw is on a public highway and his papers are not in order. Pull the bastard over and demand to see his revoked license, his insurance policy and his registration. The cop has him dead to rights. DWLSR is the acronym. Driving with license suspended or revoked. An arrestable offense. Ask to search his vehicle. If he refuses sit him on the curb in handcuffs and call for a K-9 unit to inspect the vehicle. It the animal alerts you’ve got probably cause to tear his car apart. If you find a blood pressure pill or an old vicodin in the vehicle and he doesn’t have the prescription for it on him he’s made your day. You’ve now got a felony arrest!
Next stop county jail. Remarkably, in Florida a DWLSR is a more serious offense than driving with no license. Ask any illegal alien who has never had a license. His bond will be $120. The driving whiile poor motorist has a $500 bond for his offense and another $1000 bond for his felony ‘drug’ arrest. And he won’t be going to work anytime soon. He may lose his job. His picture will be placed in the local newspaper and on the internet for all to see so his employer will know he had hired a man arrested on felony drug charges and so will any future employer who cares to go on line and review the applicants arrest history.
Now its back to court. Our dangerous felon will probably not be charged with that felony drug charge because one pill found in a car isn’t going to persuade a jury to put the guy in prison but his failure to update his drivers license will generate a fine as will his DWLSR and he’s till got that original failure to come to a complete stop fine to deal with plus penalty. He may now owe the county $1000 plus his bailbond costs of another $150 and he’d better pay cause his license stays revoked until he does. He may also need to find a new job if he lost his last one but don’t think you can drive to your interview because those cops and their license plate scanners are just waiting for this crumb to get back in the drivers seat and hit the road again!
And that’s how we manufacture criminals in Florida with Federal grant money.
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30th November 2012 at 10:15 am
Grotto says:
Those willing to give up liberty for security deserve niether and will lose both
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30th November 2012 at 10:16 am
TeresaE says:
sangell, it is equally insane here in Michigan. My son was once notified – a year after the fact – that he had drove around for six months without a license. Luckily he was mostly driving our shop truck (my name), so was never targeted.
Had he been pulled over he would have been arrested, bailed, fined, and then marked for further ass-reamings because once caught always suspect.
This is what we have become. I’m starting to laugh when someone says, “they can’t do that, it’s unconstitutional!” I used to try to enlighten them, now I just laugh.
It’s for the children.
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30th November 2012 at 10:26 am
Bman says:
Sangell, don’t forget the strip search while being booked.
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30th November 2012 at 10:52 am
sangell says:
The automatic revocation of driver’s licenses for unpaid fines has created a far more serious problem in Florida. The hit and run driver. Since insurance is not valid if your license is revoked and since you will be arrested for driving with a suspended license no matter who is at fault in any traffic accident ( with all that entails) the incentive is to flee the scene. Hit a pedestrian jaywalking at night?
Flee, if your license is revoked because you will be facing felony manslaughter charges if you stick around. Hit a kid on a bike. May not have been your fault but if your license is revoked it is so leave the kid on the road and wish him well but you’ll be going to prison if your hang around and you’ve got your family to think of.
This is now a serious problem. 4 people were killed by hit and run drivers in the past month in Manatee County alone. 2 of the incidents were pretty clearly not the motorists fault as one involved a homeless women with a history of prostitution and drug offenses trying to cross a multilane highway late at night and the other an ex con doing the same after leaving a bar at closing time.
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30th November 2012 at 10:56 am
TeresaE says:
sangell, funny how that works in the real world, isn’t it?
In Michigan we were sold the notion of No Fault insurance. ALL cars must be insured, it is the car – not the driver – that is insured (yet rates are based on the owner’s record too), your own policy pays for all accidents. If there is a “fault,” then the insurance companies go after each other.
In Detroit, thanks to little things like house & car arsons, car-jackings, car-thefts and B&E’s, their insurance rates are about double the rest of the state’s.
Apparently, when you take the poorest citizens in the state, close all their businesses down via taxes and crime, then make them pay twice the cost to meet the minimum standards of law, you end up with a population that doesn’t adhere to said laws.
Which means they are out driving around uninsured, unlicensed (license can be pulled from car if uninsured) and once again, the rest of us get the actual bill for it.
Great revenue enhancement on paper, in real life it has just served to create yet one more class of unemployable (thanks to criminal records over civil matters) poor people in our jails and soup lines.
But, look at the bright side, just imagine what our unemployment rate would be without all these cops and spies on the payroll! We couldn’t have THAT! Oh the HUMANITY!
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30th November 2012 at 11:30 am
harry p. says:
All of this is being done not to protect us or to even create the illusion that our tax dollars are at work protecting us.
It is them protecting themselves from all of us.
It is about stopping America from repeating what it did in 1776.
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30th November 2012 at 1:08 pm
Thinker says:
Best Places to Be Born in 2013
Though America may be the “land of opportunity,” Switzerland will be the best place to be born in 2013 according to a quality-of-life index from the Economist Intelligence Unit.
The EIU, a sister company to The Economist magazine, determines quality of life based on surveys of the population covering 11 factors including wealth, crime, family life, trust in government and the stability of the economy.
Income estimates for babies born in 2013 are based on projections for the year 2030, when those children will come of age.
The top ten best places to be born in 2013:
1. Switzerland
2. Australia
3. Norway
4. Sweden
5. Denmark
6. Singapore
7. New Zealand
8. Netherlands
9. Canada
10. Hong Kong
With its small but very stable economy, Switzerland comes in first, wealthy, healthy and trusting of its public institutions. The United States, “where babies will inherit the large debts of the boomer generation, languishes back in 16th place,” the EIU explains. Feeling the effects of the European monetary crisis, “the largest European economies, France (26), Germany (tied with the U.S. for 16) and Britain (27), don’t do particularly well.”
The quality-of-life index also reflects changes in the Middle East and North Africa, where “life expectancy continues to increase steadily and political freedoms have spread across the globe,” though Nigeria comes in as the worst place for a baby to be born in 2013.
Other interesting ratings include China, coming in at 49, and Russia, coming in at 72.
Back in 1988, the United States was in first place, with France in second, and West Germany in third. Zimbabwe was last, with Iraq second to last and Iran third to last.
For a more detailed explanation of how these numbers are calculated, see “the lottery of life methodology.”
All said, the takeaway from the index seems to be that in today’s world, a country’s stability and trust in public institutions results in the best quality of life for its citizens.
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30th November 2012 at 1:56 pm
Administrator says:
GOOGLE TRENDS SEARCH TERMS
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30th November 2012 at 2:26 pm
ecliptix543 says:
Teresa, I have an answer for you regarding your question of how all these new spies can come online but gov’t payrolls don’t increase noticeably. Single client private contractors. A government “need” is identified, certain in-the-know people are notified, they form a quick and anonymous LLC, and they have only one customer. I know this because I have worked for these sorts of parasites. The employee ID’s are largely indistinguishable from military or Fed LE. I’ve had more military ID’s as a civilian than I ever had as active duty. The security clearances are the same, the vehicle base stickers are the same. The cost, however, is immense, particularly with DHS as a blanket conduit for distributing the spoils of tax thievery and the pillage of global conflicts. Shameless, shitbag profiteers, totally without ethics or concern for anything beyond self-interest.
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30th November 2012 at 5:58 pm