Detailed information about how many rounds of .223 caliber ammunition the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is right now in the process of purchasing for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been deliberately hidden from public view. Infowars reports that a document posted at the FedBizOpps.gov government website has been clearly blacked out with a marker in the sections that indicate quantities of ammunition purchased.
Just within the past six months, DHS has stockpiled more than one billion rounds of ammo, including 450 million rounds of .40 caliber hollow point ammo earlier this year to fight “homegrown terrorism” (https://www.naturalnews.com/035649_DHS_ammunition_domestic_war.html). But this latest purchase has more people than ever questioning what the eerily Nazi SS-like agency is up to now with its blatant censorship and secrecy.
According to the FedBizOpps.gov announcement, DHS is paying nearly $5 million to have Minnesota-based Federal Cartridge Company produce an unknown quantity of both .223 62 grain duty and .223 64 grain duty ammo for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the U.S. Federal Protective Service (FPS). The ammo will reportedly be used for both training and “performance of duties” purposes.
But the fact that it was decided by someone, somewhere, to go back and redact certain pieces of information from the purchase document in violation of the law is raising all sorts of red flags. Apart from specific Congressional authorization or a legitimate national security reason, it is not legally permissible to redact this type of information from federal purchase documents.
You can view a copy of the redacted document here: www.fbo.gov.
So, who exactly is Nina Jankowicz? Certainly, not a person with any concerns about preserving freedom of speech or expression. A quick look at her Twitter history is enough to dispel that. When Facebook permanently banned Donald Trump from its service, Nina was in the wings complaining that this punishment was not harsh enough. Through a metaphor, Nina explained that only mass bans on hundreds or thousands of accounts would be enough to “fix” the disinformation “problem.”
In the aftermath of our reporting, Nina joined a veritable army of “disinformation” journalists doing damage control, though Nina was a little too dim to properly understand what was going on. Here is the disinformation expert Nina reassuring her followers that national security professionals would never dare turn their tools inward against the American people—and, still more important, that color revolutions have nothing to do with race!
Just when you thought the Globalist American Empire couldn’t get more Owellian, the Department of Homeland Security is here to make it all worse.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testified Wednesday that the Department of Homeland Security is creating a “Disinformation Governance Board” to combat misinformation ahead of the 2022 midterms. [Fox News]
The timing of the announcement is symbolically fitting, given recent warnings from journalists, NGOs, and prominent Democrat Senators that the prospect of Elon Musk restoring free-speech to twitter constitutes a “danger our democracy.” It is only right then that one of our nation’s largest national security bureaucracies should set up a special “governance board” to address the threat of so-called disinformation that emerges when speech isn’t entirely controlled by the Regime and its proxies.
The DHS has not said much about what the “Disinformation Governance Board” will actually do, but Politico’s brief write-up on the announcement offers some clues:
DHS is standing up a new Disinformation Governance Board to coordinate countering misinformation related to homeland security, focused specifically on irregular migration and Russia. Nina Jankowicz will head the board as executive director. She previously was a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center, advised the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry as part of the Fulbright Public Policy Fellowship and oversaw Russia and Belarus programs at the National Democratic Institute. [Politico]
In case you’re not up-to-date on Government approved euphemisms, “irregular migration” is the new politically correct term for what used to be called “illegal immigration.” We dare the reader to google “irregular migration” and consult what images pop up. Given that the DHS has become a de-facto full service travel agency for illegal aliens pouring over the border, it makes sense that the same agency would want to label any criticism of its policies as dangerous “disinformation.” That “Russia” also falls under the DHS’ new Ministry of Disinformation’s portfolio is arguably even more ridiculous. Didn’t we just learn that the Hunter Biden laptop story, which dozens of media outlets and former intelligence officials demanded to censor as “Russian disinformation,” turned out to be totally true and legitimate?
The specific choice of the Department of Homeland Security to host this new governance board is telling. In 2020, the Trump DHS released a report claiming that “white supremacy” was the single greatest security threat facing America. Mere months ago, the DHS raised the national threat level on the grounds that “misinformation” about Covid-19 or the 2020 election would drive extremist violence.
Key factors contributing to the current heightened threat environment include:
The proliferation of false or misleading narratives, which sow discord or undermine public trust in U.S. government institutions:
For example, there is widespread online proliferation of false or misleading narratives regarding unsubstantiated widespread election fraud and COVID-19. Grievances associated with these themes inspired violent extremist attacks during 2021.
Malign foreign powers have and continue to amplify these false or misleading narratives in efforts to damage the United States.
In 2002, Congress created the DHS to, among other things, secure America’s border from foreign threats. Now, twenty years on, the DHS has repurposed itself to target as domestic terrorists the Americans who complain about what is crossing America’s border. No development could better illustrate how, over the past two decades, the American security state apparatus has evolved from a shield that guards the American people into a weapon that targets them.
But the establishment of the DHS’s Ministry of Disinformation wouldn’t be a proper intelligence community project unless it was absurd as well as dystopian. For the absurdity, we need to look no further than Nina Jankowicz, the disinformation wizard appointed to protect the American people from dangerous speech about illegal immigration and Russia.
The Department of Homeland Security is disseminating a mass migration plan devoid of removal mechanisms to replace the soon-to-end CDC Title 42 emergency order. The plan predicts that DHS traditional processing capabilities will be overwhelmed and require an increase in the use of “broadscale release mechanisms.”
The plan, reviewed by Breitbart Texas, acknowledges the end of Title 42 will likely result in a surge in illegal migration along the southwest border. The increase is already manifesting itself as apprehensions rise. In March, Border Patrol agents apprehended more than 200,000 migrants.
The draft plan, recently circulated to senior DHS staff, is dated February 17, 2022. A source within the agency, not authorized to speak to the media, says the plan offers no concrete options other than to exhaust more resources to absorb what will likely be a historic wave of migrants at the southern border.
The source says the agency is already exceeding temporary detention capacity at most facilities and the plan will likely mean more holding space will be needed. Cost estimates to operate one temporary facility exceed $5 million per month, according to the source.
The DHS Southwest Border Mass Irregular Migration Contingency Plan tells senior leadership to prepare “federal to federal” support agreements to quickly move personnel and funds to DHS agencies.
The plan offers assumptions once Title 42 is ended and includes the acknowledgement that few legal pathways to removal are left in the wake of early executive actions under the Biden Administration.
The document offers ominous predictions about the impacts of the pending surge to the U.S.-Mexico Border. The DHS document claims most released migrants do not appear for subsequent removal proceedings. It continues:
Current pathways to removal will be limited. Component use of broadscale release mechanisms (i.e., Own Recognizance (OR) with issuance of a Notice to Appear (NTA), or parole and Alternatives to Detention (ATD)) with administrative tools are necessary to ensure humane and efficient treatment of migrants)
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) will continue to leverage the FEMA Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP) to provide life sustaining food, shelter, and supporting services. In addition, NGOs shall provide travel assistance from CBP custody. (Footnote: The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 made available $110 million to FEMA EFSP for this purpose.)
ICE Alternatives to Detention (ATD) will be implemented on a greater scale. (Footnote: Increased processing speeds, throughput, and the use of ATD is the quickest solution for processing FMUAs where Title 42 is no longer viable. However, relatively low percentages of FMUAs reported for removal proceedings in the past once released on ATD. There is no evidence that a higher percentage of noncitizens will report for removal proceedings in the future if released, regardless of how expeditiously they are processed.)
The plan includes an additional focus on a “Whole of Western Hemisphere” approach as a solution to the worsening border crisis. Part of the plan, reviewed by Breitbart Texas, includes efforts to improve living conditions outside the United States.
The plan does not specify a cost associated with the pending surge in migration.
Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX.
The transition from tracking terrorism to chasing thought crime has a major advantage. It exonerates U.S. counterterrorism officials from the meddlesome job of catching meddlesome terrorists.
The Department of Homeland Security, which under the Biden Administration routinely lets watch-listed terrorists cross the southern border unmolested, and which approved entry to the United States for Colleyville Synagogue hostage-taker Malik Faisal Akram despite his being known to British authorities as a terror risk, has taken upon its broad bureaucratic shoulders an even more challenging job.
Stopping the flow of MDM.
MDM isn’t the latest flavor of fentanyl, produced by the Communist Chinese regime for sale to Mexican drug cartels, and now the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 to 45. No, MDM stands for mis- dis- and mal-information, the latest government acronym from which you must be protected.
DHS’ latest “Summary of Terrorism Threat to the U.S. Homeland,” released Monday, has much to say about the dangers of American minds being polluted with MDM, and curiously little to say about actual terror threats.
MDM is a term developed by the DHS Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to replace the old-fashioned phrase “foreign influence.” Now let us caveat that the U.S. government does indeed have a responsibility to monitor and to identify foreign influence operations. This was the remit of the Reagan-era Active Measures Working Group, which worked tirelessly to identify Soviet lies being spread to undermine the United States’ global standing in the world, and then countered them with the truth.
But under the latest iteration, DHS is no longer concerned solely with enemy lies spread abroad, but increasingly with information spread by “domestic threat actors” (read: American citizens). And no longer are they merely concerned with disinformation, false material spread to manipulate an opponent, but with misinformation, which DHS considers information that is false but not intended to cause harm, and “mal-information,” which means information which is true but the government considers harmful anyway.
This raises the question of who put a government intelligence and law enforcement agency in the position of declaring not only what is true or false but also determining whether information is good or harmful for consumption by free citizens. Of course, no law prohibits American citizens of spreading information of any kind, whether true or false.
DHS is now going after COVID misinformation spreaders considering them terrorist threats. Here’s my list of people I think they should be investigating.
Enormous credit to those who do not comply
Perhaps in a future article, I can list those who should be acknowledged for not complying such as:
Steve Kirsch’s Newsletter
Summary
DHS is getting tough on COVID misinformation spreaders, i.e., people who spread information that “undermines public trust in government institutions.”
Since DHS has finite resources to pursue all these perpetrators, as a public service, I have created a list of what I believe are some of the country’s top misinformation spreaders.
I sincerely hope that the DHS will focus their efforts on these individuals since they have made statements and/or taken actions (or refused to take action) that result in the undermining of public trust in US government institutions.
It is extremely easy to tell who is telling the truth here: it’s the people who are not afraid of debate. The one thing everyone on our list has in common is that they will never agree to debate anyone with opposing views.
These people need to be stopped now and I’m grateful that DHS is finally taking this seriously as innocent lives are being lost.
Hmmm…I couldn’t come up with any “violent extremist attacks during 2021” that were inspired by this alleged COVID-19 misinformation. Can you?
To make their job easier to pursue these spreaders of COVID-19 misinformation, I’ve compiled a list of the Disinformation Dozen, the top spreaders of COVID disinformation that are literally killing people through spreading misinformation about COVID.
My Disinformation Dozen list
I believe that all of these people are involved in “The proliferation of false or misleading narratives, which sow discord or undermine public trust in U.S. government institutions” and have collectively led to the tragic death of over 1M Americans.
All of these people should be detained for questioning.
I’ve also provided a handy list of questions that none of them will be able to answer with satisfactory answers.
Note that the list is subjective. Different people will likely have different lists but most people would agree on the top five.
President Joe Biden Told the public the vaccines were safe and effective even though the data said the opposite. Wore ineffective face masks in order to mislead the public into thinking these masks could protect them. Refused to meet with any qualified scientist or doctor with opposing viewpoints before and after mandating the vaccines. Deliberately refuses to meet with scientists with opposing viewpoints so continues to spread misinformation today. He tried to scare the unvaccinated by claiming the unvaccinated would experience a winter of severe illness and death. Continues to erode public trust in the office of the President with approval ratings that are at all time lows:
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky Told people the vaccines are safe and effective and that masks work. Withheld information about early treatment protocols.
NIAID Director Anthony Fauci Funded the virus, covered it up, knowingly spread misinformation about the source of the virus, lied about it all in Congress when questioned by Senator Rand Paul, and told Cliff Lane to not approve any early treatments in the Guidelines.
US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy Told people the vaccines are safe and effective and that masks work and said nothing about effective early treatment protocols. Compounded the error by labeling people trying to spread life-saving information as “disinformation” spreaders.
Bill Gates Funded the misinformation campaigns (the fact checkers) including GAVI.
FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock Said she would investigate the Maddie de Garay case that proved fraud in the Pfizer trial and then did nothing. The FDA also denied the EUA application on fluvoxamine, a drug later proven to reduce mortality by 12X in a large Phase 3 trial.
COVID-19 Guidelines Chairman Cliff Lane Discredited every single working COVID early treatment including fluvoxamine which has a 12X reduction in fatalities. Ignored all COVID-19 early treatments that work.
Tom Shimabukuro (CDC vaccine expert) Never mentioned the VAERS URF which underplayed the danger of the vaccines by at least 41x and deliberately misled people about causality and VAERS by claiming you can’t determine causality. Ignored all the safety signals in VAERS on all but a few symptoms. Ignored the death safety signal. Ignored every safety signal in DMED.
John Su (CDC, VAERS expert) See Tom Shimabukuro
Steven A. Anderson (FDA), the top vaccine safety official at the FDA Deliberately ignored all the VAERS and DMED safety signals and ignored all attempts to meet about the safety signals.
Gavin Newsom, Governor of California Mandated vaccination in California even though he was injured by the COVID vaccine. Will not vaccinate his own kids. He knows the vaccines are dangerous from first-hand experience and deliberately misleads the people of California by claiming they are safe.
Dr. Richard Pan, California State Senator Introduced legislation in the California legislature to close the Personal Exemption Loophole for COVID-19 School Vaccinations which will lead to the death of an unknown number of children. All done with no scientific evidence.
Top corporate spreaders of misinformation
These companies refuse to censor doctors and scientists who claim that the vaccines are safe and effective and masks work. Instead they actually compound the problem censor people who are telling the truth. Net result: hundreds of thousands of deaths caused by censoring the wrong people.
“The object of terrorism is terrorism. The object of oppression is oppression. The object of torture is torture. The object of murder is murder. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?”
This ‘virus’ terrorism that has been structured and stoked by this heinous government for the purpose of depopulation, power grabs, and control over society, is now being greatly ramped up in order to shut down all questions, all speech, all facts, and all those that would not comply with draconian mandates issued by this corrupt state. If such a criminal coup is able to be accomplished by the state thugs, all opposition to the status quo of planned economic demolition, sickness, mind and body destruction, and death by the ruling class will have been effectively stopped, leaving only those ready and willing to act as slaves instead of fighting for their own liberty. In effect, with the gallant truth seekers marginalized or taken down, no resistance will be evident, and only the compliant sheep-like masses will be left, negating any defense against totalitarian rule. But of course, that is the plan.
We are faced with extreme terrorism, but it is not being waged by foreign mercenaries, jihadists, white supremacists, or domestic dissenters, it is the state itself that practices terrorism against the people. In essence, war is being waged against this country from the inside by this government, its controllers, the mainstream media, the pharmaceutical industry, the big technology sector, the banking system, and all government’s other fascist partners. The American governing system is the enemy of all of us, and few will be exempt from its tyranny if large scale resistance is not forthcoming. Democide has already begun!
On August 13th, The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), an oxymoron if ever there were one, issued a new National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) Bulletin titled: “Summary of Terrorism Threat to the U.S. Homeland.” The top priority of this so-called bulletin is that “anti-government/anti-authority violent extremists will remain a national threat priority for the United States.” This is an open-ended threat to all that disagree with and oppose this government orchestrated fake pandemic, as stated in this bulletin. This does not mean that one has to take up arms or commit acts of violence in order to be targeted by the state, quite the contrary is the case. This atrocious bulletin is dated effective August 13, 2021 and expires November 11, 2021. How do these monsters know the exact dates when this so-called ‘domestic terrorism’ will happen? This is no accident, and makes obvious that a threat is being issued to all that are non-compliant. Do not forget these dates, as plans are apparently already set for all those of us that are anti-government/anti-authority, and it seems certain that false flag events to trigger martial law are already in place, for why else would such a short-term structured bulletin be issued for this specific three-month period?
It is also stated in this document that domestic terrorism “threats are also exacerbated by impacts of the ongoing global pandemic, including grievances over public health safety measures and perceived government restrictions.” In other words, they already know that they are going to impose more restrictions over this period. In addition, the DHS states that they “will continue to identify and evaluate calls for violence, including online activity associated with the spread of disinformation, conspiracy theories, and false narratives, by known or suspected threat actors and provide updated information, as necessary.” This is a direct warning to all those attempting to tell the truth about this fake pandemic and the poisonous and deadly injections mislabeled as ‘vaccines.’ The only disinformation is coming from the DHS, the rest of government, the WHO, the CDC, and the mainstream media, as they are the real terrorists.
I have done a bit of cowboying in my life, and cowboys get the job done. Here in Montana, we have a saying that is very appropriate today: “It’s gettin’ down to nut cuttin’ time!” At this moment in history, especially given the limited time left before this country is totally destroyed by this criminal government cabal, there is no more time to waste, and extreme preventative efforts are needed to stop this insanity.
These are unprecedented times in history, and this country called the United States is at war against its own people, and wants to depopulate not only this country, but the rest of the world as well. Democide, genocide, and mass murder are desired, and the beginning stages are being carried out now. Drastic measures are necessary in order to shut down this attack against the people, and a mass movement of total disobedience is essential if this takeover of society is to be stopped. We are out of time, and if blind obedience continues, mass slavery will be the result.
Think about what is coming if strong resistance is not present:
Immunity and ‘vaccine’ passports ‘Covid’ marshals (police and military) Lockdowns and home imprisonment Quarantine ‘Vaccine’ mandates Mass ‘vaccination’ of all children Segregation Interstate travel banned without ‘vaccine’ Food shortages Job loss Economic Armageddon Internment (concentration) camps (prison for unvaccinated) Loss of utilities due to state planned cyber attacks Supply line shutdowns Hyperinflation Mass death
And the list goes on. How far will this have to go before the masses see the light? How much abuse are the people of this country willing to take before they say no more? How many lies must be swallowed before the sickness of apathy is expelled?
There is no ‘virus pandemic,’ there are no ‘variants;’ there are only lies and propaganda spewed by the political class and their partners in crime. This government, its agencies, its courts, and the politicians are evil, corrupt, and criminal. They care nothing about you, they care nothing about your family, they care nothing about your children, and they care nothing about the well-being of the masses. They care not about anything of value, they care only about power and control. The only way to stop this is by mass disobedience, and refusal to obey any order or mandate issued by this abhorrent state.
“Evil thrives on apathy and cannot exist without it.”
Gary D. Barnett [send him mail] is a retired investment professional that has been writing about freedom and liberty matters, politics, and history for two decades. He is against all war and aggression, and against the state. He recently finished a collaboration with former U.S. Congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney, and was a contributor to her new book, “When China Sneezes” From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Political-Economic Crisis.” Currently, he lives in Montana with his wife and son. Visit his website.
But since then, government agencies have devised a new surveillance method: instead of getting warrants to force companies to provide data, they simply purchase the information from brokers. Call it entrepreneurial innovation in the market for tyranny.
When the Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that law enforcement agencies need warrants before they can request geolocation data from cell phone companies, civil liberties advocates touted the judgment as a major win for privacy.
But since then, government agencies have devised a new surveillance method: instead of getting warrants to force companies to provide data, they simply purchase the information from brokers. Call it entrepreneurial innovation in the market for tyranny.
The scope of this activity has been slowly revealed over the last year, beginning with a February 2020 Wall Street Journal article, which reported that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has “bought access to a commercial database that maps the movements of millions of cellphones in American and is using it for immigration and border enforcement.” Later reports revealed that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) purchase similar data.
Had the world not essentially collapsed about a month later, this might have been big news. Alas, government’s data purchases have gone largely unpublicized in the midst of pandemics, riots, elections, and so on.
Even though geolocation data purchases are a norm in government, there are some public officials who agree with civil libertarians that the programs are unconstitutional. For example, in a memo made public this week, the inspector general for the Department of Treasury criticized the IRS for purchasing location information.
According to the IG’s memo, the IRS subscribed to a geolocation database provided by the data broker Venntel. The inspector general shared his view that the IRS program likely violated the Fourth Amendment and the precedent set by the Supreme Court in Carpenter v. US.
However, the IG’s opinion is far from government consensus. In fact, the IG’s memo notes that the IRS shuttered its geolocation tracking program not because of concerns about its constitutionality, but only because it wasn’t useful—a similar fate to what happened with the NSA’s bulk metadata collection.
Other departments have also expressed the opinion that bulk data purchases are constitutional. The Defense Intelligence Agency said in a memo made public last month that it can buy bulk data because the Supreme Court’s Carpenter decision only applies to law enforcement—and not to intelligence agencies.
“The court did not consider ‘collection techniques involving…national security,’” the memo said. “By extension, the court did not address the process, if any, associated with commercial acquisition of bulk commercial geolocation data for foreign intelligence/counter-intelligence purposes.”
Nor does the Biden Administration seem interested in checking the geolocation tracking programs. When new National Intelligence Director Avril Haines was asked about the programs during her confirmation process, she played lip service to the importance that “American people have an understanding of when, and under what authorities, the government is buying their private data”—but she said nothing about curtailing such surveillance.
If it’s indeed important for Americans to know how they’re being tracked, then it’s unclear why the DSH, CBP and ICE are still contesting a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union to produce records about their geolocation tracking programs. Again, this ACLU lawsuit isn’t even challenging the tracking programs— it’s only trying to wrangle records from them—and yet government is insistent on pursuing litigation that could last years.
By the time the Supreme Court would make any rulings on the geolocation tracking programs, it could be nearing the end of the decade, and government agencies will almost certainly have found another workaround by then.
“If law enforcement agencies can buy their way around the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement, the landmark protection announced by the Supreme Court in Carpenter will be in peril,” the ACLU said when announcing its lawsuit in December.
Unfortunately, it’s apparent that the Carpenter decision has long passed the point of peril, taking the entire Fourth Amendment with it.
It’s also quite likely to backfire. Being spuriously accused of “domestic extremism” is the sort of thing that might turn an ‘ordinary’ soldier into an anti-government ‘extremist.’ After all, what sort of gratitude is rewarding a person who just signed up to die for their country with the ideological equivalent of a prostate exam?
The FBI, DHS and other security agencies have, at various times, declared almost every American to be some sort of anti-government extremist or other, from “conspiracy theorists” to, well, veterans, depending on that season’s trend in fear. But even the most ambitious diversity consultant can’t just lock up millions of Americans for thoughtcrime – yet.
is an American journalist and political commentator at RT. Follow her on Twitter @velocirapture23
The US military is making a big show of cleansing its ranks of ‘extremism’ – because nothing says tolerance like raining fiery death on innocent strangers at the command of a guy who just stepped down from Raytheon’s board.
With “domestic extremists” now officially the enemy du jour in Washington, the top order of business has become finding some. On Wednesday, newly-anointed secretary of defense (and former Raytheon board member) Lloyd Austin ordered a two-month stand-down so that commanders could engage in “needed discussions” with their subordinates on the issue.
Did we mention they have a lot of subordinates? There are 3.6 million service members in the most expensive military in the world, and evaluating every single one of them for a characteristic that lacks even a universally-agreed-upon definition is certain to be both time-consuming and frustrating.
It’s also quite likely to backfire. Being spuriously accused of “domestic extremism” is the sort of thing that might turn an ‘ordinary’ soldier into an anti-government ‘extremist.’ After all, what sort of gratitude is rewarding a person who just signed up to die for their country with the ideological equivalent of a prostate exam?
The FBI, DHS and other security agencies have, at various times, declared almost every American to be some sort of anti-government extremist or other, from “conspiracy theorists” to, well, veterans, depending on that season’s trend in fear. But even the most ambitious diversity consultant can’t just lock up millions of Americans for thoughtcrime – yet.
It takes extreme conditioning indeed to abandon one’s humanity and learn to kill on command – “Thou shalt not kill” isn’t just a religious commandment. Former military personnel describing the process through which they were transformed from “normal” people into killing machines talk about a radicalization process quite unlike anything ever posted to 4chan or wherever 21st-century “radicals” are supposed to be born from. Yet anti-extremism nonprofits wring their hands when confronted with the seemingly disproportionate number of Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, Boogaloo Bois, and other militia and quasi-militia groups that have served in the military. Do they expect veterans to simply forget their entire training upon returning to civilian life?
Indeed, what’s denounced as extremism “back home” is very likely to be praised as bravery “over there.” Such doublethink makes it difficult for many returning veterans to readjust to civilian life – and the government – and it doesn’t help that Washington basically washes its hands of them once they remove their uniforms. What good is all that college money they dangle in front of young recruits’ faces if all that “life experience” leaves you a dysfunctional PTSD-stricken shell of a person, incapable of forming meaningful relationships or even sleeping through the night? Not every service member sees conflict, of course, but those who do are irrevocably changed by it.
Certainly, it’s not clear what sets the alleged “extremism” on display during last month’s demonstration at the Capitol apart from business as usual in the military. The former and current service members charged in relation to the riot are being demonized as seditious fake-patriots with no respect for Our Democracy, unlike those truly devoted bastions of tolerance willing to give 110 percent in defense of God and Country, etcetera, eagerly kicking in doors in the middle of the desert, guarding patriotic poppy fields in Afghanistan, and perhaps getting their legs blown off by an IED for their trouble.
The Pentagon, for all its exhortations to “support our troops,” categorically refuses to do the same, instead sending those troops to war after war against countries that pose no real threat to the US, yet happen to be occupying some choice real estate or sitting on top of some natural resources Uncle Sam would really like access to.
Meanwhile, they’re turning entire generations of young people into monsters – extremists – capable of killing a stranger just because someone they’ve been taught to obey at all costs orders it. A culture that fetishizes mass murder in order to steal natural resources from halfway around the world – while pretending to make the world safe for democracy, no less! – is long overdue for some changes, starting with using some of that $717 billion in Pentagon dollars on something useful.
The real question, then, is not who in the US military is a domestic extremist. It’s who isn’t.
Effective this week, diners in Michigan are now going to be required to produce their full name and contact information simply for wanting to eat out at a restaurant or bar.
Ironically, it’s likely more information than citizens are required to produce in order to vote.
Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer has moved her state one step closer to a true Orwellian paradise, asking her citizens to surrender their privacy every time they want a cheeseburger and a coke at their local diner. Whitmer has already been struck down once by the Supreme Court over trying to unilaterally extend the state’s emergency declarations, The Western Journal noted.
A new release from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services said: “Like many other businesses in Michigan, bars and restaurants will also be required to take names and contact information to support effective contact tracing if necessary.”
But who can be worried about such mundane things as rights in the midst of an unstoppable pandemic that is slightly more deadly than the flu, right?
That was the Michigan DHS’s take. They said: “Michigan presently has 172 cases per million people and positivity of tests has increased from about 2 percent to 5.5 percent and both indicators have been increasing for over four weeks. Hospitalizations for COVID-19 have doubled over the last three weeks while the state death rate has increased for five consecutive weeks.”
The order also reduced the amount of people that can gather in the state for weddings and parties: “As part of the newly extended orders, MDHHS today reduces from 500 persons to 50 persons the maximum gathering size for indoor gatherings such as weddings, parties, and banquets which occur in nonresidential settings without fixed seating.”
It added: “For bars, restaurants, and social events outside private homes, indoor party sizes at a single table are now restricted to six people.”
Violating the order could result in a $1,000 fine, a misdemeanor, and potentially imprisonment, the DHS said: “Violations are punishable by a civil fine up to $1,000 and may also be treated as a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not more than six months or a fine of not more than $200, or both. In addition, failure to comply with orders may violate a business or professional’s licensure requirements or present a workplace safety violation.”
Unsurprisingly, Michigan businesses are not happy about the new order.
Michigan Licensed Beverage Association Executive Director Scott Ellis concluded: “Again, what’s this data gathering if the data is not truthful, how do we know how good it is? Our front-line servers have already had trouble dealing with masks and mandates and mandating masks. We did de-escalation training and all kinds of other things to help with that and now we’re taking to the next level. We have to gather someone’s personal information?”
The new narrative was not consistent with information previously published by the the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security’s new Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), however. It was so incoherent, in fact, that it suggested a state of panic on the part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials worried about a possible transition to a Joe Biden administration.
A Department of Homeland Security election alert spawning new Russia fears was so incoherent and inconsistent with previous findings, it suggested a state of political panic inside the agency.
Just days before the 2020 election the bureaucratic forces behind the original claim of Russian hacking of state election-related websites in 2016 launched a new drive to spawn fears of Moscow-made political chaos in the wake of the voting.
The new narrative was not consistent with information previously published by the the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security’s new Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), however. It was so incoherent, in fact, that it suggested a state of panic on the part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials worried about a possible transition to a Joe Biden administration.
On October 20, Christopher Krebs, the head of CISA, issued a video statement expressing confidence that “it would be incredibly difficult for them to change the outcome of an election at the national level.” Then he abruptly changed his tone, adding, “But that doesn’t mean various actors won’t try to introduce chaos in our elections and make sensational claims that overstate their capabilities. In fact, the days and weeks just before and after Election Day is the perfect time for our adversaries to launch efforts intended to undermine your confidence in the integrity of the electoral process.”
Krebs’ warning of a possible Russian announcement that hackers had succeeded in disrupting the result of the U.S. election was so removed from reality that it suggested internal panic DHS over the failure of Russian hackers to do anything that could be cited as interfering the election.
Two days after Krebs’ dubious warning, the FBI and the DHS’s new Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued an “alert” reporting that “a Russian state-sponsored APT [Advanced Persistent Threat] actor” known as “Berserk Bear” had “conducted a campaign against a wide variety of U.S. targets.”
Since “at least September,” according to the DHS alert, the DHS warning claimed that it had targeted “dozens” of “U.S. state, local, territorial and tribal government networks.” It even claimed that the supposed Russian campaign had compromised the network infrastructure of several official organizations and “exfiltrated data from at least two victims servers”. At the same time, it acknowledged there was “no indication” that any government operations had been “intentionally disrupted.”
The report went on to suggest, “[T]here may be some risk to elections information housed on SLTT [state, local territorial and tribal] government networks.” And then it abruptly shifted tone and level of analysis to offer the speculation that the Russian government “may be seeking access to obtain future disruption options, to influence U.S. policies or actions”, or to “delegitimize” the “government entities”.
On October 28, Krebs elaborated on the latter theme in an interview with the PBS NewsHour. Referring inaccurately to government warnings about “Russian interference, some of which targeted voter registration,” which the FBI-CISA alert had never mentioned, PBS interviewer William Brangham asked, “Do you worry at all that there might be infiltration that we are not aware of?”
Instead of correcting Brangham’s inaccurate suggestion, Krebs responded that “infiltration” into voter registration files was “certainly possible,” but that “[W]e have improved the ability to detect compromises or anomalous activity.”
Krebs then homed in on a scenario he obviously wanted the public to focus on: “[Y]ou might see various actors, foreign powers, claim that they were able to accomplish something, [that] they were able to hack a database or hack the vote count. And it’s simply not true.”
Although the October 22 alert did not assert any deliberate Russian government hack of election-related sites, Krebs sought to keep speculation about both Russian capabilities and intent alive.
The buried alert that undermined the frightening official assessment
Eleven daysbefore Krebs debuted his speculation about Russia claiming to have hacked U.S. elections, the FBI and CISA issued a separate alert that seriously undercut his questionable claims.
The earlier document was clearly referring to the very same efforts by hackers to break into various websites addressed in the October 22 alert. It not only referred to the same state and local government networks and to the wider range of targets affected but also mentioned precisely the same technical vulnerabilities that were targeted in the series of hacks.
The alert further stated that, “[I]t does not appear these targets are being selected because of their proximity to elections information….” In other words, the two US agencies conceded they had no basis for attributing the hacks in question to any election interference plot.
The most striking difference between the two alerts, however, was that the October 9 alert did not refer to any “Russian state-sponsored APT actor” as the October 22 one did. Instead, it simply pointed to “APT actors” in the plural, indicating that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence indicating a single actor was at work, let alone one that was “Russian-state sponsored.”
Contrary to the impression that U.S. officials may have conveyed in referencing an “Advance Persistent Threat,” or APT, it is now widely understood by cybersecurity specialists that this term no longer refers to a state-sponsored actor. That is because the sophisticated tools and techniques once associated with state-sponsored hacking have now become available to a much wider range of cyber actors. Indeed, the codes for such high-end tools have been identified in the Shadow Brokers and Vault 7 leaks, and the tools have been marketed widely at affordable prices on the dark web.
The October 9 alert firmly established the dearth of evidence on the part of CISA and FBI about a Russian state-sponsored hacking team planning elections-related operations in the U.S. The sudden pivot days later to an unqualified claim that a single state-sponsored APT had been responsible for the same very large range of operations should have been accompanied by claims of substantial new intelligence, or at least a reference to the evidence underlying the dramatic new reversal. But no such proof ever arrived.
Scott McConnell, the spokesman for CISA, promised the Grazyzone on October 29 that he would provide someone to answer questions about the October 22 alert by the close of business Friday. In the end, however, no one from CISA responded, and there was no answer on McConnell’s line.
The peculiar reversal by the DHS and CISA on the hacking claims raise questions about the institutional considerations taken by these agencies. Did indications that President Donald Trump’s campaign was faltering inform their decision to issue a more stridently anti-Russian assessment in hopes of surviving a political transition?
The US officials who drew up the initial pre-election alert seemed keenly aware that despite that drumbeat of over the past two years, no state-sponsored Russian hacking of election institutions was underway. But as the Trump campaign sputtered, they had their own careers to consider. Days later, DHS and CISA declared the wily Russians guilty of yet another malign operations — one that would not require them to have slightest evidence to support, and that would be impossible for them to explain.
Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist who has covered national security policy since 2005 and was the recipient of Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in 2012. His most recent book is The CIA Insider’s Guide to the Iran Crisis co-authored with John Kiriakou, just published in February.
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