Public Enemy Number One?
The question that must be asked, of course, is whom exactly is the TSA trying to target and intimidate? Not would-be terrorists, given that scattershot pat-down stings are unlikely to apprehend or deter terrorists.240
In light of the fact that average citizens are the ones receiving the brunt of the TSA's efforts, it stands to reason that we've become public enemy number one. We are all suspects. And how does the TSA deal with perceived threats? Its motto, posted at the TSA's air marshal training center headquarters in the wake of 9/11, is particularly telling: "Dominate. Intimidate. Control."241
Those three words effectively sum up the manner in which the government now relates to its citizens, making a travesty of every democratic ideal our representatives spout so glibly and reinforcing the specter of the police state. After all, no government that truly respects or values its citizens would subject them to such intrusive, dehumanizing, demoralizing, suspicionless searches. Yet by taking the TSAs airport screenings nationwide with VIPR and inserting the type of abusive authoritarianism already present in airports into countless other sectors of American life, the government is expanding the physical and psychological scope of the police state apparatus.
Security Theater
VIPR activities epitomize exactly the kind of farcical security theater the government has come to favor through its use of coded color alerts and other largely superficial and meaningless maneuvers. These stings do, however, inculcate and condition citizens to a culture of submissiveness towards authority and regularize intrusive, suspicionless searches as a facet of everyday life. In April 2010, for instance, at a Tampa bus station, VIPR patted down passengers and used dogs to search the luggage.242 That type of small-scale, random operation provides little actual value but does impart to some citizens a false sense of security. A passenger in Tampa, for instance, commented, "I feel safe, knowing that I get on a bus and I'm not going to blow up."243
It's an ingenious plan: the incremental ratcheting-up of intrusive searches combined with the gradual rollout of VIPR teams permits the normalization of the TSA's police state tactics while inciting minimal resistance, thereby muting dissent and enabling the ultimate implementation of totalitarian-style authoritarianism.
VIPR Teams (AP Photo/Yuri Gripas)
Sadly, this repeated degradation by government officials of Americans engaged in common activities inevitably normalizes what is essentially an abusive relationship to such an extent that government agents are permitted to trample Americans' constitutional rights with impunity. And those abused are prevented even from protesting. Reinforcing this latter point is the TSAs admission that those who merely exercise their First Amendment rights by complaining about intrusive airport security exhibit a behavioral indicator of a "high risk" passenger that, in combination with other behavioral indicators, warrants additional screening.244
There is also a chilling effect to TSA activity. For instance, when a group of peace protesters composed of high school students and Catholic priests and nuns were detained at an airport after showing up on a federal watch list, a sheriff's deputy, according to one member of the group, explained, "You're probably being stopped because you are a peace group and you're protesting against your country."245
TSA and VIPR searches also indoctrinate children to accept pat downs, full-body scans, and other invasive procedures as a regular component of the relationship between government and its citizens. In this way, Orwellian police state tactics will gradually grow in acceptance as simply "the way things are." A child who has been molested by government officials since before he could read is unlikely to question such activities as an unjustified exercise of authority when an adult.
Furthermore, the normalization of intrusive searches arguably reworks the content of the protections provided by the Constitution, particularly the Fourth Amendment. Increasing use of pat downs and other controversial screening procedures changes the definition of what is a "reasonable" search and seizure from a cultural perspective and therefore actually re-engineers the constitutional fabric by altering the definition of what is "reasonable" under the Fourth Amendment.
Black Hawks over America
Obviously the bedrock of the American republic is fracturing. The Constitution is being eviscerated by government leaders and their corporate allies. The system of checks and balances embodied in that document, the mechanism which prevents the United States from sliding into tyranny, is eroding. The walls separating the three branches of government, as well as those separating the government from corporations and the military, have collapsed. With the rise of the national security state, this process has accelerated. Now, thanks to the collusion between domestic police forces and the military, we are being subjected to an onslaught of VIPR and military drills carried out in major American cities, SWAT team raids on unsuspecting homeowners, and Black Hawk Helicopters Take to the Skies Black Hawk Helicopters patrolling American skies.
Black Hawk Helicopters Take to the Skies
(U.S. Department of Defense)
Throughout 2011 and into 2012, for example, cities such as Boston,246 Miami,247 Little Rock,248 and Los Angeles249 have all served as staging grounds for military training exercises involving Black Hawk helicopters and uniformed soldiers. These military training exercises occur in the middle of the night, with the full cooperation of the local police forces and generally without forewarning the public. They involve helicopters buzzing buildings and performing landing and takeoff maneuvers.
Justified on the grounds that they prepare troops for urban warfare situations and future deployments, these training exercises also condition Americans to an environment in which the buzz of Black Hawk helicopters and the sight of armed forces rappelling onto buildings is commonplace.
CHAPTER 11
The New York Prototype
"I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world. I have my own State Department, much to Foggy Bottom's annoyance. We have the United Nations in New York, and so we have an entree into the diplomatic world that Washington does not have."250–MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG
NYPD Police Officers (Burger International Photography)
New York City has long been celebrated as the cultural capital of the world, renowned for its art, music, and film. The "city that never sleeps," however, is serving as the staging ground for a fast-evolving police state through the use of cutting-edge technology, sophisticated surveillance, random crackdowns, and old-fashioned scare tactics, all of which keep New Yorkers in a state of compliance. A 60 Minutes report describes the police state atmosphere: "At random, 100 police cars will swarm parts of the town just to make a scene. It happens with complete unpredictability. Cops signal subway trains to stop to be searched. And sometimes they hold the trains until they've eyeballed every passenger."251
A Dangerous Leviathan
Some New Yorkers can see the dangerous leviathan that is wrapping its tentacles around the Bill of Rights. Representative Yvette Clarke of Brooklyn notes, "We're quickly moving to an apartheid situation here in the city of New York where we don't recognize the civil liberties and the civil rights of all New Yorkers."252 Indeed, boasting a $4.5 billion budget,253 a counterterrorism unit that includes 35,000 uniformed police officers and 15,000 civilians,254 and a $3 billion joint operations center with representatives from the FBI, FEMA, and the military,255 the New York Police Department (NYPD) operates much like an autonomous Department of Homeland Security–only without the constraints of the Constitution. The capabilities of the department are astounding. The leviathan can even take down an aircraft should the need arise.256
The NYPD has radiation detectors on their boats, helicopters, and officers' belts that are so sensitive they even alert officers to citizens who have had radiation treatment for medical reasons. Moreover, the NYPD has a $150 million surveillance system comprised of a network of more than 2000 cameras, monitored by an advanced computer system that can detect suspicious packa
ges.257 The NYPD also possesses portable scanners created in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Defense that can peer under people's clothing as they walk the streets.258
Minority Report?
In yet another partnership, this time with Microsoft, the NYPD is working to develop a Minority Report-type program that would allow law enforcement to collate various surveillance feeds in an effort to better target potential criminals. Dubbed the Domain Awareness System, the spy program "will allow police to quickly collate and visualise vast amounts of data from cameras, licence plate readers, 911 calls, police databases, and other sources."259
An NYPD Stop and Frisk (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
The system, which cost $30-40 million to develop, relies on 3,000 Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras positioned throughout the city, as well as a network of 2,600 radiation detectors.260 Watchful government eyes can track a suspicious package or person over a number of days throughout the city by cross-referencing video feeds, license plate identifications, and criminal records. The system can, for example, pull up all recorded images of someone wearing a red shirt, thus streamlining the process of tracking New Yorkers.261 And if a suspect's car is located via a license plate reader, the system will bring up not only its current location, but its past locations. The system will also consider "all other plates that have ever been scanned in the vicinity of the target vehicle within a 60-second window, allowing officers to determine if a culprit might be part of a larger, theretofore unknown caravan."262
With such an expansive amount of information being gathered under such dubious circumstances, this sophisticated surveillance program makes spying on civilians a routine part of the job for all law enforcement officials, not just the NYPD. (New York City and Microsoft intend to shop the jointly produced software to other cities, with New York City getting a 30% cut of the profits.263) But it will be par for the course in the near future.
Profiling, NYPD Style
In addition to its overt surveillance programs, the NYPD has also gained notoriety in recent years for its overt racial profiling, a spying program which targets Muslim communities and political activists, and a stop-and-frisk program that has targeted more than 4 million New Yorkers–the majority of whom were black or Latino and had done nothing wrong–over the course of the past decade or so.264
Cracking Down on Protesters (Angel Chevrestt / New York Daily News)
In 2011 alone, 684,330 people were stopped and frisked by the police: 88% were totally innocent. Of those stopped, the majority were either black or Latino.265
Building on the NYPD's blatant practice of racial profiling, police officers in New York have also initiated a spying program which includes amassing data on New York Muslims, such as where they buy groceries and which cafes they visit.266 Among the tactics employed by the NYPD include the use of so-called "mosque crawlers," who document activities taking place at mosques; "rakers," who spy on Muslims in cafes and bookstores within the Muslim community267 (both involve clear violations of state laws against religious profiling); and the forcible detention and recruiting of informants, who are threatened with arrest unless they comply with police demands.268
Cracking Down on Protesters
The NYPD is also infamous for its historic crackdowns on protesters, dating back to the 2004 Republican National Convention when 1,806 protesters were arrested (most of the arrests were later thrown out at a cost of $8 million to the city).269 More recently, the NYPD flexed its substantial muscles to not only minimize the efforts of Occupy Wall Street protesters but also keep the media at a distance. One photographer who tried to take a picture of a bloodied protester being dragged away by police found himself slammed into a barricade and informed that he wasn't allowed to take photos.270
Loving Big Brother
What's happening in New York illustrates how easily people are led into the Orwellian illusion that security should trump freedom. However, as past regimes illustrate, such security measures eventually become tools of terror against the citizens themselves. "There are no safeguards to ensure that the NYPD doesn't break the law," warned author Leonard Levitt. "So far as I know, there are no mechanisms in place to ensure that the NYPD does not become a rogue organization."271
One thing is clear: if we as Americans continue to play into the desires of the government elite, if we continue to give credence to the political rat race, the foreign wars, the outrageous government spending, and the rigid conditioning of school children, we are simply digging our own graves. And on our tombstones it would be appropriate to have inscribed: "Here lie those who refused to listen to the warnings and speak up when freedom hung in the balance." And beneath that will be inscribed the last sentence in Orwell's 1984, which describes Winston Smith following his re-education by the government. It reads simply: "He loved Big Brother."
CHAPTER 12
The Matrix: Where They Live
"The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it."
– Morpheus, The Matrix
Technology is developing at such a rapid pace that it is inconceivable that mere human beings can control it. What has prompted such rapidity? The pressure, fear, and uncertainty resulting from the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath. War, fear of war and/or terrorist attacks "have always been considered the main incentives," writes media analyst Marshall McLuhan, "to the technological extension of our bodies." Furthermore:
More even than the preparation for war, the aftermath of invasion is a rich technological period; because the subject culture has to adjust all its sense ratios to accommodate the impact of the invading culture. It is from such intensive hybrid exchange and strife of ideas and forms that the greatest social energies are released, and from which arise the greatest technologies.273
Combine America's expanding overseas military empire (where technology is tested for domestic use) with a fear of potential terrorist attacks (or "invasions"), and the resulting proliferation of invasive technologies that are littering the national landscape is explainable. The problem such technologies–what McLuhan calls "extensions of man"–pose is that they are so advanced as to operate autonomously. As a result, we are increasingly caught in an electronic concentration camp.
Cue The Matrix. In the 1999 film, computer programmer Thomas A. Anderson is secretly a hacker known as "Neo," who is intrigued by the cryptic references to the "Matrix" that appear on his computer. Eventually, Neo learns that intelligent computer systems which were created in the twenty-first century are acting autonomously and have taken control of all life on earth and now watch and control everyone. These computer systems harvest the bio-electrical energy of humans who are kept docile and distracted by the illusions that the entertainment media provides. And when Neo joins a resistance group led by Morpheus, he finds out that the police are more than willing to crack heads to keep dissidents in line with the status quo.
As this section will reveal, the U.S. government has an arsenal of technology that not only eviscerates the last vestiges of our privacy but controls us as well. No matter what you say, write, or do, there is a good chance that Big Brother–or perhaps more appropriately "Peeping Sam"– knows it. But why no outcry from the major media outlets? Why no alerts from those talking heads on television? Could it be that those who control the corporate media in conjunction with the government want to keep us distracted from the nefarious reality that surrounds us?
This was the essential plot of director John Carpenter's 1988 film They Live, where a group of down and out homeless men discover that people have been, in effect, so hypnotized by media distractions that they do not see that alien cr
eatures control them. Caught up in the subliminal messages such as "obey" and "conform" being beamed out on television, billboards, and the like, people are unaware of the elite controlling their lives. And, of course, resistance is met with police aggression.
Carpenter, who also wrote the film's screenplay, was reacting to the commercialization of popular culture and politics. "I began watching TV again," said Carpenter. "I quickly realized that everything we see is designed to sell us something... The only thing they want to do is take our money"274 Thus, the film echoes the mindless consumption of modern American culture that is engineered through the corporate media.
Again, as we have seen with other novels and films, the realms of fiction have now become our reality. Numb to the onslaught of technology, many continue to consume and smile as those who administer the electronic concentration camp invade every aspect of our lives. Although we live in a matrix administered by our own controllers, there is yet time to educate ourselves and take action. The reason "they live" is because we sleep. Time to wake up.
CHAPTER 13
The Federal "Gestapo"?
"The minute the FBI begins making recommendations on what should be done with its information, it becomes a Gestapo."275-J. EDGAR HOOVER (July 14, 1955]
If America is an electronic concentration camp, the FBI and its many agents are our wardens.
Sadly, the history of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the history of how America–once a nation that abided by the rule of law and held the government accountable for its actions–has steadily devolved into a police state where laws are unidirectional and intended as a tool for government to control the people.
A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State Page 9
