Threats and Security

cartoon by Joel Pett for the Lexington Herald Leader

Comcast had a nationwide business phone outage during the first week of June. Thousands of companies that rely on landlines were out of luck for a couple of days. Comcast provides business and residential service in 40 states. An outage affecting that many states should have been a big story, but it wasn’t. You didn’t see it on the nightly news, or read about it in your local paper. I only know about it because it impacted my workplace for two days, and I had to dig to find the story. 

Comcast is a huge telecommunications company. They’re the top broadband service provider in the United States. Back in the olden days, we were wary of monopolies, so Ma Bell was busted up back in 1983. By 1940, Bell owned most of the telephone service in the US. An anti-trust lawsuit brought in 1974 alleged that Bell was using illegal practices to stifle competition. The settlement of that suit resulted in the 1983 divestiture.

Somewhere along the way, we stopped worrying about monopolies, and decided to let them flourish. As a result we have few local banks, even fewer independently owned commercial radio stations, and we have telecommunications monopolies that provide us with lousy service for extremely high costs.

The 40 state, two-day phone outage should serve as a cautionary tale. At a time when our president is talking about creating a new branch of the military to allegedly defend us from space, it’s worth noting that an enemy of the US could dismantle us by neutralizing the two biggest telecoms. They’re perfect targets. It would be so much easier to hit one giant company than 50 smaller ones. The resulting confusion and inability to communicate would mean we’d be hard pressed to defend ourselves, even if every gun totin’, gummint hating,  freedumb fighter got out their arsenals and started firing.

These monopolies should be regarded as what they are – a threat to our national security. Combine them with our crumbling infrastructure, and we’re in a big mess. The preferred course of action, however, is to give corporate America big tax breaks, fail to invest in our country, and continue to allow those mergers. The latest idea from our leader is to invest in a Space Force. What is it with these old Republican men? Reagan stuck us with Star Wars, the missile defense program that wasted over $260 billion taxpayer dollars and accomplished nothing. 

Our president has acknowledged that there was Russian interference in our last election, but far from being concerned, Congress opted to cut spending on election security. We continue to live in a past where the USA really is number one, and we are invulnerable. Or maybe this is just their way of letting us know that elections really don’t matter any more.

Telecommunications are not the only potential security weakness we have. Do you really believe that our nuclear power plants are amply protected from enemies? Samples of plutonium were stolen from a government contractor’s car last year in San Antonio. They’ve never been recovered. Earlier this year we learned that the airmen who guard nuclear missile silos were taking LSD and other drugs. The Air Force claims they weren’t using drugs while on duty. None of this inspires confidence.

 What about the power grid? We’ve been repeatedly warned that the grid was susceptible to a cyber attack. Ponder what would happen if a cyber attack on the grid were combined with an attack on a monopoly telecom.

Meanwhile, the TSA has a domestic surveillance program called, “Quiet Skies,” where Americans who are not suspected of any crime, but match behavioral criteria are being investigated by undercover air marshals who trail them. Fidgeting, facial flushing, or “a cold penetrating stare,” are all grounds for surveillance. This is intended to mitigate the threat to commercial aviation posed by unknown or partially unknown terrorists. In the face of very real threats to our elections and infrastructure, our choice is to spy on fidgety fliers. No information is being disclosed as to how successful this program is, if any terrorist plots have been foiled, or arrests made. If there had been, it would certainly be headline news.

The TSA is part of the Department of Homeland Security. The Department of Homeland Security has an annual budget of more than  $41 billion. The department refuses to be audited. No transparency for we the taxpayers. Still, don’t give a cold, penetrating stare to the next representative of DHS that you see, or a US Marshal will be following you home.

While we debate about whether climate change is real or not, other countries are embracing science and technology and moving forward into the future. They’re leaving us behind in the dust of our egotistical past. 

Published as an op-ed in the August 3, 2018 edition of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper

Tanks for the Memories

Last year it was Keene. This year it’s Concord, trying to get a grant for over $250,000 from the Dept. of Homeland Security to buy a LENCO BearCat G3, an armored police vehicle (often called a “tank”). The BearCat could be used in the case of terrorist activity, including chemical weapons and gases, as well as weapons.

LENCO is, thanks to the Dept. of Homeland Security, the leading purveyor of armored vehicles in the US. The huge grants given out by the Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) to buy these vehicles have put LENCO firmly on the world map as a contractor.  Defense contractors that have been scoring big taxpayer dollars from the Pentagon are now trying to move into the lucrative market of arming police forces. We’ve seen an increase in the militarization of the police since 9/11. Vast sums of “homeland security” money have gone to  potential terrorist targets like Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.

Keene received a grant for $285,933 to purchase the BearCat. Keene has a population of about 23,000. It’s not exactly a hotbed of criminal activity. There have been about 2 murders in the last decade. Why did the police need a $300,000 armored vehicle? They didn’t. But they could have one, and that’s the difference. The money is there, and police love shiny new toys more than just about anything. That’s why the war on drugs is still being funded, not because it’s a success, but because police departments rely on the funds they get to perpetuate it.

The increasing militarization of police should be of concern to us all. When the Boston PD broke up the Boston Occupy encampment, they had a sound cannon with them. The LRAD (Long Range Acoustic Device) can produce sounds that induce pain, and can result in permanent auditory damage. The LRAD is commonly known as a sound cannon. They’ve been used by the US military against Somali pirates. US police departments have used them to attack non-violent protestors. The sound cannon brought to the Boston Occupy encampment wasn’t used on the unarmed, nonviolent protestors. Not that day, anyhow. In 2011, an LRAD was used when the Oakland police busted up the Oakland Occupy encampment. One was used against Occupy Wall St. protestors. An LRAD was used during a NATO march in Chicago in 2012. A portable LRAD was used on nonviolent protestors this year in the capitol building in Madison, WI. Police across the country are responding with increasing violence to non-violent protests.

The widespread use of the oxymoronically named Free Speech Zones during the Bush administration was the first sign that our Constitutional rights to peaceably assemble were under attack. Anti-war protestors were put in these zones, to keep them from getting media attention. Political protestors were kept out of the view of the media and visiting dignitaries. The Bushistas were desperate to sanitize the media viewpoint for their protection.

The ginning up of fear around terrorism has been steady and constant since 9/11. That manipulation translates into the bulk of our tax dollars being spent on defense and homeland security. It’s also worth pointing out that the Dept. of Defense and the Dept. of Homeland Security are the only cabinet level agencies that cannot pass an audit. We the people have no way of knowing where our money is going, or what it’s being used to do in our name.

Meanwhile, we’re being told that we have to cut food stamps and Social Security because “we’re broke.” Yet we aren’t too broke to buy tanks for small town police departments. Funny how we never hear the conservatives who cry about food stamps saying a word about shoveling money at defense contractors. We can afford weapons. We just can’t afford poor people. A mindset that only serves to increase the population of impoverished US citizens.

Does the Concord PD need a BearCat? About as much as Keene did. The grant will cover the price of the vehicle, but the Concord taxpayers will be the ones paying for the care and feeding of the tank. A friend in Keene tells me that the Keene Bearcat has never been out. Various suggestions have been made at City Council meetings about what to do with it, including using it as a planter in Central Square. Given the trouble that the meter readers in Keene are having with harassment by the Free Keene branch of the Free State Project, perhaps the meter readers could use while they work.

That leads us to the second part of the story. Chief Duval of the Concord PD cited groups like Sovereign Citizens, NH Occupy, and the Free State Project as potential agents of domestic terrorism. The Sovereign Citizens movement does have a history of racism and violence. Occupy does not. Occupy was/is a very intentionally non-violent movement. Occupy NH fell apart because it was co-opted by members of the Free State Project, people who insisted on wearing guns to meetings and events. There were peaceful Occupiers who were uncomfortable with this, but the FSP’ers weren’t willing to leave their strap-ons at home, because FREEDUMB. They have the “right” and that’s all that matters. Their rights always trump those of others. The group splintered into the guns and gun nots and that was the end of that. Citing Occupy as a group with domestic terrorist potential is completely wrongheaded. If Chief Duval can come up with an act of violence perpetuated by a NH Occupy group, I’d be interested to hear about it.

Of course the same is true of the Free State Project. They haven’t engaged in any acts of domestic terrorism, either. They are an armed group of insurgents moving in with the intention of taking over our state – but so far they haven’t hurt anyone. They openly disdain our laws and our courts, and they harass the police whenever possible, but again, so far they haven’t hurt anyone.  By naming them on the grant application, Chief Duval has given them the greatest gift possible - the opportunity to do what they love best: crying victim.  The story of the tank is now all about the Free Staters. The wasteful use of our tax dollars, the outrageous amounts of money DHS appears to have to give away, the skewed priorities that this spending reveals are all going to be obscured by the ceaseless whining of the FSP.

BearCat fever hasn’t spread to the North Country yet. Who will be the first? Chatham? Albany? I’m pinning my hopes on Hart’s Location.



© sbruce 2013  Published as a regular biweekly column in the Conway Daily Sun newspaper.

The Cult of Perpetual Victimhood

Right now the Free Staters must be happier than pigs in poo. The City of Concord, NH gave them an opportunity to engage in the two things they love most: crying about what victims they are, and relentless media whoring. 

The City of Concord has applied to the Dept. of Homeland Security for a grant to purchase a Lenco Armored Bearcat, which is also described as a tank. From Mother Jones: 

In an application to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) seeking more than $250,000 to purchase an armored police vehicle, the capital city of New Hampshire specified the local branch of the Occupy movement and the Free State Project, an effort to recruit "liberty-loving people" to relocate to the Granite State, as potential sources of terrorist action.

"The State of New Hampshire's experience with terrorism slants primarily towards the domestic type," the filing reads. "We are fortunate that our State has not been victimized from a mass casualty event from an international terrorism strike however on the domestic front, the threat is real and here. Groups such as the Sovereign Citizens, Free Staters and Occupy New Hampshire are active and present daily challenges."

The wailing, moaning, and gnashing of teeth from the FSP began immediately. FSP President Carla Gericke demanded an apology, in her trademark drama queen style, complete with the threat that her letter will be sent to all of their media contacts. It's surprising that she hasn't yet filed a lawsuit. Gericke is a lawyer, though she's no longer able to practice law in the state of California where she emigrated from. Regular readers will remember how the Free Staters crowed when they were able to influence the vote in the town of Weare to cut the police overtime budget. They were congratulating themselves on saving the town money. The very next day, Carla Gericke filed a 32 count lawsuit against the town, thereby negating any potential savings.

Now, to be clear, I am opposed to the town of Concord getting a tank. I'm concerned by the ongoing militarization of the police in this country. I'm also concerned that the Dept. of Homeland Security clearly has more money than it knows what to do with. DHS has only been around for about 8 years, yet they cannot pass an audit. Can't or won't. Given the kind of deals they're making with contractors it's likely that they wish to avoid public scrutiny. DHS has really put LENCO on the map, as The Equinox discovered, when the city of Keene was gearing up to purchase a Bearcat. On this much the Free Staters and I are in agreement. Sadly, now this whole issue is all about them. The Concord PD has given them the opportunity to nail themselves to the cross, and they're running with it. 

Occupy was cited as a potential threat. Occupy NH fell apart because of the Free State Project. Occupy was very specifically a non-violent movement. Free Staters who got involved refused to leave their guns at home. They insisted on wearing them at meetings, even when asked not to. It was "their right" - and when it comes to the FSP, their rights always trump the rights others. That they were making others uncomfortable didn't concern them, because FREEDUMB! Apparently one's cup of Libertea isn't served with a side dish of good manners. 

As for the Free Staters - it's true that they haven't engaged in any domestic terrorism, thus far. They claim to be a peaceful entity, though one wonders at how a group of armed colonizers can claim to have peaceful intent. (The white Europeans who colonized the west told the Indians the same thing.) I witnessed Free Staters at the near riot by gun nuts in Concord in June. They were part of the group that were shrieking at a group of unarmed people trying to have a solemn memorial vigil. They were bellowing at speakers and trying to drown them out. Is that how people intent on "peace and liberty" behave? 

So far, the answer is yes. That is how they behave, because their rights supersede those of others. Always. And the opportunity to cry victim is the very best gift that the City of Concord could have given them. When a NH State Rep aired some of her concerns about the FSP, they cried about it for months. For a good six months they flogged that horse until it was dead, had decomposed, and returned to the dust from whence it came. How dare anyone speak a word against them? OMG IT WAS THE WORST THING EVER! The poor victims of the FSP cannot tolerate Free Speech - not when it comes to anyone having the audacity to criticize them - or tell the truth about them. That they are affiliated with the John Birch Society (a known hate group), and a number of Koch Brothers funded entities is true - but they go into screaming banshee mode when it is pointed out. They are thin skinned and intolerant, as they've demonstrated time and time again. 

Thanks to the Concord PD, they have the opportunity to do it all over again. So, watch where you put your feet down, friends, because there are apt to be pearls all over the ground from all the clutching going on. 

Here's a group of Free Staters in front of the NH State House on July 4. One is reading a speech written by Adam Kokesh, a libertarian activist, who directed people around the country to read his speech in their state. The guy who is reading, clearly has the courage of his conviction, given the bandana he's wearing to obscure his face. Unfortunately, the bandana also makes him sound as if Charlie Brown's teacher is rather ineptly reading a speech from an iphone: 

It's a shame that the FSP lacks any ability for self reflection. They are an armed group coming to take over the state. Can they REALLY be surprised that some might consider them potential domestic terrorists?