{"id":181828,"date":"2016-03-06T20:16:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-07T01:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/03\/06\/live-in-obedient-fear-citizen-40\/"},"modified":"2016-03-06T20:16:00","modified_gmt":"2016-03-07T01:16:00","slug":"live-in-obedient-fear-citizen-40","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/03\/06\/live-in-obedient-fear-citizen-40\/","title":{"rendered":"Live in Obedient Fear, Citizen!"},"content":{"rendered":"

The FBI has a new program to spy on high school students<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Under new guidelines, the FBI is instructing high schools across the country to report students who criticize government policies and \u201cwestern corruption\u201d as potential future terrorists, warning that \u201canarchist extremists\u201d are in the same category as ISIS and young people who are poor, immigrants or travel to \u201csuspicious\u201d countries are more likely to commit horrific violence.<\/p>\n

Based on the widely unpopular British \u201canti-terror\u201d mass surveillance program, the FBI\u2019s “Preventing Violent Extremism in Schools” guidelines<\/a>, released in January, are almost certainly designed to single out and target Muslim-American communities. However, in its caution to avoid the appearance of discrimination, the agency identifies risk factors that are so broad and vague that virtually any young person could be deemed dangerous and worthy of surveillance, especially if she is socio-economically marginalized or politically outspoken.<\/p>\n

This overwhelming threat is then used to justify a massive surveillance apparatus, wherein educators and pupils function as extensions of the FBI by watching and informing on each other.<\/p>\n

The FBI\u2019s justification for such surveillance is based on McCarthy-era theories of radicalization, in which authorities monitor thoughts and behaviors that they claim to lead to acts of violent subversion, even if those people being watched have not committed any wrongdoing. This model has been widely discredited as a violence prevention method, including by the U.S. government, but it is now being imported to schools nationwide as official federal policy.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/span>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

According to the FBI\u2019s educational materials<\/a> for teenagers, circulated as a visual aide to their new guidelines, the following offenses constitute signs that \u201ccould mean that someone plans to commit violence\u201d and therefore should be reported<\/a>: \u201cTalking about traveling to places that sound suspicious\u201d; \u201cUsing code words or unusual language\u201d; \u201cUsing several different cell phones and private messaging apps\u201d; and \u201cStudying or taking pictures of potential targets (like a government building).\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the category of domestic terrorists, the educational materials warn of the threat posed by \u201canarchist extremists<\/a>.\u201d The FBI states, \u201cAnarchist extremists believe that society should have no government, laws, or police, and they are loosely organized, with no central leadership\u2026 Violent anarchist extremists usually target symbols of capitalism they believe to be the cause of all problems in society\u2014such as large corporations, government organizations, and police agencies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similarly, \u201cAnimal Rights Extremists and Environmental Extremists<\/a>\u201d are placed alongside \u201cwhite supremacy extremists\u201d, ISIS and Al Qaeda as terrorists out to recruit high school students. The materials also instruct<\/a> students to watch out for extremist propaganda messages that communicate criticisms of “corrupt western nations” and express “government mistrust.\u201d <\/span>

<\/span>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span>At the surface level, the FBI\u2019s new guidelines do not appear to single out Muslim students. The document and supplementary educational materials warn of a broad array of threats, including anti-abortion and white supremacist extremists. The Jewish Defense League is listed alongside Hizbollah and Al Qaeda as an imminent danger to young people in the United States.<\/p>\n

But a closer read reveals that the FBI consistently invokes an Islamic threat without naming it. Cultural and religious differences, as well as criticisms of western imperialism, are repeatedly mentioned as risk factors for future extremism. \u201cSome immigrant families may not be sufficiently present in a youth\u2019s life due to work constraints to foster critical thinking,\u201d the guidelines state.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

BTW, the science also shows that these programs do not work, but that doesn’t stop lazy cops, and lazy school administrators, from using bigotry as a justification.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The FBI has a new program to spy on high school students: Under new guidelines, the FBI is instructing high schools across the country to report students who criticize government policies and \u201cwestern corruption\u201d as potential future terrorists, warning that \u201canarchist extremists\u201d are in the same category as ISIS and young people who are poor, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[968,969,1041,982,979],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-evil","category-law-enforcement-misconduct","category-stupid","category-wanker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181828"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181828\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}