Well, thank heavens the FBI isn’t just spending time busting bong salesman, but instead is focusing in on a true homeland security menace … high school protesters.
Huh?
It seems (and I can’t find anything else yet on this save the Salon entry) that plans for a peaceful protest at a Massachusetts high school were mentioned on-line by a student. The FBI spotted it, and alerted local police to investigate.
First off, if there was going to be a protest march, the police might be interested — but that’s their call to investigate (and a wise tactic of the student organizers to let them know beforehand). Why is the FBI getting involved in a local, non-criminal occurance like this?
Don’t they have, I don’t know, some terrorists to hunt down? Or something?
(via Scott)
It seem’s the FBI have been busy doing all sorts of things like this…I mean protecting the “Homeland”. I first read the report of FBI spy flights in the IU newspaper, but the site seems to be down today (03/06/03).
The Hoosier times had this little Blurb about it. Democracy Now! had a report on it the other day.
Their site has this little blip on it
Yesterday we reported that the FBI has been secretly flying a high-tech spy plane to monitor residents of the city of Bloomington and neighboring communities in Indiana. The flights began over two weeks ago.
The FBI is claiming this surveillance is routine. An agent told an Indiana University newspaper, “This one just happened to make the light of day because a plane flew too low.”
Two FBI agents also told the Associated Press they are not aware of any threat to the region, but confirmed the FBI was watching many international students who might have connections to terrorists. One local Muslim leader said the planes were targeting area mosques.
Well we have since learned that the FBI plane has also been hovering over a weekly anti-war protest in Bloomington. Here’s what some Bloomington residents had to say about the FBI’s aerial surveillance.
Jeff Melton, professor at Ivy Tech in Bloomington who saw the FBI plane at last week’s peace vigil.
Amr Sabry, president of the Islamic Center of Bloomington and associate professor at Indiana University.
(Shakes head.)
In case it needs saying, one can be in favor of war on Iraq without being in favor of this sort of idiocy.
And it’s just this sort of abuse of power and off-task shenanigans that will, just like it did after the 60s, lead to a new emmasculation of the FBI, which in turn will leave us vulnerable to real threats.
Idiots.
Like I said, they’re gathering all the tools for a fascist dictatorship and it looks like they’ve got the attitude comin’ on strong. Wonderful.