Lawsuit Over DHS First Amendment-Violating Suspicious Activity Reports Given Green Light By Judge
from the Get-a-job,-terrorist! dept
Say what you will about the internet, but the nation's best conspiracy theorists are employed by the US government. A case involving five individuals who ended up in DHS Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) is being allowed to move forward. What's remarkable about the lawsuit's allegations is how little it takes to find yourself on the receiving end of extra surveillance and attention.
At the heart of the lawsuit are the SARs themselves -- the paperwork generated with the assistance of "see something, say something" tips from civilians, anything law enforcement/security guards consider to be a "bit off," and the many scattered DHS Fusion Centers' desire to appear useful and fundable.
Case in point: California resident Wiley Gill.
Lead plaintiff Wiley Gill is a white man who converted to Islam as a student at California State University, Chico, and he drew the attention of the Chico Police Department in May 2012. (Chico is about 180 miles due north of San Francisco.) According to the SAR about Gill, the officer entered Gill’s residence in response to an apparent domestic violence incident (Gill was home alone). The officer then saw on a webpage “titled something similar to ‘Games that fly under the radar’" on Gill’s computer.Unemployed. Doesn't hang out with cops. Plays games and uses the internet. All inherently suspicious because of this tenuous thread: the 9/11 terrorists used flight simulators to train for their attacks. (The SAR guidelines warn that "acquisition of expertise" related to "aviation activity" is suspicious enough to be awarded a capital "S.") Had the Chico Police Dept. bothered to toss a little respect the Fourth Amendment's way, Gill would likely be nothing more than just some guy looking for a job rather than currently involved in a federal civil rights lawsuit over government surveillance.
"Coupled with the fact he is unemployed, appears to shun law enforcement contact, has potential access to flight simulators via the Internet which he tried to minimize is worthy of note," the SAR, entitled "Suspicious Male Subject in Possession of Flight Simulator Game," concludes.
This tiny bit of unrelated "data" was gathered by the Chico PD, which entered Gill's residence without a warrant or his consent. According to the lawsuit filed by the ACLU, the "domestic violence call" that predicated the search of Gill's residence was likely bogus and only used as justification to search a residence the CPD planned to search anyway. For the better part of two years, Gill had several previous "interactions" with Chico police officers, almost all of them based solely on his appearance ("full beard and traditional garb," "pious demeanor") and religious activities.
Gill did nothing more than "look Muslim" and play videogames. Other plaintiffs did little more than commit photography.
Internationally-renowned photographer (and former Sara Lee/Levi's executive), James Prigoff, became the subject of a Suspicious Activity Report for trying to take photographs of something that has been previously photographed hundreds of times without incident: the "Rainbow Swash" painting that adorns a Boston oil refinery's storage tank. Prigoff was approached by the company's security guards and told he couldn't photograph the oft-photographed storage tank. Despite leaving and providing no contact information, Prigoff was visited by a member of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force shortly after returning to his home in Sacramento.
Plaintiff Aaron Conklin, a graphic design student, was approached by sheriff's deputies while photographing a refinery. He was told he would be put on a "NSA watchlist."
Sometimes, all it takes to appear suspicious enough to report is to stay in the same area for an indeterminate amount of time. Another plaintiff, Tariq Razak, was described by the reporting agency as "surveying entry/exit points" of the Santa Ana Train Depot before leaving with a woman wearing "a white burka head dress." In reality, he was really waiting for mother ("white burka"), who was using the restroom.
Sometimes just doing your job can put you on a watchlist.
Khaled Ibrahim is a U.S. citizen of Egyptian descent who works for a computer network consulting and service company in Silicon Valley, California. Mr. Ibrahim is the subject of a SAR that the ACLU of Northern California obtained through a Public Records Act request. The SAR describes a “[s]uspicious attempt to purchase large number of computers.” Mr. Ibrahim had attempted to make a bulk purchase of computers from Best Buy in his capacity as a purchasing agent for his company.The government's ideas of what might be terrorist-related activity continues to expand. And even as the DHS plumbs the depths of absurdity with its SARs, the real terrorists remain unaffected. As the ACLU notes in its lawsuit on behalf of the five plaintiffs, the GAO itself has called the program worthless, noting that it has produced nothing in the way of "results-oriented outcomes" (arrests, indictments, thwarted attacks) but has done plenty of damage to Americans' civil liberties.
But the DHS clearly wants to continue violating rights while producing no results. The government moved to dismiss this lawsuit, claiming none of the plaintiffs can prove a "legally cognizable injury" and attempted to put the blame back on the shoulders of local law enforcement agencies. This didn't sit well with Judge Richard Seeborg.
Defendants primarily frame their challenge to plaintiffs’ standing as a purported failure to allege facts showing causation and redressability. Defendants’ argument characterizes plaintiffs’ supposed injuries as arising, if at all, primarily from the actions of the “front line” state and local law enforcement authorities. Defendants contend plaintiffs have not alleged, and credibly cannot, that the scrutiny they purportedly received from state and local police, or even from private security personnel, was the result of the challenged protocols or other conduct of defendants.The lawsuit will move forward, dragging along with it the tattered reputation of the DHS and its GAO-condemned "Fusion Centers." When it takes little more than a religious belief and a browser window containing details on flight sim software to raise someone to the level of "terrorist," the underlying system is not only broken, but swiftly becoming an easy-to-use tool for racial and religious profiling. And when the fear of terrorist attacks is used as a crutch to shut down First Amendment activity, the government itself has gone as far off the rails as those who remain convinced the 9/11 attacks were an inside job. They both gather around the same rally point -- the smoking ruins of a terrorist attack -- and see nothing in their fellow citizens but enemies on the verge of violence.
The allegations of the complaint, however, show that the gravamen of the alleged injuries lie not in actions of “front line” authorities standing alone, but in the fact that those authorities, pursuant to the guidance and training provided by defendants, submit SAR reports under criteria and circumstances that are allegedly inconsistent with legal principles and policies embodied in other law. Plaintiffs’ cognizable challenge is not to the conduct of law enforcement or private security officers during the alleged encounters per se, although there is at least some implication that plaintiffs believe Defendants’ Standards lead front line personnel to overreach even at the point of making initial observations. Plaintiffs are claiming injury from what occurs AFTER the encounters, pursuant to the Standards. As such, defendants’ contentions as to causality and redressability both fail.
The harms plaintiffs seek to remedy arise directly from the existence of Defendants’ Standards. If plaintiffs can show those standards violate the APA, they will be declared invalid.
While invoking causality and redressability as the main purported shortcomings of plaintiffs’ standing, defendants also imply that merely being the subject of an SAR, in the national database, should not be deemed a cognizable injury. In light of the privacy and reputational interests involved, however, this argument is not tenable.
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Filed Under: dhs, first amendment, homeland security, sars, suspicious activity reports, wiley gill
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Lone wolf hype
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>people who think 9/11 was an inside job
https://vimeo.com/117440574
Skip to @1:29:36
Comment @1:30:10
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Paralell Construction
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Nothing to worry about
Just like being on the No Fly List is not a "cognizable injury". After all, you're still free to drive cross country in the The Wagon Queen Family Truckster!
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Very bad comparison
"...the government itself has gone as far off the rails as those who remain convinced the 9/11 attacks were an inside job."
Considering the shitload of good solid evidence pointing to insider involvement in 9/11, and considering there's absolutely no possibility the U.S. government told the truth about any of it, your choice of comparison is one of the most clueless things I've read today.
So many have woken up about 9/11, and other connected events. Alas, so many have not.
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Re: Very bad comparison
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Re: Re: Very bad comparison
And I don't believe North Korea hacked Sony and I believe TWA 800 was shot down by a missile (and I'm still not sure Obama qualifies to run for president, but I'm willing to let that one go)...
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Re: Re: Very bad comparison
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Re: Very bad comparison
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Re: Re: Re: Very bad comparison
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Re: Re: Re: Very bad comparison
Readers of infowars.com and whatreallyhappened.com take note of this! Techdirt writers think you're "far off the rails"!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Very bad comparison
First, that you haven't heard it proves absolutely nothing. Ignorance is bliss.
Ever hear of NORAD? Was supposed to prevent planes being used as weapons, by shooting them down, armed fighters were kept on hot standby. But on 9-11-2001, NO fighters went up for first hour.
However, it's useless here trying to convince wimps like PRMan who refuse to even consider that the government may be far worse than they can handle.
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Re: Re: Re: Very bad comparison
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Very bad comparison
Why not do both, you ask? Because reality-challenged conspiracy theorists waste time and energy that could be spent working against documented abuses, and they give abusers an opportunity to put all those critical of government abuse in the "nutjob conspiracy theorist" camp. In fact, if I were conspiracy-minded, I'd say that InfoWars is a government plot to make conspiracy theorists look bad. ...
Wait. Suddenly it's all becoming clear to me... OMFSM.
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Re: Very bad comparison
What is the official story about the Anthrax attacks (that were used to get the Patriot Act passed without debate)? Didn't I read somewhere that the source was identified as US military?
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Re: Re: Very bad comparison
So, what I'll do is get you to ask yourself in return, where's the supporting evidence for the "official story"? I'll even help you get started. Do you have proof that any of the following components of the "official story" are even possible?...
1. 19 Arabs/Muslims armed with boxcutters, led by Osama bin Laden, took down the world's most extensive multi-billion-dollar defense system without a challenge.
2. 2 planes knocked down 7 buildings, leaving no visible trace of planes, passengers, office furnishings, and pulverizing everything to a fine powder.
3. 4 planes crashed and completely disappeared.
4. 3 steel-framed buildings collapsed, marking a first, second and third in history that a skyscraper has ever done that.
5. a 757 crashed through and disappeared, without a trace, through the ground floor of the Pentagon, leaving a 16-foot diameter hole (check the dimensions of a 757) and no broken windows, while the lawn remained pristine. A half-hour later there was a "collapse".
If you ask me, the government's account of 9/11 is a much less plausible conspiracy theory. Anyone who doesn't see that needs an education. Don't answer me, answer yourselves.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Very bad comparison
It is possible that CIA-insider/Oil-interested Bush family conspired with their Saudi friends to engineer it as an effective coup. It did result in a transfer of power to the CIA and Carlisle Group etc. It also justified the decades-long adventure into oil/opium country. And a lot of inconvenient people and documents went away with the towers.
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Re: Re: Re: Very bad comparison
Do you enjoy trolling?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Very bad comparison
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Trolling?!
I'll spell it out for you...
4 planes were reported to have been hijacked and crashed. 3 of them were reported crashed into buildings, while the 4th was reported to have gone down in an open field.
No plane debris was ever actually shown to have survived. Nor were any remains of the passengers or their luggage ever confirmed. Even in Shanksville, where no building was involved, we were told to believe the plane had hit the ground and just "vaporized".
All of the anomalies I've listed (and there are hundreds more I haven't) are both incompatible with physical laws and unprecedented.
Skyscrapers have never fallen from fire or plane crashes before 9/11, and have yet to fall again since that day. Similarly, the only time planes have ever disappeared at a crash site was 9/11.
Of the 19 supposed hijackers, pictured in the government poster, at least 7 of them were confirmed alive after 9/11. A few of them even contacted news agencies asking to present the question to the U.S of why they were being shown to the world as terrorists.
As for Osama bin Laden, it was reported in July of 2001 he was in a Dubai hospital being treated for kidney failure. There were later a few reports in December of 2001 that he had died of renal failure, which would be reinforce the July story. Alas, being "killed by a Navy Seal and tossed in the ocean" seems like a more believable story for half of America.
Look, I'm not going to hijack this thread trying to educate people on 9/11. A properly functioning brain can easily see the lies.
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Re: Trolling?!
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Re: Re: Very bad comparison
I believe the first one was Bruce Ivins, who apparently killed himself before being brought to trial. There was also an Egyptian scientist at Fort Derrick, Dr. Ayaad Assaad. At the same time, there were talks of a Jew caught entering a U.S. military lab facility by the FBI, named Dr. Zack.
The Anthrax used was confirmed as being from a U.S. military lab, but the reports stopped at that.
Like the trials of the Gitmo prisoners, I don't recall any actual court sessions or convictions being reported.
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Re: Re: Re: Very bad comparison
1. They didn't challenge the defense system. They hijacked planes and killed the flight crews on board.
2. Actually 2 huge buildings collapsing knocked down the other buildings that were in close proximity. Are you that stupid? Sorry don't bother to answer that.
3. 4 planes didn't crash and completely disappear. Most of the plane parts were found and if you actually watch the video of the 2nd plane hit the tower you can see an engine and other parts go through and out the other side on it's way down to the street. Also, there were many parts of the passengers and their belongings found including passports and a pair hands still zip tied together that were identified as one of the flight attendants.
4. So? It's also the first time passenger planes were slammed into buildings at >450mph.
5. The 757 did not disappear without trace. It was found with most of the passengers still in their seats turned into Ore-Ida's.
No one asked you nor would they anyway because the people who know you probably also know you as a gullible, lunatic conspiracy theorist. Also, Mr. Pseudo Intellectual it's cognitive "dissonance" not dissidence.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Very bad comparison
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Re: Trolling?!
It's not a matter of a properly functioning brain. Most people have no real interest in big picture issues. Most of the rest are either hard-wired authoritarian personalities, have been brainwashed by corporate/state media, or have been cowed into submission by implicit (or explicit) threats about what will happen to them if they don’t tow the establishment line.
Only a small percentage of people have what it takes to stand up to bullies.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Very bad comparison
As for the hyperbole, you might want to just hang on to that...
"1. They didn't challenge the defense system. They hijacked planes and killed the flight crews on board."
They supposedly remained in American airspace for quite some time without any response from either air defense or anti-aircraft systems (Pentagon).
In a way, you're right, as in THERE WAS NO CHALLENGE. Yet, there were 75-100 incidents the year before that all ended up with a few planes surrounding the offending plane within 10 minutes! (Google "Payne Stewart" for one example.)
"2. Actually 2 huge buildings collapsing knocked down the other buildings that were in close proximity."
If you look, the Twin Towers never collapsed or fell - they exploded, floor after floor, shooting high-speed dust and debris upwards, with surprisingly small pieces of fallout making it downward. There were some horizontal columns ejected SIDEWAYS (one did impale a neighbouring building to the Trade Center). I might agree that Buildings 3,4,5 and 6 were victims of whatever fallout occurred, however, Building 7 (Solomon) stayed up until almost 5:30 that day, and then demonstrated a classic demolition collapse (straight down into its own footprint).
You still missed the actual question on this one - is all of this even possible from just 2 planes? Given that no skyscraper ever went down from a plane crash and/or fire before that day, that should've been the going question. And, given that the Twin Towers were designed to withstand multiple strikes from a 707 (http://www1.ae911truth.org/news-section/41-articles/655-faq-9-were-the-twin-towers-designed-to-surv ive-the-impact-of-the-airplanes.html), that question becomes even more appropriate.
Go ahead, try to find another example of such an occurrence.
"On July 28, 1945, a ten-ton (10,000 kg) B-25 bomber crashed into the Empire State Building at an estimated 400 kph, into the north face of the 79th floor. Although several people were killed, the building remained standing (Levy and Salvadori, 1992)." http://matdl.org/fc-static/Building%20Cases/Bomber.htm
A number of skyscrapers around the world went up in flames, and burned hotter and for far longer periods of time, even burning out the entire shell, yet the steel framework always survived, and the building remained standing. (Here's one that was completely gutted after burning for over a day: http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/windsor14.jpeg)
"3. ... Most of the plane parts were found and if you actually watch the video of the 2nd plane hit the tower you can see an engine and other parts go through and out the other side on it's way down to the street. Also, there were many parts of the passengers and their belongings found including passports and a pair hands still zip tied together that were identified as one of the flight attendants."
You're either deluded, or guilty of repeating someone else's faulty take on this. NONE of the plane parts or passengers were reported as being found. A few "findings" were shown a few blocks away, but later proven to not be from any 757 or similar.
As for an aluminum plane passing THROUGH a building like that, with all its exterior columns and iron-steel box columns inside - if you think that can actually happen, you need to wake up and smell the duping. The plane should've shattered to bits on impact, or at least left behind its fragile tail and wings, as they shouldn't have stood a chance to actually penetrate the building.
The "official" line we're supposed to accept is that the passengers were fried, dismembered, and shredded beyond any reasonable recognition. A well-publicized quote from one of the firemen cleaning up Ground Zero has him saying "the biggest thing we found was a piece of telephone keypad".
The only time a passport was mentioned was when a cop supposedly found the passport of one the hijackers (Mohammed Atta) a block away. Cute story - a passport survives the blast of a crashed airliner and makes its way through all the confusion, and settles down a block away perfectly intact, while everything else on the plane (including tungsten steel engines).
As for the zip-tied flight attendant, that's the first I ever heard of that one. I'd ask you for a link or two on some of what you're saying, but I have no delusions about you doing that. (FYI, I'm prepared to do that on my end.)
"4. So? It's also the first time passenger planes were slammed into buildings at >450mph."
As mentioned, the WTC towers were designed to withstand multiple strikes from a 707. http://www1.ae911truth.org/news-section/41-articles/655-faq-9-were-the-twin-towers-designed-to-survi ve-the-impact-of-the-airplanes.html
"5. The 757 did not disappear without trace. It was found with most of the passengers still in their seats turned into Ore-Ida's."
That's a fairy tale. You'd have to back that one up for sure.
"...it's cognitive 'dissonance'"
Yes, that is the popular term, but "dissidence" was the desired word - sort of a play on the term. The intent was to say you're going to argue with your own sense of reason, as people do when in a "state of denial".
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Wait right there, I'mma go break out the surgical masks.
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Flight Simulators
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Re: Re: Re: Very bad comparison
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Re: Re: Very bad comparison
The petition link:
http://www2.ae911truth.org/downloads/AE911Truth-Petition&Names-TO-PRINT.pdf
KEY EVIDENCE
Rapid onset of destruction
Constant acceleration at or near free-fall through what should have been the path of greatest resistance
Numerous eyewitness accounts of explosions including 118 FDNY personnel
Lateral ejection of multi-ton steel framing members distances of 600 feet at more than 60 mph
Mid-air pulverization of 90,000 tons of concrete, and large volumes of expanding pyroclastic-like dust clouds
Isolated explosive ejections 20 to 60 stories below the “crush zone”
Total destruction and dismemberment of all three buildings, with 220 floors each an acre in size missing from the Twin Towers’ debris pile
Several tons of molten steel/iron found in the debris piles,
Evidence of thermite incendiaries on steel beams,
Nanothermite composites and iron microspheres found in WTC dust samples.
Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth evidence link:
http://www.ae911truth.org/gallery/evidence.html
Click the link and watch the presentation:
9/11: Explosive Evidence - Experts Speak Out (Free 1-hour version) AE911Truth.org
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddz2mw2vaEg
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Very bad comparison
And big-foot. Actually, the two are related. You see, big-foots are actually space aliens that come down in invisible space ships and go running around in the woods for a while before returning to their cloaked space ships. That's why it's been so hard to track them down. The government knows all about it but is afraid to tell the public.
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Getting back to the subject...
1) Why are we becoming a society of busy-bodies where we report someone playing a flight simulator as "suspicious"?
2) I understand that the agency has to investigate all SAR's, but how hard is it to see that "person playing a video game" isn't a terrorist?
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It's not the "official" story. It's the story with fewest factors.
And yes, some of us wish it was an inside job. I, for one, find it more palatable to think we were betrayed from within rather than accept that agents from abroad could infiltrate our nation, train up, and then commit was was a clever and terrible act of terrorism that should our nation to the pillars. I'd rather believe that our defense were willfully shut down, and that without inside saboteurs, we'd have fighters up in a flash, or anti-bombardment countermeasures that would nullify such an attack.
No. We were caught with our pants down. Worse yet, we will again because that is the price of living in an open nation. We will forever be susceptible to Pearl Harbor, if we want to stay free.
And that's a hard reality to face.
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Re: It's not the "official" story. It's the story with fewest factors.
I don't even get to blame autocorrect.
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The is already worse than we can handle.
Frankly every time revelations come up about torture, the police state or mass surveillance, it's not only worse than we thought, it's worse than we imagined it could be.
It would be like investigating the child predators in the Roman Catholic Clergy and discovering that they were facilitating porn and trafficking, and doing so in accordance to a secret interpretation of canonical law.
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Anthrax dates Command and Conquer: Generals
In the original version (pre-enhancement via Zero Hour) the USA could erect a detainment center which would occasionally produce intel, lifting fog-of-war of the entire map, allegedly acquired through enhanced interrogation.
So yeah, the Anthrax attacks were timed so well with the 9/11 attacks that people associated them with the Al Qaeda offensive.
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Flight simulators were the primary PC games
Are all old-timer gamers on the watchlists?
Possibly. It's an easy club to join.
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Already having a system implementated having our property's comprimised and storing that information untargetted is most assuredlly MASS surveillance, and not a targetted and hence LAWFULL one..........and the weilders of such authority must hold those laws in their highest regard or risk loseing such authority less they abuse, missuse or corrupt such authority.........we've had endless amounts of abuse, and no sight of meaningfull breaking news worthy recourse.......i think we're all about due, dont you think
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Re: It's not the "official" story. It's the story with fewest factors.
So, you honestly feel that a "perfect storm" of the magnitude required could have actually resulted in all that transpired on 9/11?!
You even mention Pearl Harbour - a false flag event whose records have been completely declassified for the world to see - and speak as if it was also a case of being "caught with their pants down".
I feel sorry for every American with your view.
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Re: Re: Very bad comparison
ae911truth.com and the similar sites for military officers, scholars and pilots. Solid people all, judge them, not just the evidence.
It has been some years since all the intelligent people finished looking at the evidence and then KNOWING that 911 was an inside job, a false flag by our own government's agents to justify seizing more power. It was part of a coup, slow perhaps, or perhaps we are just slow to accumulate the evidence?
Anyway, the chances of any of you guys being real in these next few comments are zero. Nice script tho, I would recognize it anywhere.
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Re: It's not the "official" story. It's the story with fewest factors.
It is simply not possible for anyone with a functioning brain, and you could have one, you write well, to have any doubts about the 911 story. It was, factually, scientifically, from the point of view of very many architects and engineers, pilots, military officers and scholars, NOT the result of those planes hitting the buildings. Real solid people, the problem you have is that those people have no reason to say 'not possible it happened as the gov says' if they didn't think it was true and important.
911 means you government is deeply dirty, there is no way it could have been covered up as it is without a lot of people keeping their mouth shut. Way more Snowdons are needed for this. Although the ones we have are ignored.
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Re: >people who think 9/11 was an inside job
Read this and weep, section 5.4
http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf
"To date, the U.S. government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used for the 9/11 attacks. Ultimately the question is of little practical significance."
And you're surprised that there are people wondering what exactly someone is trying to hide here?
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Re: Trolling?!
There's a problem with first "official" theory, it was clearly wrong. HOWEVER later research lead to different theories. Like this one: http://www.sintef.no/home/corporate-news/New-theory-explains-collapse-of-Twin-Towers/
In any case, the tower collapse is rather some kind of red herring. It's weird so much energy is concentrated on explaining something that happened AFTER the actual attacks.
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It's not even about flight simulators
https://www.google.ch/search?q=Games+that+fly+under+the+radar
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Failure to file a SAR
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Pearl Harbor
Dunno your sources. Mine was a footnote from The Science of Secrecy by Simon Singh which specified that once all was declassified it was determined that FDR and the Navy knew an attack by Japan was imminent but when or where wasn't clear.
There is a danger with unfolding covert operations, is that it is too easy to see them everywhere. Granted, we have a lot of them. Conspiracies about, but that is not an excuse to presume that everything is a deception until proven otherwise. Just because the NSA is running an unconstitutional mass surveillance program doesn't mean that our weather is controlled by the HAARP program.
Regarding 9/11 I don't think it was a perfect storm. It's evident that the attack was bigger than just four planes, and that their redundancy in teams was meant to take advantage of our lackadaisical security. And if I recall, even Bin Laden was surprised at the effectiveness of the attacks on WTC1 and WTC2.
But the single bullet theory -- whether or not the infamous magic bullet that wounded Kennedy and Connolly real did fly such a peculiar path, we've analyzed the shit out of it and determined that it was physically possible -- demonstrates that miracles of probability are certain to happen sometimes, especially in a world rife with opportunities for them to happen.
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Part of the problem is, granted, our g-people are eager to cover up evidence IN CASE they need to control the story.
When Kennedy was shot, the FBI was all over the autopsy like fire ants, getting in the way of the coroner trying to determine what happened.
When 9/11 happened, the Bush administration fought tooth and claw to prevent the public from getting a close look.
But this isn't because they knew what happened. It was because they were afraid of what might have happened, and how the public might respond (whether with rioting or even open revolt).
And yes, Bush flew the Saudis out of the US in a secret flight so they didn't get torn up in the streets, considering one of their kin was behind the 9/11 attacks. Awkward.
Our government stopped trusting the people in the 50s and since then we've stopped trusting the government. But even hard evidence of a cover-up does not determine that the popular conspiracy-theory version of a story is true, just that there was motive for a cover up.
This is one of the great failures of the DoJ too. We're able to extrapolate from an inconsistency in a given story an admission of guilt, where human perception and memory are notoriously poor.
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Poison the well much?
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Astroturfers?
The US government was deeply dirty long before 9/11, and even if we assumed it was an attack by Al Qaeda, that indicates we have some pretty major enemies who have real grievances.
Frankly it would be a relief to me if it took shadowy men cackling in smoky rooms to turn our country into the mess that it's in. It's a far greater horror to realize that human nature being what it is, we shamble towards centralizing power into small groups until that power falls into the hands of some real jackasses who decide that heinous crimes against humanity must be committed for the good of all.
And then, because we're a social lawful sort we gleefully feed the Jews or children or virgins or whatever into the wood chipper, punch-clocking in and out as we do it.
It doesn't take megalomaniac super-villians for evil to prevail. It just takes humans.
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Re: It's not even about flight simulators
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Re: Re: >people who think 9/11 was an inside job
I'm very far from being a truther, but the official explanation and supporting evidence for it seems sketchy enough that I don't think it is satisfactory.
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Re: Failure to file a SAR
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Re: Getting back to the subject...
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Re: >people who think 9/11 was an inside job
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1000 architects and engineers isn't very many.
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Still looking for the smoking gun, myself.
They're evidence that we haven't looked very hard.
They're evidence that our administrations haven't taken the incident very seriously.
They're evidence of the much greater issue of the disconnect between people and state.
But they are not evidence of any specific cause behind any of these things, which are all way older than 9/11.
But yes, an actual smoking gun, something better than the quote from the Project for the New American Century, would be positively lovely.
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You're a fucking idiot Tim. Good going.
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Can't expect monkeys to exhibit logic or humanity
Solution is to round up the monkeys and send them back to the zoo. They are only fit to throw peanuts at.
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