Why is the government spying on Black Lives Matter protests?

[damnedifIknow]

"America's disturbing surveillance apparatus reaches a chilling new low. Inside a perverse new form of patriotism "

A database managed by a secretive Pentagon intelligence agency called Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, was found last month to contain reports on at least four dozen antiwar meetings or protests, many of them on college campuses. Ten peace activists who handed out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches outside Halliburton’s headquarters in Houston in June 2004 were reported as a national security threat. So were people who assembled at a Quaker meeting house in Lake Worth, Fla., or protested military recruiters at sites such as New York University, the State University of New York and campuses of the University of California at Berkeley and at Santa Cruz.

The protesters were written up under a Pentagon program called Talon, which is supposed to collect raw data on threats to defense facilities in the United States. "

The logic that peace activists must be in league with terrorists has never been adequately explained, but it follows along the same line of thought which leads conservatives to assume that decadent left-wing hippies are natural allies of Muslim fundamentalists. The great sage of late 20th Century conservative philosophy, Ann Coulter, said it best:

We need to execute people like John Walker [Lindh] in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors.

She later clarified that statement by saying, “When I said we should ‘execute’ John Walker Lindh, I mis-spoke. What I meant to say was, ‘We should burn John Walker Lindh alive and televise it on prime-time network TV’. My apologies for any misunderstanding that might have occurred.” Yes, she said we should burn him alive on television."

http://www.salon.com/2015/03/19/a_racial_big_brother_debacle_why_is_the_government_spying_on_black_lives_matter_protests/

[merrily]

1. Because, all dissent against authority, even peaceful

dissent against evil authority, evil authority, is the greatest of all evils.



I thought everyone knew that.

[liberal_at_heart]

2. Protesting under this administration is more difficult than it was under Bush. I was never afraid

to protest under Bush and did so regularly. I saw what this administration did to Occupy and it did make me think twice about protesting. So much for constitutionally protected free assembly.

[merrily]

3. I've always thought I could get my skull bashed in at peaceful protests.

I've seen too many photos of worker demonstrations all around the world, past and present and civil rights demonstrations and peace demonstrations in the USA where skulls got smashed or worse. Hoover sic'd MacArthur and Eisenhower on the Bonus Army, much as Mayors of mostly blue cities sic'd their police departments on Occupy demonstrators, up to and including disposing of their belongings--and during the height of the Depression, no less. And they went at their fellow veterans.

I never saw a reason to feel safe during a demonstration over something worth demonstrating for.

[blkmusclmachine]

7. 14 Defining Characteristics of Fascism

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread
domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

http://www.rense.com/general37/char.htm

[merrily]

8. Thanks. Today, that's pretty much the definition of any country that comes to mind,

isn't it?

[hifiguy]

18. This. You win the thread.

[awoke_in_2003]

4. because our government

spies on all protesters- that is what police states do.

[blkmusclmachine]

6. POLICE STATE

[blkmusclmachine]

5. I have seen the enemy. It is the 99%.

[merrily]

9. David, is that you?

[loyalsister]

10. It is my understanding that much of the unrest has come from infiltrators

Is there absolutely no chance that they are trying to root them out? Just a thought. Someone who identified as anonymous was sending out tweets of stuff like police wearing Klan robes-in daylight, outside. Using their head shots for photoshopping. The only explanation I could see was to stir up anger and create conflict.
I would think that it could also be possible that people who want to discredit the movement might be motivated to infiltrate.

I don't discount other more nefarious motives, but I think that there is more than one possibility to consider.

[randome]

13. Like James O'Keefe and his classless cohorts?

There's that but there's also the possibility that checking a box on a list is nothing but SOP. It's probably a good idea to know where large groups of people are gathering. There is nothing that says they are or were 'monitoring' anything more than that.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"The whole world is a circus if you know how to look at it."
Tony Randall, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)[/center][/font][hr]

[loyalsister]

16. exactly

I know a guy who infiltrated a Christian Identity group for research purposes. I wonder if it is also possible that feds are at least if not more concerned enough to pay attention to law enforcement?

[tblue37]

11. ISIS and Ann Coulter are on the same page. They both like the idea of burning people alive.nt

[ileus]

12. Why do they watch our surfing habits and capture our phone calls???

[davidn3600]

14. Government sees any protest movement as a potential threat

Same thing happened with Occupy Wall Street.

[Lurks Often]

15. Why is anyone surprised?

It's been a tactic of law enforcement for decades to get one or more people into any large group that is politically, or for that matter, criminally motivated to determine the intent of the group.

[RiverLover]

17. Why are fracking activists called "eco-terrorists" while trying to protect ecology

& they are spied on by our govt as if they were enemies of state.

Are you opposed to fracking? Then you might just be a terrorist
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/jan/21/fracking-activism-protest-terrorist-oil-corporate-spies

An investigative report from Ecowatch (http://ecowatch.com/2013/were-being-watched) shows that much of the government/corporate intelligence-gathering actually focuses on anti-fracking groups nationwide.
http://www.dailycamera.com/ci_23452099/anita-li-government-spying-agenda-is-track-activists