Posted on 05/10/2016 10:25:48 AM PDT by Mr. Mojo
Is the Obama administration keeping tabs on “right-wing extremists”?
This question comes up because I’ve been informed that someone certainly is keeping tabs on me.
It started last summer. I don’t consider myself a “right-wing extremist” -- but the far-Left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) does, and the FBI uses the SPLC as a resource. Since then, every time I fly -- and I fly almost weekly – I can’t check in online. I am always directed to go to the airline counter.
There -- as soon as I present my identification -- the trouble starts. It generally proceeds like this:
The clerk types a great deal, frowns at the screen, types some more, asks me what my middle name is, types still more, looks at me quizzically, and gets on the phone.
They’re very secretive about these calls, sometimes even moving to a different desk to make them. They refusing to tell me anything about them afterward, including who they called or why.
The call usually takes around ten minutes. The whole process takes fifteen or twenty minutes. Then I am checked in and allowed to go to my gate.
After these long, unexplained delays -- which had never occurred prior to last summer -- happened to me five or six times consecutively, I asked an FBI agent of my acquaintance about it, and he kindly agreed to look into it. A few days later he told me that the strange delays weren’t about me, but about someone else: as it happened, he said, someone on some watch list or other is named Robert Spencer and shares my birthdate.
Hmm.
He said the FBI wasn’t watching me, and as far as he knew, no other government agency was either. But shortly thereafter, an airline clerk gave me a strong indication that what the FBI agent had told me was untrue.
After the clerk finished the long, mysterious phone call, he told me he was breaking the rules to tell me the following: the person on the other end had asked if I was planning on traveling to the UK.
I was not -- because the UK has actually banned me from traveling there for the crime of noting that Islam has doctrines calling for violence against unbelievers.
Another time, a different clerk broke the rules again. He told me that the mysterious person he called had remarked: “He sure travels a lot.” Notably, he did not say anything that might confirm what the FBI agent had told me, like, say: “Let him go, that’s not the same Robert Spencer.”
As the behavior of the two desk clerks suggested that the delays were about me after all, I contacted a lawyer, who told me to submit a Redress Inquiry. I did, and in response I received a bland form letter from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), telling me essentially what the FBI agent had told me:
The U.S. Government has completed our review of your case. Your experience was most likely caused by a misidentification against a government record or by random selection. …
DHS recommends that you provide your redress control number when making your reservations.
However, I’ve done so numerous times since getting this number, and it never works. I still get the long and mysterious delay at airport counters every time I fly.
The hypothesis that a “right-wing extremist” identification now qualifies someone as a U.S. travel risk is not as preposterous as it might seem at first glance. (Again, note my UK ban.) For years, the Obama administration has shown a disturbing tendency to classify ordinary conservative Americans as terror threats. In April 2013, investigative journalist Todd Starnes of Fox News reported as such:
[T]he U.S. Army listed Evangelical Christianity and Catholicism as examples of religious extremism along with Al Qaeda and Hamas during a briefing with an Army Reserve unit based in Pennsylvania. …
The incident occurred during an Army Reserve Equal Opportunity training brief on extremism.
The list was titled “Religious Extremism.” Topping it was “Evangelical Christianity (U.S./Christian),” followed by “Ikhwan or Muslim Brotherhood (Egypt/Muslim)” and then “Ultra-Orthodox” (Israel/Judaism).”
A politically correct trifecta of the three main monotheistic religions. Statistical analysis regarding the frequency of violent behavior from those three groups be damned.
Also on the list: “Al Quaeda [sic] (Transnational/Islam)"; “Hamas (Palestinian/Islamist)”; Abu Sayyah [sic] (Philippines/Islam)”; “Ku Klux Klan (U.S/Christian)”; and “Catholicism (U.S./Christian),” among others.
The list also included “Islamophobia” as a form of “religious extremism.”
The implications of this are quite ominous. If evangelical Christianity, Catholicism and “Islamophobia” were forms of “Religious Extremism” on par with al-Qaeda and Hamas, how long would it be before the Obama administration went to war against them?
After all, the administration has repeatedly declared it is at war with al-Qaeda.
The list’s intentions were clear: those groups are to be considered “extremists” alongside jihadi groups. So how long might it be before accused “Islamophobes” like myself have their whereabouts tracked just as suspected jihadis are tracked?
That list was not an isolated case. Investigative reporter Matthew Vadum reported in September 2013:
[C]onservative organizations are “hate groups” and Tea Party supporters are potentially dangerous extremists, according to educational materials the Obama administration is using to indoctrinate members of the nation’s armed forces. Vadum also noted that a Defense Department diversity training center guide entitled “Extremism,” published in January 2013, warned:
[I]nstead of "dressing in sheets," radicals today "will talk of individual liberties, states’ rights, and how to make the world a better place." The guide even identified the Founding Fathers as “extremists”:
In U.S. history, there are many examples of extremist ideologies and movements. The colonists who sought to free themselves from British rule and the Confederate states who sought to secede from the Northern states are just two examples. Meanwhile, wrote Vadum:
[T]he DoD teaching guide treats Islamic terrorism as insignificant, ignoring, for example, the murder spree committed by self-described “soldier of Allah,” U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, at Fort Hood in 2009. The guide references Islamic extremism only in passing and doesn’t provide a precise definition for extremism. “[W]hile not all extremist groups are hate groups, all hate groups are extremist groups,” it states. Hate groups. There we are.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which is in the business of demonizing those who oppose its hard-Left agenda, falsely and libelously called me a “hate group leader” for my work exposing the motives and goals of jihad terrorists. Is there a dusty government office somewhere in Washington where my comings and goings -- and those of others who have been smeared by the SPLC -- are tracked in the Obama administration’s ongoing battle against “extremism”?
Maybe there is another explanation for why checking in for a flight has become suddenly problematic for me. But let’s take a rational look at the background provided by the Obama administration: the IRS targets conservative groups; the administration signed on to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s effort to compel Western governments to stifle criticism of Islam; the administration scrubbed the records of Muslims with jihad terror ties.
Is the idea that this administration would keep tabs on public foes of its policies farfetched? Or is it a reasonable assumption?
“...Now TRACKING ‘Right-Wing Extremists’?”
NOW?
It’s been happening for decades, since the Klintoons.
If one finds themselves recently un-employed, now is the time to go dark on social networks, then establish a new “liberal social profile” , then seek a job within the government and work within for the day they start going after patriots...
We will need people on the inside in the camps to leave the occasional gate un-latched, so to speak...
What do you think they’re spending billions on “homeland security” for?
It’s ain’t for catching Muslim terrorists, brother.
By golly! I sure do hope they are watching dem there flag waving, bible reading, gun toting right wing extremists! Somebody has to protect the guys who want to use the ladies room, ensure that battle hardened muslims may travel freely in the United States, and that evey pregnant woman may have access to women’s services. I just wouldn’t feel safe without knowing the government is keeping an eye on those racis tea bagger types!
There used to be a busy little group here at FR that used SPLC material in order to silence any criticism of amnesty and illegal aliens.
One of their favorite ploys was to label border patriots as closet bigots who favor eugenics. They managed to get a number of good freepers banned.
CBS had a similar story on “60 Minutes” a number of years ago.
People with common names....David Nelson, James Smith, etc., found themselves hassled at the airport because someone with the same name was wanted for a crime. Every person was that same name was always hassled, delayed, poked and prodded.
Men and women with these common names appeared on “60 Minutes” and told their tales of woe.
Meanwhile, the actual people they were looking for were NOT a threat to civil aviation.
Whaduya mean, “NOW”?
That would be us
Since LBJ, actually. FDR probably also indulged.
This is a Politically Correct construction and thus a nonsense phrase.
“Is the U.S. Government Now TRACKING ‘Right-Wing Extremists’?”
Shhh! Please do not tell anyone. The U. S. government, aka, Big Brother, tracks everyone!
DON’T TELL ANYONE! If you do not want Big Brother to know about it, do not type it on the internet or say it out loud to anyone!
Wouldn’t doubt it a bit.
Remember Hillary requesting background investigations as the first lady on 900 republicans and having their files sent to her at the White House? Imagine every person who is not a RW Fascist Democrat having a file made on them so Hillary can personally sign off on their invasion of privacy, wire taps, cell phone tracking and ultimately drone strikes?
This is what we can expect from the Fascist leadership of Hillary in the White House
DT’s voters fit the criteria, eh?
“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Except I still think Cruz would have been best.
The US Gubmint won’t learn of my personal leanings on this subject until it is too late for anything to be done about it.
their tales of woe...
Moving to a new position at work, one of the guys has the EXACT name as someone I went to school with, also lived in the same town!
Not a common last name, I inquired if they were related?
The tale of woe began!
Not a common name, but they are from the same town with similar date of birth and address.
Oh and the other guy has MAJOR legal and finical problems, so even the FBI and others would come knocking on the wrong door!
No wonder he is so screwed.
Oh yes! It took a while for people to catch on. I was off here for a while, when I came back they were gone. What happened to them?
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