Dept of Homeland Security most worried about... U.S. Veterans

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Originally Posted by KarlXII

Of course white people would join a white supremacy group. This has no relevancy to the topic, unless you are saying that it's obvious when a military veteran joins an extreme right winged group.

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I dunno, it makes almost as much sense as

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Originally Posted by also you lol

Is it not true though? Some military veterans do join extreme right winged, sometimes even neo-nazi, groups. I have not read about the Communist Party being filled with Vietnam veterans.

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I mean, stroking with broad brushes and all that...

Can you show me statistical correlation for what you said or is "common sense"?

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Originally Posted by Alexander the Pretty Good

I dunno, it makes almost as much sense as


I mean, stroking with broad brushes and all that...

Can you show me statistical correlation for what you said or is "common sense"?

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Don't take my word, take the FBI's.

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Originally Posted by Alexander the Pretty Good

White people are mostly likely to join white supremecist groups. Let's increase the scrutiny on white people.

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Reality check: Nobody has established that DHS intends to put all veterans under surveillance. The memo doesn't say it, the FBI hasn't said it, the only people saying it are professional panic-mongers. Before you go decrying the injustice of an event, how's about establishing that the event exists.

Read the memo. Read the statements by various officials. Find me where they say they intend to increase surveillance on veterans as a group.

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Originally Posted by Alexander the Pretty Good

I dunno, it makes almost as much sense as


I mean, stroking with broad brushes and all that...

Can you show me statistical correlation for what you said or is "common sense"?

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And I did not say "A certain percentage of veterans join radical groups" I said, and my quote proves this:

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Some military veterans do join extreme right winged, sometimes even neo-nazi, groups

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Originally Posted by Karl

Is it not true though? Some military veterans do join extreme right winged, sometimes even neo-nazi, groups. I have not read about the Communist Party being filled with Vietnam veterans.

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Your statement implies that right-wing groups are "filled with Vietnam veterans" (because you used that terminology for the converse). Furthermore, could you demonstrate that there aren't Vietnam vets in the Communist party (or left-wing orgs in general)?

@Lemur - so why bother mentioning it anyway?

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Originally Posted by Alexander the Pretty Good

Your statement implies that right-wing groups are "filled with Vietnam veterans" (because you used that terminology for the converse). Furthermore, could you demonstrate that there aren't Vietnam vets in the Communist party (or left-wing orgs in general)?

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You're bad at the whole reading thing, huh?

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I have not read about the Communist Party being filled with Vietnam veterans.

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My quote mentioned the fact that I have not read, nor heard of, an extreme left wing group recruiting military veterans, or military veterans joining extreme left wing groups.

In case you want it, here is the Department of Homeland Security report on left wing extremists groups, as provided by Fox News.

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Originally Posted by Hosakawa Tito

More grist to ponder. I heard part of an interview with this Hagman on talk radio today. I just logged onto the site and thought I'd share. FBI spied on TEA Party Americans . I have never heard of this guy or this site till today. An interesting article that is hopefully false.

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Interesting article, Hosa. I wonder, though, how an unnamed source can be "unimpeachable," as the author states. Unnamed sources usually carry less weight than people willing to go on record.

Photographing people at rallies is hardly new. I don't think the FBI normally does that sort of thing at straight-up political rallies, but attend anything offbeat and the odds are good your pic will be taken. This was true of the anti-war rallies in '03, the WTO protests, etcetera. I don't think it really qualifies as "spying on Americans," since people at public protests are, by definition, in public. Long-established legal precedent sez that you have no right to privacy when you are in the public space, so "spying" is a bit of hyperbole.

Last I heard, the FBI also works up profiles of people who instigate protests. Perfectly legal. I guess the reason some folks are finding it shocking is that most of the people at Tea Party rallies aren't the sorts who normally attend protests. Seems just about everything was new to them, hence their problems with not getting any of the correct permits. Welcome to the club.

I don't attend protests. Not my scene. But nothing that was done at the Tea Parties sounds new or disturbing, either on the protesters' side or the Governments. Heck, compare the treatment the Tea Parties got to the way protesters at the National Political Conventions in '08 were manhandled. How do you think the Tea Partiers would have liked being fenced into a free speech zone in a parking lot a mile away from their intended target?

From the part of the interview I heard Hagmann is on this talk radio program as a semi-regular. His "unimpeachable" source is an FBI employee, which would certainly be a good reason why the source would wish to remain anonymous. I have no idea if any of this is true, but considering the past actions of FBI surveillence programs, I wouldn't be shocked to discover that this did take place and is continuing to take place. These people that are organizing the Tea Parties, and the attendees, are engaged in peaceful protest of their government's policies & practices, nothing radical or subversive about that at all, and is a Constitutional right. The orders to conduct this surveillence comes from and has to be known/sanctioned by the White House. If it's true, I find it unsettling, because there will be, and already is, "mission creep" employed using the Patriot Act provisions as justification. Where will all this lead? I expect better of this administration...

Hosa, I'm sorry, but this is nothing new. And it's certainly nothing illegal. So the source is a dude in the FBI who wishes to remain anonymous? That's fine, but he may very well have his own axe to grind. Maybe he got passed for promotion, or maybe he really hates the new Prez. Or maybe President 44 is a tyrant keen to trample our rights underfoot. Impossible to know.

But on the face of it, your article discusses nothing new. This has been going on with protests for decades. Maybe you think that the Tea Parties should be exempt because they're something special and new and pure. but I would contend that there's nothing new under the sun, and Tea Party Conservatives are having a fit because they're receiving the same treatment all protesters have received since the Fifties. To which I say, welcome to the party, and quit whining.

And that's the disappointment with it Lem. This administration got voted in on the premise of change, not the same old same old. With all the other important things that should be on the FBI's plate they are wasting time & resources on tilting at windmills.

In my state, these protests were probably directed at least as much at the state government mafia as at the feds. IMO change by the ballot box is impossible in New York State, the game is rigged, the incumbency protection plan too well entrenched. I don't wish to see the rest of the country follow NYS over the cliff, and I have an uneasy feeling on where this administration is going.

You asked for me to source that Lemur, and here it is, as promised.

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Because leftist extremists are better educated than members of
right-wing groups, they have the ability to organize more effectively, and once committed
to a militant revolution, they are more of a threat.

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13,858 people who died between 1988 and 1998 in attacks committed by the 10
most active terrorist groups in the world, 74 percent were killed by leftist organizations.

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It goes on to say that the focus is now on Rightwing because they are perceived as more of a threat, BUT, statistically the left has committed more terror attacks, is better funded, better educated, and more dangerous. Also, many of the leftwing terrorists are 'respectable professionals': doctors, professors, lawyers, etc.

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It goes on to say that the focus is now on Rightwing because they are perceived as more of a threat, BUT, statistically the left has committed more terror attacks

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Not really since the topic is domestic groups so the fact that the PKK in "kurdistan" made up half of the 74% is entirely irrelevant . If you want to focus on the time period of the figures from that report you posted then go to the relevant domestic terrorist threats list and you find Puerto Rican nationalists/seperatists at the top of the most dangerous list followed by the Jewish Defense League .

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Originally Posted by peverblue

hmmm...this sounds similar to arguments I have heard about muslims after the LARGEST and DEADLIEST terror attack in the US. Feeling a bit hypocritical?
Sure, he was a soldier, and he was rightwing. Look how many terrorists are leftwing, and how many are occupations other than soldiers. Should we track all leftwing people and all people of those other occupations?
Considering that most domestic terrorism is commited by the left, I think it is complete hypocracy to cry for political profiling on the basis of one attack.

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Originally Posted by peverblue

You asked for me to source that Lemur, and here it is, as promised.

It goes on to say that the focus is now on Rightwing because they are perceived as more of a threat, BUT, statistically the left has committed more terror attacks, is better funded, better educated, and more dangerous. Also, many of the leftwing terrorists are 'respectable professionals': doctors, professors, lawyers, etc.

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World= domestic?

A few notes. According to this article, unless something big has changed since 2001 most of the current attacks are done by right-wing movements, while the left-wing were more aggressive until after 1985.

The left-wing movements there are marxists, communists etc. Are they a threat nowadays? Has Cuba been successful in their speculated sponsoring of communist terrorists in the US?

A tidbit that will cause a nice spin here. The DHS report refering to left-wing terrorism doesn't even mention these groups, but only animal-rights activist, naturalists and anarchists (the usual rioteers at the big meetings).
So either nothing new has shown up on those groups or it's a coverup from that that Marxist left-winger George W. Bush that was at power when the report was written, or that DHS had it done in 6 days (it went public in 26 january 2009) after Obama took the presidency.

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Originally Posted by peverblue

You asked for me to source that Lemur, and here it is, as promised.

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A very interesting document—thanks so much for taking the time to locate and link to it! Very thoughtful of you, and much appreciated.

While it certainly corroborates your claim that the majority of terror attacks in the world are based on leftist ideology, it doesn't really back that up in regards to the U.S. (neither does it take into account Islamist terrorism, but we'll let sleeping dogs lie). An interesting bit from page three:

Left-wing groups were responsible for three-fourths of the officially designated acts of domestic terrorism in the United States during the 1980s. About half of these incidents were committed by Puerto Rican separatist groups and the remainder by traditional leftist terrorist groups like M19CO (Smith, 1994).

I hesitate to classify Puerto Rican separatists as either "right" or "left," and their activities don't impinge directly on what we're talking about, so let's leave them aside. If left-leaning people were responsible for three-fourths of the officially classified terror attacks in the 1980s, and half of those were Puerto Rican separatists, that means that the split of officially recognized terror attacks in the 1980s is almost exactly 50/50 between leftists and rightists.

This is also a telling bit of text:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reports that although leftist-oriented extremist groups posed the predominate domestic terrorism threat over the past three decades, right-wing extremist groups that adhere to antigovernment and racist ideologies are the increasing concern today (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1995).

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Originally Posted by Lemur

A very interesting document—thanks so much for taking the time to locate and link to it! Very thoughtful of you, and much appreciated.

While it certainly corroborates your claim that the majority of terror attacks in the world are based on leftist ideology, it doesn't really back that up in regards to the U.S. (neither does it take into account Islamist terrorism, but we'll let sleeping dogs lie). An interesting bit from page three:

Left-wing groups were responsible for three-fourths of the officially designated acts of domestic terrorism in the United States during the 1980s. About half of these incidents were committed by Puerto Rican separatist groups and the remainder by traditional leftist terrorist groups like M19CO (Smith, 1994).

I hesitate to classify Puerto Rican separatists as either "right" or "left," and their activities don't impinge directly on what we're talking about, so let's leave them aside. If left-leaning people were responsible for three-fourths of the officially classified terror attacks in the 1980s, and half of those were Puerto Rican separatists, that means that the split of officially recognized terror attacks in the 1980s is almost exactly 50/50 between leftists and rightists.

This is also a telling bit of text:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reports that although leftist-oriented extremist groups posed the predominate domestic terrorism threat over the past three decades, right-wing extremist groups that adhere to antigovernment and racist ideologies are the increasing concern today (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1995).

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First of Lemur, I only skimmed the article, just so you know. I did a google and found it, but I have read before in historical works that most of the terror attacks in the US have been committed by leftwing terrorists. As I said, I do not have my library, so I must resort to the internet as a source.
To be honest with you, I disagree with many groups I have heard classified as 'rightwing', but who is gonna argue the federal government about it?
Don't forget also, that just because they find them of increasing concern, that does not mean that they are correct, or that the right is responsible for even an equal number of terrorist attacks. There has been a movement since the Clinton time in the police force I know to look out for those evil middle-aged white men in flannel shirts. (Meanwhile muslim terrorists are blowing up the WTC, and greenpeace nuts are firebombing buildings and murdering people) Lot's of people in the police force I knew actually got quite upset over the Clintonian intelligence and policing classifications (which has been anything but succesful). They were told that the dangerous and violent ones to look out for were those burly middle-aged white men in flannel shirts, yet most of the serious crime they witnessed was by completely different sorts. I know that it is not the same thing, but I think it usefull to keep in mind that they are only more concerned about it, and in April of 2001, we very much had a Clintonian intelligence system.
I would have to read the article to say more.