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Florida Activates System For Citizens To Call Each Other Terrorists
An anonymous reader writes "Sheriffs in 13 Northeast Florida counties announced an online system Thursday for residents to report suspicious activity they think may be terrorism-related. The site provides examples of red flags to watch for, such as people with an unusual interest in building plans or who are purchasing materials useful in bomb making. Important places to watch include hobby stores and dive shops."
For one, they'll probably report some statistics for "dozens of reports of possible terrorist threats each day".
Secondly, the mere existence of the reporting tool means people get reminded of terrorism more often.
Finally, "Where there's smoke, there's fire"; this is the smokescreen (bad pun, sorry).
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1) The fact this program ('report suspected terrorists') exists must mean that there are terrorists out there. I'm afraid.
2) I need to buy a new pressure cooker for the big meal I'm cooking... what if I get reported as a possible terrorist?? I'm afraid.
This is exactly the methods used in Soviet Russia and other countries with similar political system.
For years various such countries lived under communism, and they finally got rid of it 25 years ago. For years USA was hailed as the "country of freedom", and it recently adopts communist-like methods.
In California if you want to purchase medicaments, they check your ID and input your date of birth to the cash register, because law prohibits sale of medicaments (known to Americans as "drugs") to minors.
You also need to provide your ID and date of birth if you purchase a knife sharpener (made in China, of course). Sales of knives to minors is prohibited, and knife sharpeners are put under the same "knife" type of merchandise.
Heck, you cannot even buy something as simple as contact lenses without a prescription! Apparently it is too dangerous for people to buy without doctor approval. Must be true, so many people in Europe die because they bought wrong lenses, right?
Combine this all with extensive spying on their own citizens, security theatre (most visibly by TSA) and now encouraging citizens to spy on the others... Stalin would have been proud!
What next? USA remake of Pavlik Morozov?
Wait, they already have people sue their parents... some will surely chose to denounce instead.
(note: this is slightly on pessimist side to compensate for the optimists out there who will surely reply "nah, it's not an issue, we don't have a problem")