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Tennessee Official: Water Complaints Could be "Act of Terrorism"
An anonymous reader writes "A Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation deputy director is threatening citizens with being listed as terrorists for giving official complaints. Sherwin Smith, deputy director of TDEC’s Division of Water Resources said: 'But you need to make sure that when you make water quality complaints you have a basis, because federally, if there's no water quality issues, that can be considered under Homeland Security an act of terrorism.' 'In terms of the comments made by a member of the Water Resources Division at the meeting, we are just receiving the information and looking into this on our end,' spokeswoman Meg Lockhart said. 'The department would like to fully assess what was said in the meeting. I am told that the meeting was far longer than the audio clip provided by SOCM and that Mr. Smith actually clarified his remarks. But again, we are looking into it.'"
The government's number one tool in the fight against terrorism.
"To stop the terrorists."
Welcome to the new McCarthyism. Any time you do anything "they" don't like, you're a ter'ist...
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
Citizen complaints sometimes terrify people!
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
yet every time I think officialdom can't get any more stupid, they go and prove me wrong... again!
They dont want you dead, just obedient, subservient, docile and blindly supporting them. How can you make them richer & more powerful if you're dead?
I am a free slashdotter. I will not be modded, blogged, DRM'd, patented, podcasted or RFID'd. My life is my own.
Sherwin Smith should be fired immediately. If I threatened my customers, my boss would rightfully fire me on the spot.
This is no doubt the sort of horrifying terrorist plot the NSA telephone surveillance program has been so successful foiling. Thank good we has such dedicated protectors to save us from the terrorists.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
If the citizen was making false complaints to Homeland Security, that would be actionable, but this is TDEC complaining to HS that the citizen is a terrorist. IMHO, this would render the TDEC official the person wasting Staatssicherheit's time with a false complaint. If that's terrorism, then Mr. Smith is encouraging and/or procuring terrorism by having his staff make the reports.
davecb@spamcop.net
The current situation is simply amazing. You just can't make this shit up:
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1267204/us-cyber-snooping-makes-it-worlds-biggest-villain-our-age-says-xinhua
This government official needs to be brought up on charges of making verbal threats and abuse of power.
I don't know. I think Terry Gilliam was very close to making this shit up when he wrote the script for Brazil.
Any civil servant threatening terrorism charges for complaints from the public should be immediately fired. He/she does not have the public interest at heart.
Because you have to have "someone" to do all the killing. And that's the challenging part. First you have to have a bunch of really stupid people working for you. They're making serious progress in that area. Next, everyone 'else' must be branded as a criminal or terrorist or both. That's the fun part because we're seeing that everywhere too. One of the latest initiatives is electronic license plates! That's right! Imagine how much easier it will be to identify bad people when their license plates are blinking a message to everyone on the road. Every "good citizen" will report you to the authorities at a moment's notice. And of course if your electronic plates aren't working, they'll impound your car.
So now we've got people who think they are "good" being the finger pointers for the dumbasses with guns. It won't be long as we are all fighting each other for "government love and approval" killing each other in the name of "god" as we always have, only the new god is government.
listed as terrorists for giving unfounded official complaints
Fine even if that is the case we have other laws that cover things like that. "Making false reports", "libel", and "slander", would be some potential examples. These laws carry with them what most people consider to be appropriate penalties and restitution requirements. Slapping the term "terrorist' on everyone who steps even slightly out line has all sorts of negative consequences.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Right. And lets take this a step further. What is an "official complaint"? Making a public statement I can understand as designed to instill fear among the general population. But raising the issue either through official channels for such feedback? Nope. They asked for comments, they got them. If they don't like them, tough.
Its also my understanding that the complaints were along the lines of: "This water makes me/my kids sick." Not, "There's poison in the water." The former is subjective and purely dependent on the sensitivity of the particular consumer to some attribute of the water.
Have gnu, will travel.
Why? I've read a lot of articles here on slashdot over the past years about the US accusing China for snooping.
Isn't it fair when it's exposed that the US does the same on an even larger scale, for China to mention this hypocrisy?
c++;
If you're making a water quality complaint you can't know usually 100% that there's something officially wrong with the water.
you see, sometimes if water has a color problem that is not actually a water quality problem. same goes to some tastes the water might have.
so basically he threatened that you can't make a water quality complaint unless there's turds floating in your water... the reason why it's a complaint and not an alarm is that subjectively something about the water feels suspect.
it's friggin stupid to threaten with that, there's other ways they can sue people doing malevolent water quality reports just for the sake of making them extra work. threatening that the federal government is going to kill or take them away if they complain is just stupid(make no mistake that is how "bababa is a terrorist!" threatening is intended to work).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
It already started. There is no killing like the one done with impunity.
And this is why we should fear how much the government should be allowed to intrude into our lives. Because who knows what sort of low-level bitter bureaucrat may just take a disliking to you, and end up abusing government powers.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
Perhaps what was meant was don't incite panic making a false claim, as in don't yell "Fire!"
The department would like to fully assess what was said in the meeting. I am told that the meeting was far longer than the audio clip provided by SOCM and that Mr. Smith actually clarified his remarks.
Talk about a massive abuse of authority, it's getting ridiculous how anything that the government doesn't agree with or makes them look bad and they'll use terrorism as excuse to indefinitely detain, control, and slander you.
http://theworkaround.com/
If there's several simultaneous valid complaints alleging something like a serious illness, the water system may have to be shut down while it's tested or risk spread of a contamination. We've had that happen several times where I live (and I live in a major metropolitan area) when initial tests have shown a possible bacterial problem and they've needed several days for comprehensive tests to tell whether there really is a problem or not. I'd be outraged if a single complaint would have them labeling the complainant a terrorist, but I suspect the missing context is that they're discussing concerted multiple reports filed with the intent of forcing a shutdown and possibly where the complainants are aware they don't have a reasonable basis for the complaints (think anti-fluoridation kooks wanting to "send a message").