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Pentagon Wants To Predict Anti-Trump Protests Using Social Media Surveillance (vice.com)
Alice Marshall shares an excerpt from Motherboard: The United States government is accelerating efforts to monitor social media to preempt major anti-government protests in the U.S., according to scientific research, official government documents, and patent filings reviewed by Motherboard. The social media posts of American citizens who don't like President Donald Trump are the focus of the latest U.S. military-funded research. The research, funded by the U.S. Army and co-authored by a researcher based at the West Point Military Academy, is part of a wider effort by the Trump administration to consolidate the U.S. military's role and influence on domestic intelligence.
The vast scale of this effort is reflected in a number of government social media surveillance patents granted this year, which relate to a spy program that the Trump administration outsourced to a private company last year. Experts interviewed by Motherboard say that the Pentagon's new technology research may have played a role in amendments this April to the Joint Chiefs of Staff homeland defense doctrine, which widen the Pentagon's role in providing intelligence for domestic "emergencies," including an "insurrection."
The vast scale of this effort is reflected in a number of government social media surveillance patents granted this year, which relate to a spy program that the Trump administration outsourced to a private company last year. Experts interviewed by Motherboard say that the Pentagon's new technology research may have played a role in amendments this April to the Joint Chiefs of Staff homeland defense doctrine, which widen the Pentagon's role in providing intelligence for domestic "emergencies," including an "insurrection."
Gosh, is there no limit to this miserable sack of pus' stupidity and ignorance ? Did he seriously tell a journalist and the entire world that he would sign an executive order to effectively repel the 14th amendement of the Constitution of the United States ?
Yes he did. But you know what ? It's not because he's stupid. It's because he knows perfectly well that his supporters are stupid, and that he can say pretty much any complete absurdity and absolute lie, but if it's what they want to hear, then they'll believe him anyway.
After all, didn't he get elected even after basically calling all his supporters fucking morons ?
"I could stand in the middle of fifth avenue and shoot someone, and I still wouldn't lose any voters".
Liberals have spent two years rioting in the streets and on campuses because they didn't get their way in 2016, are regularly driven to assault by the mere sight of red hats, and are triggered into apoplectic rage by the mere existence of alternative viewpoints. Social media (and /.) is flooded with batshit demands for everything from assassinations of republicans and Trump or demands for Trump's trial and execution for "treason", to the overthrow of the government itself.
In an honest world this is known as "terrorism"; the only reason no one pushes the point is because it would only inflame the situation more and we're trying to contain you psychos as best we can. Actively monitoring and infiltrating the Antifa-types (as well as right-wing nutjobs) looking for any excuse to shut them down is exactly what the government *should* be doing. To not do so is all but asking for another OKC.
The United States government is accelerating efforts to monitor social media to preempt major anti-government protests in the US
So basically they want to conduct mass surveillance, predict where protests are being planned and crack down on them with maximum force so his Orange Imperial Majesty's delicate little snowflake heart won't melt form the heat of all that unwanted criticism? I seem to remember having read the following in a document considered so important it is kept in a climate controlled armoured glass box flanked by armed guards:
"The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, infringed. The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable. The people shall not be restrained from peaceably assembling and consulting for their common good; nor from applying to the Legislature by petitions, or remonstrances, for redress of their grievances."
Pay particular attention for that last part, "remonstrances" means "forceful reproachful protest" the US constitution literally guarantees the citizen's rights to protest and not be particularly polite about it. The constitution guarantees that the US citizenry's can voice its grievances without having to give a damn about the delicate sentiments of thin skinned and whiny little bitch politicians .
No you can take your false equivalence and shove it. I've always thought political parties were a bad idea, and nobody is a saint, but the degree of lying and cheating that people in the current US republican party will stoop to is unacceptable in a civil society. Your one example shows your argument is hollow. The GOP was all for repealing the ACA because it sounds good in a campaign slogan but didn't do it because they have no real alternative policy, just talking points. That's a concrete promise that was broken. Then you say some random squishy crap about Obama not sticking to "hope and change". Nothing concrete. On the same issue, the democrats ran on revamping healthcare, and that's what happened. Not single-payer, but the ACA was a concrete improvement to the status quo that could be put into law at the time despite an obstructionist opposition party. One of the main motivations for the ACA was getting the healthcare part of the national economy and national debt and deficit more under control, something the GOP claims they want to do but never do. Your claim that both of these are parties saying one thing and doing another is simply false equivalence.