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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."
I was not aware protestors made their efforts secret. I am personally all for secret protests! It would really help avoid the convuluted traffic the public protests inspire.
Law enforcement I could understand, but the military?
Not that I think it's a good idea. I'm getting kinda sick of the anti-Trump whining, but that doesn't mean you have to go all "pre-crime" on political protestors.
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".
shit right about now. Now, Fox & Co are propagandists, so I don't expect even a tiny bit of consistency from them. But I expect a little better from the right wing. There was zero outrage when Trump praised Chinese President Xi for seizing power for life and suggested he'd like to do the same. Again, imagine the shit storm if Obama had done that.
Somebody raised a very good point today. Trump pulled back the FBI from investigating right wing domestic terrorists. We just had a synagogue shot up and a pipe bomber. That is not a coinki-dink. The president responded to this by tweeting about baseball and saying he thought he might miss his rally.... because he was having a bad hair day. That's not "Trump being Trump". That's Trump signaling to the far right that violence is OK.
I'm not gonna try to speak to the alt-righters here because I'm not good enough at it to do anything but piss you off more than you already are. Go watch some Secular Talk or Aron Ra or Bad Mouse Productions on youtube
This message is for the Blacks, Jews and Mexicans who stayed home when it was time to vote for Bernie and did it again when it was time to vote for that bitch Hilary. And it's for the white guys who've got friends in those categories:
I get it. Taxes suck and you don't like being told what to do by smarthy liberals. But if you sit another election out Trump & company are gonna get some signaling themselves. They're gonna figure out that their strategy of riling up the violent alt-right is working. Those people are going to come for you. Because they've got problems. Big ones. And Trump can't solve them. He's not clever enough. To stay in power he's gonna wind them up and send them after you. It's a trick that's thousands of years old and it works.
They're coming for you and you're not going to be safe in your gated communities. Vote. And Vote for whoever has the best chance of taking down Trump and company. Or the violence is going to get worse. A lot worse.
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the post above is what happens when a lefty rants with the kind of bitter rage usually reserved for the alt-right.
Speaking of rage: I'd be a lot less better if I didn't have so many family members who've had the shit kicked out of them by our crap healthcare system because folks won't stop voting for the GOP when they keep telling you they're gonna end Obamacare with it's protection for preexisting conditions. Jeez, I wish I knew how to reach the electorate. 26% of Americans still believe the GOP is gonna save them even after 60 votes to repeal and Mitch McConnell going around saying he's gonna end social security and Medicare.
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read the article, no source within the article says Trump admin is actually doing that. A bunch of other studies and models referenced.
That's why politics is like a dumb sports game. Everyone drinks a bit too much, they boo for the other time and call them rude names for no reason than for being on the wrong side, and they cheer on their own team as the greatest of heroes merely for being their guys. If one of their guys gets arrested they will wring their hands and wonder if the police are taking things too far, and if one of the other guys get arrested they cheer at their own good luck. After the game is over all the drunk fans go into the parking lot to fight each other.
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.
bunch of pro-establishment right wingers over there. Don't let the occasional bit of left wing social politics fool you. MSNBC is hard right on the stuff that matters (economics). CNN would cover it in a centrists milktoast way that doesn't matter worth a fuck. But the right wing media engine? They'd go ape shit.
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... And then again, how did all Caesars lose their jobs?
Not quickly enough?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
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 .
Centrist here, I see a lot of complaining about people on the right not taking their own to task while the same problem appears on the left. If you want to have standing when you call people on the right out you really need to be free of guilt yourself. If you think that what I just said is a bunch of BS then you are only going to prove that you are guilty of what I said.
As a centrist I watch both sides endlessly accuse the other of the very things they are guilty of themselves. Each time one of their own abuse the Constitution they don't care... at least they gave the other side what for... and they enjoy it too.
And you should abide your own warnings... you think the people on the left are against ripping themselves apart? Good luck, I have a sneak suspicion that the worst thing you could ever do for a lefty or a righty is to give them everything they want so you can sit back and watch them build tyrannies. A total trash nation on one hand and a complete police state on the other. It is the constant struggle between the two that I enjoy because the more time they spend fighting the less time they have to get together and scheme more liberty away.
You bet the violence is going to get worse, because like you... no one is interested in talking this out... they are only interested in talking AT people and not with them. The moment someone says something you don't agree with and all the accusations and name calling come out.
The constitution is practically ignored by both parties and no matter which rights or liberties are trashed by laws neither party works to restore those liberties, they instead try to "rewrite" the law to fit their agenda's. Kinda like how all the republican ran on the platform of repealing ACA but actually did nothing of the sort. And much like Obama's "Hope & Change" was actually just more of the same of Bush policies.
I also like how you can read minds. That's a remarkable ability shared by many on the Left. When Black Lives Matter murders five police officers it doesn't reflect on them, but some nutcase has a Trump sticker and that obviously means it was planned from the top.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Military and their contractors shouldn't be allowed to behave as domestic law enforcement.
You should consider picking up a dictionary or something.
Capitalism is only 1 thing. People rather than Government owns the means of productivity.
You are talking about consumerism... get a clue if you expect to troll better! Also, there will never not be a ruling class, if you want a ruling class to be gone then you need to institute complete anarchy and instantly murder anyone talking about forming government or a council or a chief, because those guys become the ruling class.
And as long as you remain ignorant like this, you will need to be ruled by someone or you will just contribute to the decay of society.
"They were coming right at us!!"
This will probably happen, so IDK why I'm making a south park joke... :(
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
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.
"They were coming right at us!!"
This will probably happen, so IDK why I'm making a south park joke... :(
It is not that Trump particularly wants to kill them. He seems more amoral than anything else. If they die to serve his agenda, well that's fine, seems to be his thought process. In fact actual deaths of good people don't seem to register much to non teleprompter Trump. He just makes up a lie and moves on.
Let's look at the facts. Who does he admire and get along with? Strongmen. Dictators. That's pretty much it.
Which tactics does he use? You guessed it, the tactics of dictators and strong men. Blaming everything on a minority or two. Calling all your enemies evil or an angry mob, or any of the other variations. Continuous, vast, and uncountable numbers of lies.
People are angry. Righteous anger is normal and at times appropriate, but I worry that Trump is making people so angry with his scorched earth tactics to win, that we as a country can never heal.
Will we have our own Tiananmen Square anytime soon? Possibly.
Imagine this scenario. Does it seem likely?
"They were an angry mob with weapons (of some kind, not necessarily guns. Perhaps just a few brooms or something) and they were getting too close to the president. They had to be stopped. This is what happens when you let an angry mob take too much power, but thanks to our new pentagon programs we are active an alert about potential targets of insurrection against the homeland. In fact, to promote public safety we regularly update the public watch list database so employers can make informed decisions."
I find such a scenario quite possible, and if it happens, I'm not sure where it ends. (Needless to say the pentagon should not be involved in law enforcement at all.)
We already are talking kids in cages. Now he is openly talking about disobeying the constitution and throwing out people born in our country. We now have the military facing a non existent threat just to gin up his poll numbers. All of this should be grounds for removal, yet the right does nothing.
We just had proof that one of his rabid followers tried, seriously tried to assassinate two former presidents and a bunch of others. The fact that the guy was apparently too stupid to build a credible bomb is all that saved from disaster.
Another guy walked into a church and started killing, and if you don't think Trump's Us vs Them rhetoric fed the flames your an idiot. I remember Charlotsville well. He was an apologists for an angry mob shouting, "Jews will not replace us!" He said they were fine people.
We don't really need a vast system to predict and quell protests. That way leads on right down a path probably more like Communist China or possibly North Korea, though the shear number of guns in this country limits how far that is likely to go.
What we do need is simple honesty and people in charge willing to at least try to work together and do the job they were elected for, including the president.
I'm beginning to think we also need some history lessons, so as to better guide and guard us against making even more mistakes.
In the last election far too many of us asked, "What do we have to lose?" Now that answer is clear. We could lose everything that makes us a great country that one can be proud of. If there is a time to take action it is one week from now to restore checks and balances, for if we fail, it is possible we won't get another chance.
America the surveillance state. Just the words smell like ashes. Let us hope we can right this ship of state.
the for profit insurance industry did. There's multiple studies that show it kept prices down.... a bit. They're selling you something you can't live without and that has virtually no competition (since most get it from employers and there's only a few big companies left). The only cap on what they can charge is how much Americans will bear before they demand single payer.
Single payer solves everything. Every country in the world that's implemented it has made it work. Costs are limited because there's virtually no overhead. Doctors aren't employees of the government. It's single payer not single employer. The government is just paying. Docs do better because they no longer fight insurance companies for every scrap and penny.
Malpractice doesn't go away either. Again, we're not talking about nationalizing healthcare, we're nationalizing insurance. Just the paying for it.
The problem you're having is there's a multi-billion dollar propaganda engine putting ideas in your head. That's because the insurance companies are fighting for their lives. If Americans every realize they've got a bloated tick literally sucking the life out of them that's it. End of the gravy train. They spent half a billion last time we did a major reform and it paid off in spades with the "individual mandate" aka Romneycare being the best we could do even with Dems in charge. Don't fall for it. Single payer has been shown to work again and again. It saves money and it saves lives. 45,000 Americans will die of treatable illness this year. Next year you might be one of them. Demand single payer and don't vote for anyone who won't give you it.
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Nazis were right wingers, part of the definition of fascist. I know it's fashionable on the alt-right to claim Nazis were socialists but that's patently ridiculous. Anyone who claims Nazis were liberal socialists is not worth listening to, you may as well hold a more cogent argument in an insane asylum.
The conservative wing of the Republican party got its start as the segregationist Democrats - hardcore racists, home of the Klan, and so forth. Very anti-Jewish. This group migrated en-masse to the Republicans when the Democrats supported civil rights, though some had a brief sojourn with the Dixiecrats. The southern segregationists *hated* the Republicans for a century as the party that forced them to give up slaves, so when today it's ironic when some of the same people still alive claim to be in the Party of Lincoln.
The reason this particular shooter did not like Trump is because he felt that Trump does not go far enough in supporting the racists.
This is the biggest problem Republicans face; how to jettison their racist and white nationalist wing. Or it was shortly before 2016 when there was concern about getting black and hispanic votes in order to remain relevant. Trump proved them wrong though, that you can give a wink and a nod to the racist wing and win an election. I am still surprised that not more Republicans jumped ship after this.
IMO jewish people keep their opinions to themselves. They might think I'm going to hell for my lifestyle, but they keep it to themselves and do not try to tell me how the fuck to live my life. For that, they always get my support to continue to exist in that exact manner. If they don't fuck with me, I wont ever fuck with them. Its pretty simple. Unlike the southern baptist convention that tried to put Disney out of business in the 90s because they wanted to have same-sex benefits. How exactly was that going to ruin their visit to Disney World? Exactly.
The only religious groups I have a problem with are the ones that want to get in my face and force me to live their lifestyle. Vegans, they are very much like that too. Let me fuck my life up the way I see fit.
Shouldn't be hard, Where Trump goes a protest will follow, much like Mary, and her lamb.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Centrists aren't normally separate or neutral, instead we believe in compromise solutions that address all the major concerns that different people have, instead of just trying to pass by force with 50.00001% something that 49.999999% hate.
Instead with compromise, you can get a policy that 45% of people like, and only 20% hate. The goal isn't to make a perfect world, just to make it suck less.
They're coming for you and you're not going to be safe in your gated communities. Vote. And Vote for whoever has the best chance of taking down Trump and company. Or the violence is going to get worse. A lot worse.
Well, it was the instability of Germany in the 1920s that allowed the Nazi party to come to power. The communists has just overthrown the Czar in Russia, there was massive inflation and economic instability, mass unemployment, and the fascists were having weekly street riots with the communists. The Nazis stepped in, and offered to mop up the filthy communists, Jews and foreigners who were causing 'problems', and the German people ate it up.
Fascism is about national strength, militarism, xenophobia, and authoritarian solutions. Some of the first attacks Trump made when he came to power were on scientific programs, and he wants to start having military parades. In the 1920s the Nazis had their own newspapers and loved to attack any news that wasn't their own, sometimes go so far as to break into offices and smash other people's presses. The parallels between now and the 1920s are disturbingly similar.
Go read about the early history of the Nazi party, from 1920 to 1933, and think about what is happening now.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
At this rate, worrying about terrorists attempting to overthrow the government hardly seems necessary. The Trump administration appears to be doing just fine destroying what government we have left all by themselves without intervention of any outsiders, whether foreign or domestic.
No doubt allowing Trump to determine who is and who is not a US citizen by decree will fix everything. After all, who needs a Constitution when "only he can fix it"?
Kids in cages happened while Obama was President, and all those images were from there. Check your facts because the fake news doesn't. They do anything to stir controversy for profit.
As to your idiotic statement about throwing out people who were born here--who in power said that, ever? I'm waiting....yeah, nobody did so quit lying.
Now, do you realize the whole birthright citizenship misinterpretation comes from a FOOTNOTE that Justice Brennen put in a ruling in the 1980s? Yes...a footnote has changed our country. Wrongly, it turns out. You see, the people who wrote the 14th amendment were asked what it meant at the time and their answers were written down. They specifically said that it did not cover children born to parents who owe allegiance to another nation (are citizens of, say, Honduras). That's what 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof' means. If it did not mean that, they could have left it at just all persons born within the United States--but they didn't. For a reason.
The 14th amendment was written as it was to guarantee citizenship to ex slaves. Ex slaves who were having their rights denied by Democrats, btw. Ex slaves were brought here with no choice in the matter and who because of that were subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, had no other nation to legally owe allegiance to and be citizens of, and so they were made citizens as were their children.
At the time, the 14th amendment did not even cover Native Americans--because they had separate nations we made treaties with. They were thus not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. Congress made them citizens by law in 1924, as is their right to do under the Constitution, btw, so that settled that.
What Trump is doing is entirely Constitutional. Birthright citizenship is based on a misinterpretation of a lie, and he's going to fix it. (So is corporate personhood, btw, but that's a story for a other time) If it were not in accordance with the Constitution, he wouldn't and couldn't do it.
There is no hell in judaism and besides, it emphasizes doing the right thing for its own sake, not because of some possible punishment in the afterlife. This (and a couple of other concepts like pikuach nefesh) is the reason why I have a grudging respect of judaism even though I am generally an antitheist.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Will we have our own Tiananmen Square anytime soon? Possibly.
You people have completely lost your minds.
You seriously need to get a grip. Turn off the TV, the computer, whatever you need to, for awhile.
Given the video footage of people attacking his car prior to the collision in which she died I find it bewildering that you think that the crowd of people around him were somehow behaving.
The good news is that he's being put on trial for murder so we'll get the whole situation properly examined in a court of law, including his act of violence but also any extenuating circumstances (including, e.g., whether he was acting in justifiable self defence).
i don't see democrats shooting up churches or schools or ramming their cars through crowds of people.....
You forgot to mention sending mail bombs.
But you also forgot opening fire with a rifle at congressional baseball practice.
Political violence is not restricted to any specific political view.
Every tool you build, your opponent will use against you.
Google and facebook are creating a lot of tools to "fight the alt-right", but when trump gets his orange hands on em, well it won't be pretty.
Indeed. The left always wants more government. This is what "more government" looks like. This sort of thing is exactly why forward-looking people want to reduce the current size of government!
(And before anyone types "Somalia", there a lot of room to reduce our current government and still have a large government.)
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
First of all, "anti-Trump" protests are not "anti-Government" protests. The Pentagon has a few smart people, you'd figure they'd point that out to the rest of them.
Secondly, it's not very democratic to take sides against the People. A lot of those smart people at the Pentagon study a whole lot of history and should know the inevitable negative consequences of such policies.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
but don't count on guns to save you from tyranny. The government will have the military, and a disorganized resistance without supply lines is no match for a modern army. Don't look to Afghanistan for solace. We took the valuable parts of the country and let the "insurgents" run wild in the desert mountains and occasionally come down and blow up a school bus.
/. nerds tell ourselves we can do to solve any problem if all else fails.
"Second Amendment Solutions" are the political equivalent to "getting my MCSE". Something you tell yourself to feel better about a worsening solution. Something
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And as we're seeing, conservatives are the ones abusing government power.
Indeed. Left or right, you should want a smaller government, because there's always someone who will abuse whatever power you give them. The only true defense is giving them less power.
Any power you give a currently-OK government to solve some problem will eventually be used against you unfairly and maliciously by the next evil man who ends up in charge. Make sure it's worth it.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
So the Pentagon is calling the 1st amendment "insurrection"
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
And Lord Trumkin believes he can invalidate the 14th Amendment with a waive of a pen.
Amendment XIV, Section 1. "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside."
Yet, he's the most popular Republican president with his base in the modern era.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
Meanwhile the Right continues to deny any and all correlation between the talking head hate site FauxNoise, Trumpkin's rhetoric, and an increase in hate crimes.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/p...
vote people, get out and vote.
Every country in the world that's implemented it has made it work ...because they had to, because communists made them.
Doesn't look much like justifiable self defence to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Maybe you have a different video.
"Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman