Be careful what you read in public. The FB-eye might need to ask you about it.

[JohnyCanuck]

Careful: The FB-eye may be watching

Reading the wrong thing in public can get you in trouble

BY MARC SCHULTZ

Published 07.17.03

"The FBI is here,"Mom tells me over the phone. Immediately I can see my mom with her back to a couple of Matrix-like figures in black suits and opaque sunglasses, her hand covering the mouthpiece like Grace Kelly in Dial M for Murder. This must be a joke, I think. But it's not, because Mom isn't that funny.

"The who?" I say. "Two FBI agents. They say you're not in trouble, they just want to talk. They want to come to the store."

SNIP

"Were you at the Caribou Coffee on Powers Ferry?" asks Agent Trippi. That's where I get my coffee before work, and so I tell him yes, probably, just before remembering Saturday: Harry Potter day, opening early, in at 8:30.

So I would have been at Caribou Coffee that Saturday, getting my small coffee, room for cream. This information seems to please the agents.

"Did you notice anything unusual, anyone worth commenting on?" OK, I think. It's the unusual guy they want, not me. I think hard, wondering if it was Saturday I saw the guy in the really cool reclining wheelchair, the guy who struck me as a potential James Bondian supervillain, but no: That was Monday.

Then they ask if I carried anything into the shop -- and we're back to me.

My mind races. I think: a bomb? A knife? A balloon filled with narcotics? But no. I don't own any of those things. "Sunglasses," I say. "Maybe my cell phone?"

Not the right answer. I'm nervous now, wondering how I must look: average, mid-20s, unassuming retail employee. What could I have possibly been carrying?

Trippi's partner speaks up: "Any reading material? Papers?" I don't think so. Then Trippi decides to level with me: "I'll tell you what, Marc. Someone in the shop that day saw you reading something, and thought it looked suspicious enough to call us about. So that's why we're here, just checking it out. Like I said, there's no problem. We'd just like to get to the bottom of this. Now if we can't, then you may have a problem. And you don't want that."

You don't want that? Have I just been threatened by the FBI? Confusion and a light dusting of panic conspire to keep me speechless. Was I reading something that morning? Something that would constitute a problem?

The partner speaks up again: "Maybe a printout of some kind?"

Then it occurs to me: I was reading. It was an article my dad had printed off the Web. I remember carrying it into Caribou with me, reading it in line, and then while stirring cream into my coffee. I remember bringing it with me to the store, finishing it before we opened. I can't remember what the article was about, but I'm sure it was some kind of left-wing editorial, the kind that never fails to incite me to anger and despair over the state of the country.

I tell them all this, but they want specifics: the title of the article, the author, some kind of synopsis, but I can't help them -- I read so much of this stuff.


SNIP

Back in the store, Trippi gives me his card and tells me to call him if I remember anything. After he's gone, I call my dad back to see if he has calmed down, maybe come up with a name. We retrace some steps together, figure out the article was Hal Crowther's "Weapons of Mass Stupidity" from the Weekly Planet, a free independent out of Tampa. It comes back to me then, this scathing screed focusing on the way corporate interests have poisoned the country's media, focusing mostly on Fox News and Rupert Murdoch -- really infuriating, deadly accurate stuff about American journalism post-9-11. So I call the number on the card, leave a message with the name, author and origin of the column, and ask him to call me if he has any more questions.

To tell the truth, I'm kind of anxious to hear back from the FBI, if only for the chance to ask why anyone would find media criticism suspicious, or if maybe the sight of a dark, bearded man reading in public is itself enough to strike fear in the heart of a patriotic citizen.


http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A12715&status=rate&ratebtn=5

Well if the full blown police state isn't here yet, more and more the trends seem to show it's well on the way.

Police State USA?
by
Norman Livergood

A police state exists when federal and state political and police mechanisms:

1. Shut down media coverage after they steal an election

2. Serve the central government instead of serving the citizens

3. Enforce the policies of the central government instead of responding primarily to criminal misdeeds

4. Spy on and intimidate citizens

All these conditions now exist in the United States!


* In a free society, police agencies respond to evidence of planned and actual criminal activity.

* Police officers in a free society keep the peace; they do not investigate citizens and activities unless there is some reason to investigate.

* In a free society, police do not investigate citizens' attitudes toward the central government, only their action.

* Citizen dissent is lawful in a free society and police agencies do not investigate citizens' attitudes toward the criminal justice apparatus.

Those conditions no longer exist in the United States!

http://www.hermes-press.com/police_state.htm

[EVDebs]

1. Hide your almanacs !

http://cryptome.org/fbi-almanacs.htm

Common sense departed the building awhile back. They've shredded the Constitution, too, so have some of it memorized prior to dealing with Agent Mike.

[EFerrari]

3. And your cookbooks!

:scared:

[EVDebs]

4. Only with certain Chinese ingredients ! LOL

[CelticWinter]

13. O dear!!!

I have that cookbook I better hide it lol.

[EFerrari]

14. And we all have PHONEBOOKS!

:scared:

lol

[Lugnut]

20. Not my cookbooks!

:wow: They can have my cookbooks when they pry them out of my cold dead hands.

[xultar]

2. I'm reading a book about how the FB eye can kiss my black ass.

I'd love to discuss it with them.

[suffragette]

7. xultar, you are great!

Your post made me smile.

[JohnyCanuck]

21. You might get your wish

If Agent Mike sees your post, maybe he'll send one of his colleagues around for a friendly visit and a chat. :)

[Freddie Stubbs]

5. How did federal and state political and police mechanisms shut down media coverage?

:shrug:

[JohnyCanuck]

18. If you go to the Police State USA article,

on that particular point the author links to this:

Letter from Peter Coyote on Black Box Voting
9 November 2004 - 22:49:01

There is a bumper sticker I saw months ago that sums up the current state of affairs in our country regarding what is the biggest news story you'll never see on the General Media reported. It said "IF YOUR NOT OUTRAGED, YOUR NOT PAYING ATTENTION".

On Friday I received a phone call from a good friend who works at CBS -- I've known her for years and she is a Producer for some of the news programs, one well known one in particular. She tipped me off that the news media is in a "lock-down" and that there is to be no TV coverage of the real problems with voting on Nov. 2nd. She said similar "lock-down orders" had come down last year after the invasion of Iraq, but this is far worse -- far scarier. She said the majority of their journalists at CBS and elsewhere in NYC are pretty horrified -- every one is worried about their jobs and retribution Dan Rather style or worse. My source said they've also been forbidden to talk about it even on their own time but she was pissed and her journalistic and moral integrity as what she considers to be a gov't watchdog requires her to speak out, while be it covert and she therefore asked me to "spread" the word . . . She said that journalism and the truth is at stake. She said another friend of hers, a producer at MSNBC, said that an anchor by the name of Keith Olbermann had brought it up on his show on Friday eve and the axe came down. He's at least fighting back and talking about it on his "Blog", but she said that people there are worried that he's going to be fired by higher ups. She said at this point the only way that the "real news" was going to be if the people started talking about it and made a big enough stink about it to our elected officials, the FEC, and "noise" to the international media, that our own media won't have any choice but to cover it. (Yes, this is really happening in the good ole' supposed "democratic" free press of the US of A). The only place you'll see this talked about right now is on the internet and on AirAmericaRadio.

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/2004Coyote.html

And bear in mind that when Dubya's grandpappy Prescott and his corporate partners in treason were plotting to overthrow FDR and institute a fascist dictatorship in the USA they apparently told General Smedley Butler that they were sure that Americans would accept their new government because they controlled all the newspapers. See: http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/25/17852/8697 Since then corporate media ownership has only become more concentrated and it is as plain as the nose on your face that (with damned few exceptions) the corporate, whore media has been blatantly shilling for and covering up the crimes of Bush and his neocon, fascist buds from day one, hence barely a mention in the mainstream media of the evidence for election fraud in the last two presidential elections (see the letter from Peter Coyote above). And if you can point out to one or two examples where a story touching on these matters has made it to air or to print in mainstream sources, I'd bet there has been absolutely no follow up. They might put the story out there, but then it just gets swallowed in all the background noise of day to day events and the story dies a natural death (as intended)with no follow up investigation or reporting.

Coincidentally, I just came across this on the web. Now lets see how much air time this story gets on the corporately owned, lamestream media.

In Violation of Federal Law, Ohio's 2004 Presidential Election Records Are Destroyed or Missing

In 56 of Ohio's 88 counties, ballots and election records from 2004 have been "accidentally" destroyed, despite a federal order to preserve them -- it was crucial evidence which would have revealed whether the election was stolen.

By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet
Posted on July 30, 2007, Printed on July 31, 2007

Two-thirds of Ohio counties have destroyed or lost their 2004 presidential ballots and related election records, according to letters from county election officials to the Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner.

The lost records violate Ohio law, which states federal election records must be kept for 22 months after Election Day, and a U.S. District Court order issued last September that the 2004 ballots be preserved while the court hears a civil rights lawsuit alleging voter suppression of African-American voters in Columbus.

The destruction of the election records also frustrates efforts by the media and historians to determine the accuracy of Ohio's 2004 vote count, because in county after county the key evidence needed to understand vote count anomalies apparently no longer exists.

"The extent of the destruction of records is consistent with the covering up of the fraud that we believe occurred in the presidential election," said Cliff Arnebeck, a Columbus attorney representing the King Lincoln Bronzeville Neighborhood Association, which filed voter suppression suit. "We're in the process of addressing where to go from here with the Ohio Attorney General's office."

"On the one hand, people will now say you can't prove the fraud," he said, "but the rule of law says that when evidence is destroyed it creates a presumption that the people who destroyed evidence did so because it would have proved the contention of the other side."

http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/2007/07/in-violation-of-federal-law-ohios-2004.html

[dkofos]

6. I was reading about a plot to kill the president the other day.

[Mme. Defarge]

8. How did they know who you were

and where to find you?

[JohnyCanuck]

9. When you say "you" did you mean the author Marc Shulz?

I only reposted the original article. I can't speak for Mark, but since the FBI apparently knew what type of car he had I would assume the freeper-head asshole who reported Mark took down his license plate number.

[Mme. Defarge]

16. Yes, I was referring to the author of the article.

Thanks.

[Pawel K]

12. My thoughts exactly...nt

[girl gone mad]

10. Call me a skeptic,

but this article raises too many doubts in my mind.

[porphyrian]

11. Informing on your neighbors is fun!

If you think someone is acting suspicious, be sure to report it to the FBI or Homeland Security in the most terrorist-implying way! That'll learn 'em!

[EFerrari]

15. I've called the FBI here twice. Once for the Nigerian Scam, once

for a different scam. When they answer the phone, they sound sleepy as hell.

I'm not worried about the FBI.

/oops

[glitch]

17. I bet the FBI wishes they had moron-filtering on their phones.

Some tool probably thought terrorists read printouts on weapons of mass... at their local coffee shop.

Then again, if they are required to follow up on this type of call they probably wish we all had moron-filtering in Congress (Patriot Act) and the Executive Office (DOJ).

[warren pease]

19. A nation of snitches...

At least, that's one of BushCo's wet dreams. Remember this classic from about a month after 9/11? Bush starts babbling about threats to nuclear and chemical plants, and from the crop dusters of doom:

"Well . . . you know, if you find a person that you've never seen before getting in a crop duster that doesn't belong to (them), report it. If you see suspicious people lurking around petrochemical plants, report it."

So at least one jack-booted imbecile took those words to heart.


wp