Department of Pre-Crime, TSA Edition

Yves here. In case you have not done so, please circulate the revelation that TSA has been engaging in a staggering amount of costly, terrorist-level harassment of former Congressmember and presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard. Matt Taibbi gave a long-form account of how the TSA repeatedly subjected Gabbard to over-the-top searches, feeling every article of clothing and her bags….as if she were carrying explosives!!! There’s no justification for this. The clear intent is to intimidate her into keeping her mouth shut.

Tom Neuburger’s piece below gives a good overview. However, I have some doubts about his idea that we are in a pre-revolutionary era. The French Revolution came out of left field. Even though there had been a period of poor harvests, food scarcity was becoming less of a problem as growing conditions had improved. It was the king himself who initiated the cahiers de doléances that were solicited through each of the three estates which then solicited locals to find out what their grievances were. They were written as requests to the king or suggested reforms. Later scholars described them as typically assuming the king did not know about the bad conditions he was being asked to remedy. In other words, there was no sign that the legitimacy of his authority was being challenged.

Less than three years later, Louis XVI was beheaded. And bear in mind that the status of kings was so deeply embedded in societies all over Europe and they were even accorded quasi-divine status, such as having healing powers, so that three years was a very short timeframe for this overthrow.

Even more on point is the overthrow of the Shah of Iran. In a new Duran broadcast, Seyed Mohammad Marandi said in passing that no one saw the revolution coming.

So I am still skeptical of the revolution thesis. Neoliberalism has been a great success in weakening social and community ties and getting people to see themselves as isolated individuals. More and more violence and rebellion seem almost baked in, but it seems more probable that the progression will be towards anarchy and fragmentation, and not an organized or large-scale revolution. Nevertheless, evidence of the insecurity of our supposed betters keeps accumulating. The FBI raided Scott Ritter’s home earlier this week. In the UK, the government is considering criminalizing the retweeting of posts it considers hateful.

By Tom Neuburger. Originally published at God’s Spies

Happy summer travelers

“When authorities believe their own citizens will become dangerous, they begin to focus on controlling the public, rather than on addressing the disaster.”
—David Wallace-Wells

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Scheduling note first: As promised, I’m going to be away for a bit, so no or occasional posting for the next week or two. It’s August; time to see what’s blooming outside these doors.

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‘Quiet Skies’
If you read nothing else this week, read this, about the birth of the Dept. of Pre-Crime in Homeland Security. Spook state indeed.

EXCLUSIVE – Federal Air Marshal Whistleblowers Report Tulsi Gabbard Actively Under Surveillance via Quiet Skies Program

In an exclusive breaking story, several Federal Air Marshal whistleblowers have come forward with information showing that former U.S. Representative and Presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard is currently enrolled in the Quiet Skies program. Quiet Skies is a TSA surveillance program with its own compartmentalized suspected terrorist watchlist. It is the same program being weaponized against J6 defendants and their families. Quiet Skies is allegedly used to protect traveling Americans from suspected domestic terrorists. …

The whistleblowers first shared the information with Sonya LaBosco, the Executive Director of the Air Marshal National Council (AMNC), a national advocacy group for the Federal Air Marshals (FAMs). According to LaBosco, at least one of the whistleblowers is ready to go on the record with pertinent documentation. LaBosco shared that Gabbard is unaware she has two Explosive Detection Canine Teams, one Transportation Security Specialist (explosives), one plainclothes TSA Supervisor, and three Federal Air Marshals on every flight she boards.

The degree of inconvenience can’t be understated. Matt Taibbi, who interviewed Gabbard, adds this:

This story began two weeks ago, when the former Hawaii congresswoman returned home after a short trip abroad. In airport after airport, she and her husband Abraham Williams encountered obstacles. First on a flight from Rome to Dallas, then a connecting flight to Austin, and later on different flights for both to cities like Nashville, Orlando, and Atlanta, their boarding passes were marked with the “SSSS” designation, which stands for “Secondary Security Screening Selection.” The “Quad-S” marker is often a sign the traveler has been put on a threat list, and Gabbard and Williams were forced into extensive “random” searches lasting as long as 45 minutes.

“It happened every time I boarded,” says Gabbard. The Iraq war veteran and current Army reservist tends to pack light, but no matter.

“I’ve got a couple of blazers in there, and they’re squeezing every inch of the entire collar, every inch of the sleeves, every inch of the edging of the blazers,” she says. “They’re squeezing or padding down underwear, bras, workout clothes, every inch of every piece of clothing.” Agents unzipped the lining inside the roller board of her suitcase, patting down every inch inside the liner. Gabbard was asked to take every piece of electronics out and turn each on, including her military phone and computer.

As both Gabbard and Sonya LaBosco, head of a Federal Air Marshall’s advocacy group, say, she’s not the only one to receive this treatment. There are others.

Political Motivation, or Something Else?

Both Gabbard and LaBosco believe this is politically motivated — in Gabbard’s case, retaliation not only for past sins, but more recently, for publicly criticizing “unelected warmongers — i.e. the Military Industrial Complex which profits from war, and the National Security State”. Bosco believes association with January 6 is involved.

My view: This may or may not be true; no one can be sure. I’m certain the marshals think their actions are good.

I think something much more general is involved. Consider: What happens when a citizenry becomes rebellious, egged on by economic privation and a rapacious oligarchic class that will not stand down?

This is clearly what happened in France.

Despite the end result of that Revolution, the process was a bloody mess and lasted decades. It was awful — more than Liberty led the people. They got tyrants as well, world-historical ones. No one wants to live in revolutionary times.

And yet here we are: “Our captured government sent manufacturing abroad to make our rich more rich. They immiserated workers, let predatory domestic companies pick cash from their bones, and trumpet on cable news the only fight that won’t hurt their bottom line. As a result, we watch our parties battle each other while the real perps, the not-yet-rich-enough rich, rake in the dough.”

This won’t end quickly or well. We’ve seen the stirrings for decades, ignored (mostly) by Democrats and cruelly misled by Republicans. (Oh, for a second Lincoln, or a Sanders with balls!)

The State, Faced with Unrest, Will Do What?

But political parties aside, consider the State. What does it do when internal unrest grows? What happens when authorities believe their citizen will become dangerous?

This is why I don’t think this clampdown is just political. Yes, those involved, even peripherally, in January 6 are receiving extra attention. So yes, conservatives may rightly (or not) think they’re targeted.

But there are many reason for our citizens to be uppity. Consider the George Floyd riots. The unfocused anger of the those made prey by the rich. And the big one around the corner: the mother of all storms, wealth-driven Climate Change.

What will “authorities” do?

That day is coming, the day when the public demands change, redress, retribution. How will elites respond? The government, including its National Security arm, will have only two choices, similar to the choices faced by Anchorage, Alaska.

Elites who run the State can:

• Protect the citizens by changing their policy now, or
• Protect themselves and their friends from the wrath of their victims.

We know our rich like we know the back of our hand ­— as a class, they serve only themselves. Why should they change?

From an Establishment standpoint, of course, none of this can be allowed. No rebellion of an unapproved sort is permissible. Not BLM, not Proud Boys, not Stop the Steal, not student debt strikes, not Occupy Wall Street 2.0, not any activity that represents an actual threat to the “nothing will change” apple cart that gives meaning to the lives of the few who constrain the lives of the many.

The few feed on the many, surf with pleasure on the back of their forced labor, and the bent-down many cannot be allowed to object.

How to enforce this constraint in pre-revolutionary times? The Riot of January 6 is providing the perfect excuse to clamp down on any objection to “the way things have always been.”

But more than that, the one-time event of the riot allows a radical and permanent redefinition of political crime — not as an act of violence, but an act of thought. We’re entering the world of pre-emptive arrest, incarceration and prosecution for the political crime of being on the “path to radicalization.”

We may not be at pre-emptive arrest (as far as I know), but as the Gabbard case shows, we’ve reached pre-emptive harassment with no end in sight. And here we are.