Censored, Surveilled, Watch Listed and Jailed. Freest Country in the World?By John W. Whitehead In past ages, those who dared to speak out against tyrannyviewed as an act of treasonwere blinded, castrated, disfigured, mutilated, rendered mute by having their tongues cut out of their heads, and ultimately crucified. In the American police state, the price to be paid for speaking truth to power (also increasingly viewed as an act of treason) is surveillance, censorship, jail and ultimately death. Its a diabolically ingenious tactic for muzzling, disarming and ultimately eliminating ones critics or potential adversaries. However, where many Americans go wrong is in assuming that you have to be doing something illegal or challenging the governments authority in order to be flagged as a suspicious character, labeled an enemy of the state and locked up like a dangerous criminal. In fact, as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, all you really need to do is use certain trigger words, surf the internet, communicate using a cell phone, drive a car, stay at a hotel, purchase materials at a hardware store, take flying or boating lessons, appear suspicious, question government authority, or generally live in the United States. With the help of automated eyes and ears, a growing arsenal of high-tech software, hardware and techniques, government propaganda urging Americans to turn into spies and snitches, as well as social media and behavior sensing software, government agents are spinning a sticky spider-web of threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged words, and suspicious activity reports aimed at snaring potential enemies of the state. Its the American police states take on the dystopian terrors foreshadowed by George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and Phillip K. Dick all rolled up into one oppressive pre-crime and pre-thought crime package. Whats more, the technocrats who run the surveillance state dont even have to break a sweat while monitoring what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, how much you spend, whom you support, and with whom you communicate. Computers now do the tedious work of trolling social media, the internet, text messages and phone calls for potentially anti-government remarksall of which is carefully recorded, documented, and stored to be used against you someday at a time and place of the governments choosing. The following activities are guaranteed to get you censored, surveilled, eventually placed on a government watch list, possibly detained and potentially killed. Laugh at your own peril. Use harmless trigger words like cloud, pork and pirates: The Department of Homeland Security has an expansive list of keywords and phrases it uses to monitor social networking sites and online media for signs of terrorist or other threats. While youll definitely send up an alert for using phrases such as dirty bomb, Jihad and Agro terror, youre just as likely to get flagged for surveillance if you reference the terms SWAT, lockdown, police, cloud, food poisoning, pork, flu, Subway, smart, delays, cancelled, la familia, pirates, hurricane, forest fire, storm, flood, help, ice, snow, worm, warning or social media. Use a cell phone: Simply by using a cell phone, you make yourself an easy target for government agentsworking closely with corporationswho can listen in on your phone calls, read your text messages and emails, and track your movements based on the data transferred from, received by, and stored in your cell phone. Mention any of the so-called trigger words in a conversation or text message, and youll get flagged for sure. Drive a car: Unless youve got an old junkyard heap without any of the gadgets and gizmos that are so attractive to todays car buyers (GPS, satellite radio, electrical everything, smart systems, etc.), driving a car today is like wearing a homing device: youll be tracked from the moment you open that car door thanks to black box recorders and vehicle-to-vehicle communications systems that can monitor your speed, direction, location, the number of miles traveled, and even your seatbelt use. Once you add satellites, GPS devices, license plate readers, and real-time traffic cameras to the mix, theres nowhere you can go on our nations highways and byways that you cant be followed. By the time you add self-driving cars into the futuristic mix, equipped with computers that know where you want to go before you do, privacy and autonomy will be little more than distant mirages in your rearview mirror. Attend a political rally: Enacted in the wake of 9/11, the Patriot Act redefined terrorism so broadly that many non-terrorist political activities such as protest marches, demonstrations and civil disobedience were considered potential terrorist acts, thereby rendering anyone desiring to engage in protected First Amendment expressive activities as suspects of the surveillance state. Express yourself on social media: The FBI, CIA, NSA and other government agencies are investing in and relying oncorporate surveillance technologies that can mine constitutionally protected speech on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in order to identify potential extremists and predict who might engage in future acts of anti-government behavior. A decorated Marine, 26-year-old Brandon Raub was targeted by the Secret Service because of his Facebook posts, interrogated by government agents about his views on government corruption, arrested with no warning, labeled mentally ill for subscribing to so-called conspiratorial views about the government, detained against his will in a psych ward for having dangerous opinions, and isolated from his family, friends and attorneys. Serve in the military: Operation Vigilant Eagle, the brainchild of the Dept. of Homeland Security, calls for surveillance of military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, characterizing them as extremists and potential domestic terrorist threats because they may be disgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war. Police agencies are also using Beware, an early warning computer system that tips them off to a potential suspects inclination to be a troublemaker and assigns individuals a color-coded threat scoregreen, yellow or redbased on a variety of factors including ones criminal records, military background, medical history and social media surveillance. Disagree with a law enforcement official: A growing number of government programs are aimed at identifying, monitoring and locking up anyone considered potentially dangerous or mentally ill (according to government standards, of course). For instance, a homeless man in New York City who reportedly had a history of violence but no signs of mental illness was forcibly detained in a psych ward for a week after arguing with shelter police. Despite the fact that doctors cited no medical reason to commit him, the man was locked up in accordance with a $22 million program that monitors mentally ill people considered potentially violent. According to the Associated Press, A judge finally ordered his release, ruling that the mans commitment violated his civil rights and that bureaucrats had meddled in his medical treatment. Call in sick to work: In Virginia, a so-called police welfare check instigated by a 58-year-old mans employer after he called in sick resulted in a two-hour, SWAT team-style raid on the mans truck and a 72-hour mental health hold. During the standoff, a heavily armed police tactical team confronted Benjamin Burruss as he was leaving an area motel, surrounded his truck, deployed a stinger device behind the rear tires, launched a flash grenade, smashed the side window in order to drag him from the truck, handcuffed and searched him, and transported him to a local hospital for a psychiatric evaluation and mental health hold. All of this was done despite the fact that police acknowledged they had no legal basis nor probable cause for detaining Burruss, given that he had not threatened to harm anyone and was not mentally ill. Limp or stutter: As a result of a nationwide push to certify a broad spectrum of government officials in mental health first-aid training (a 12-hour course comprised of PowerPoint presentations, videos, discussions, role playing and other interactive activities), more Americans are going to run the risk of being reported for having mental health issues by non-medical personnel. Mind you, once you get on such a government watch listwhether its a terrorist watch list, a mental health watch list, or a dissident watch listtheres no clear-cut way to get off, whether or not you should actually be on there. For instance, one 37-year-old disabled man was arrested, diagnosed by police and an unlicensed mental health screener as having mental health issues, apparently because of his slurred speech and unsteady gait, and subsequently locked up for five days in a mental health facility against his will and with no access to family and friends. A subsequent hearing found that Gordon Goines, who suffers from a neurological condition similar to multiple sclerosis, has no mental illness and should not have been confined. Appear confused or nervous, fidget, whistle or smell bad: According to the Transportation Security Administrations 92-point secret behavior watch list for spotting terrorists, these are among some of the telling signs of suspicious behavior: fidgeting, whistling, bad body odor, yawning, clearing your throat, having a pale face from recently shaving your beard, covering your mouth with your hand when speaking and blinking your eyes fast. You can also be pulled aside for interrogation if you have unusual items, like almanacs and numerous prepaid calling cards or cell phones. One critic of the program accurately referred to the program as a license to harass. Allow yourself to be seen in public waving a toy gun or anything remotely resembling a gun, such as a water nozzle or a remote control or a walking cane, for instance: No longer is it unusual to hear about incidents in which police shoot unarmed individuals first and ask questions later. John Crawford was shot by police in an Ohio Wal-Mart for holding an air rifle sold in the store that he may have intended to buy. Thirteen-year-old Andy Lopez Cruz wasshot 7 times in 10 secondsby a California police officer who mistook the boys toy gun for an assault rifle. Christopher Roupe, 17, wasshot and killed after opening the door to a police officer. The officer, mistaking the Wii remote control in Roupes hand for a gun, shot him in the chest. Another police officer repeatedly shot 70-year-old Bobby Canipe during a traffic stop. The cop saw the man reaching for his cane and, believing the cane to be a rifle, opened fire. Stare at a police officer: Miami-Dade police slammed the 14-year-old Tremaine McMillian to the ground, putting him in a chokehold and handcuffing him after he allegedly gave them dehumanizing stares and walked away from them, which the officers found unacceptable. Appear to be pro-gun, pro-freedom or anti-government: You might be a domestic terrorist in the eyes of the FBI (and its network of snitches) if you: express libertarian philosophies(statements, bumper stickers); exhibit Second Amendment-oriented views (NRAor gun club membership); read survivalist literature, including apocalyptic fictional books; show signs of self-sufficiency (stockpiling food, ammo, hand tools, medical supplies); fear an economic collapse; buy gold and barter items; subscribe to religious viewsconcerning the book of Revelation; voice fears about Big Brother or big government; expound about constitutional rightsand civil liberties; or believe in a New World Order conspiracy. This is all part of a larger trend in American governance whereby dissent is criminalized and pathologized, and dissenters are censored, silenced or declared unfit for society. Attend a public school: Microcosms of the police state, Americas public schools contain almost every aspect of the militarized, intolerant, senseless, overcriminalized, legalistic, surveillance-riddled, totalitarian landscape that plagues those of us on the outside. From the moment a child entersone of the nations 98,000 public schoolsto the moment she graduates, she will be exposed to a steady diet of draconian zero tolerance policies that criminalize childish behavior, overreaching anti-bullying statutes that criminalize speech, school resource officers (police) tasked with disciplining and/or arresting so-called disorderly students, standardized testing that emphasizes rote answers over critical thinking, politically correct mindsets that teach young people to censor themselves and those around them, and extensive biometric and surveillance systems that, coupled with the rest, acclimate young people to a world in which they have no freedom of thought, speech or movement. Additionally, as part of the governments so-called ongoing war on terror, the FBIthe nations de facto secret police forceis now recruiting students and teachers to spy on each otherand report anyone who appears to have the potential to be anti-government or extremist as part of its Dont Be a Puppet campaign. Speak truth to power: Long before Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden were being castigated for blowing the whistle on thegovernments war crimesand the National Security Agencysabuse of its surveillance powers, it was activists such as Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lennon who were being singled out for daring to speak truth to power. These men and others like them had their phone calls monitored and data files collected on their activities and associations. For a little while, at least, they became enemy number one in the eyes of the U.S. government. Theres always a price to pay for standing up to the powers-that-be. Yet as this list shows, you dont even have to be a dissident to get flagged by the government for surveillance, censorship and detention. All you really need to be is a citizen of the American police state. Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is the founder and president of The Rutherford Institute, where this article first appeared. He is also the author ofBattlefield America: The War on the American People and A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State. The rise of the police state is predicated on the 9/11 false flag attack which needs to be fully exposed. If the brilliant Mr. Whitehead and others of his caliber would take that important step into researching and supporting 9/11 Truth we would be well on our way to unwinding the rise of global tyranny instead of sliding towards the loss of civil liberties in China, North Korea, and Russia. Whitehead said he didnt agree with his client Brandon Raub about 9/11 as a conspiracy but felt Raub had the right to express his opinion. Mr Whitehead have obviously not pondered and considered the collapse of No.7 and the full implications of that phenomenon. Maybe the implications are just too dreadful and ghastly and frightening to him. Yep, theres a mountain of evidence and at least 4 events that defy physics with respect to the official story. Youd think if you were a lawyer dedicating your life to civil liberties to the extent of founding the conservative version of the ACLU, youd be driven to go down that rabbit hole to expose the entire foundation of lies that is destroying human freedom for all time. Could be cognitive dissonance, limited hangout for self protection, or gatekeeping. Certainly self protection, if anything, now that I consider it from your perspective. The only logical increment is to expand on the Wikispooks Israel did it treatise. Then youre moving far from the herd and with ringed dots painted all over you. There is a safe zone exemplified by Ron Paul, i.e. to publicly admit there are some questions / anomalies that should be explored in a new investigation. Thats a reasonable approach, then let the activists do the rest, otherwise it comes off as a right version of Naomi Wolf and theres the deeper issue of adding to the learned helplessness milieu. Unfortunately Ron Paul could only accomplish gathering a large inert vapour cloud of similar sentiments but we are all still just whispering hushed activism inside an unbreachable, remotely controlled justice corral. We can only commend the courage of the Ron Pauls and Naomi Wolfs but the awareness they bring to the herd has no real substance, partly because of the vast, remotely financed counter drive in deception and lying. I agree Ron Pauls stance is but a speckle of dust standing alone. However, if more politicians were join to him and Dr. Cynthia McKinney, who is far more outspoken than Paul, along with Academics and public figures, then a critical mass could be reached, a snow balling that would bring in people from all over. There is a great need to break through the political correctness that paralyzes real public debate on an endless list of issues. TPTB take full advantage of hard wired impulses for conformity. I fear that the snow ball will unleash razor-wire and artillery marshal law after fomenting of coast to coast civil war before any possibility of releasing the mutinous slave population. I even expect a Samson type event from these psychotic fkng freaks. I have cultivated and matured my cynicism since the reality of 9-11 startled me from the nave, idiot slumber. I ( and everyone else here) really value your very insightful assessments of geo-politics. Please keep it up. I know what you mean and I have the same fears given TPTB are practiced in the art of inciting useful idiots hence the Soros et al backed disruption of Trump rallies. Although, an authentic awakening would suspend the trance-like mind control programming enough to bring on a great consciousness shift which Ive experienced in large online forums going back 12-13 years. At one point, it was enough to get the Masters of the Universe to direct their media lapdogs into near full disclosure mode with CNN gatekeeper Lou Dobbs fully admitting to the open borders agenda as part of a larger globalization conspiracy and he even discussed the North American Union on his program (you can see it on Aaron Russos America Freedom to Fascism documentary) and Ron Paul was even asked an NAU question on a televised GOP presidential candidate debate program. Observing closely for a viral breakout, the propagandists realized the full shift was not about to happen and they swiftly pulled back, adjusting their learning curve. I firmly believe it is very possible to make that shift in a big way and peacefully with great luck and providence in on our side. Thanks for the good word, much appreciated. Same in Britain, in 1999 I was a student at Wolverhampton University when another student arrived with the same name as moi to take an M.A. I was on a BA Degree and I have been stalked by British Military Intelligence since. Though Mr Andrew Conio received an Doctorate for his troubles in 2006 as he is/was an Liberty selfnews and he was paid off by the Government. I contacted Wlv Uni last November to talk to this piece off and my contact was refused. Also take into account the amount of censorship that takes place on this website via third party monitors. Where is the free speech here when comments have to be monitored because of bogus PC interference and corporate shills posing as monitors? People need to express themselves without restraint over the important matter of their extinction at the hands of their own government. These desperate losers cant stop the awakening. Centralized power is on the way out and they cant stop it. ,We are the Home of Natural Plants like Cannabis Oil , Medical Marijuana 