FBI Instructs High Schools to Inform On “Anti-government” Students
Constitutionalists figure prominently on the target list
A new FBI initiative based on Britain’s “anti-terror” mass surveillance program instructs high schools across America to inform on students who express “anti-government” and “anarchist” political beliefs.
“High school students
are ideal targets for recruitment by violent extremists seeking support
for their radical ideologies, foreign fighter networks, or conducting
acts of targeted violence within our borders. High schools must remain
vigilant in educating their students about catalysts that drive violent
extremism and the potential consequences of embracing extremist belief,”
states an unclassified document released in January by the FBI’s Office of Partner Engagement, the agency’s primary liaison for the law enforcement community.
The
document claims public school educators “are in a unique position to
affect change, impart affirmative messaging, or facilitate intervention
activities,” including informing on students. It calls for “observing
and assessing concerning behaviors and communications” of students
“embracing extremist ideologies.”
In addition to
“designated foreign terrorist organizations,” the FBI program targets
“domestic violent extremism movements,” including anti-government
groups.
According
to the FBI “some adults embrace domestic violent extremist ideologies
[and] their beliefs can permeate family norms, oftentimes influencing
their children. This dynamic fosters biases leading to hatred and
intolerance, and drives the need for action.”
Conflating Sovereign Citizens and Constitutionalists
The
FBI and federal and local law enforcement groups categorize many
libertarian, constitutionalist and other groups and individuals as “sovereign citizens.”
According to an FBI counterterrorism analysis,
sovereign citizens “may refer to themselves as ‘constitutionalists’ or
‘freemen,’ which is not necessarily a connection to a specific group,
but, rather, an indication that they are free from government control.”
The
FBI considers the Redemption Theory (the abandonment of the gold
standard in favor of fiat currency), emancipation “from the
responsibilities of being a U.S. citizen, including paying taxes,” and
“conspiracy theories,” including the formation of global government and a
police state, as indicators of extremist or sovereign citizen ideology.
A National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) report
produced by the Office of University Programs, Science and Technology
Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security in 2014 lists
sovereign citizens as the primary domestic terror threat in the United
States, followed by Islamic jihadists, “militia/patriot” and “extreme
anti-tax” groups.
The document attempts to persuade law
enforcement that sovereign citizens are a direct threat to them. “Such
changing perceptions about what is a serious terrorist threat is an
important finding because identifying and prioritizing a threat is akin
to hitting a moving target and evolves as new intelligence, data, and
events develop,” the START report argues.
The FBI high school informer network initiative is part of a larger effort “identifying and prioritizing” supposed threats.
Informant Culture
The
FBI initiative—the latest manifestation of the “see something, say
something” surveillance matrix—further engenders a government informant
culture that shares a parallel with East Germany’s “Inoffizieller
Mitarbeiter” or informal collaborator culture.
This
Stasi network served as a primary instrument of repression in communist
East Germany. The government forged partnerships with business, state
institutions and social organizations. It is estimated that the Stasi
had an informal collaborator or informant network exceeding 624,000
people (in 1989, at the height of Stasi power, the population of East
Germany was 16.5 million).
Former intelligence
professionals are well aware the United States is on its way to becoming
a totalitarian high-tech surveillance state that will soon rival the
East German variant.
In January 2015 a delegation of
Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence—which included
ex-officers from the NSA, CIA and British MI5—visited the Stasi museum
in Berlin.
“As the former intelligence
officers-turned-whistleblowers walked among the well-preserved offices
and conference rooms of a former totalitarian state’s internal spy
apparatus,” writes Elizabeth Murray,
who served as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East in
the National Intelligence Council, “the sense of deja vu and irony of
what the United States of America has become was clearly not lost on any
of them.”
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