DoJ Terrorism and Criminal Extremism Terms and Concepts Guide
August 30th, 2010According to the Institute for Intergovernmental Research, here are some terms “criminal justice professionals” are likely to encounter during terrorism and extremism investigations. These terms below are intermingled with all of the Nazi and international terrorist groups.
Precious metals are big trouble. Man, you’re a nutcase several different ways if you’re into gold and silver. The U.S. Constitution is another topic that lots of terrorists and extremists are into *sigh*:
Antiauthoritarian: A political position in opposition to capitalism and government control, corporation or group, and supportive of decentralization and autonomy; generally, a libertarian position that is sometimes equated with anarchy.
Bilderbergers (Bilderberg Group): Along with the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations, one of the three groups targeted by right-wing extremists for conspiring to dominate the world.
Constitutional Money: Gold or silver. Ignoring judicial interpretations of the Constitution and federal law, many antigovernment extremists claim that gold and silver are the only constitutional forms of money in the United States.
Constitutionalists: A generic term for members of the “patriot” movement. It is now often used to refer to members of the sovereign citizen or common law court movement. Sometimes the word “constitutionist” is also used.
Council on Foreign Relations (CFR ): Along with the Bilderbergers and the Trilateral Commission, one of the three key groups that conspiracy theorists claim operate behind the scenes to control the world and to establish the “New World Order.”
Executive Orders: The formal means by which the President of the United States determines the conduct of business in the Executive Branch. Typically, such executive orders take two forms: (1) orders governing administrative or policy matters in Executive Branch agencies or (2) orders for which the authority is derived from congressional authorizations. The “patriot” movement, however, contends that executive orders are “presidential laws” that bypass Congress and subvert the Constitution.
Illuminati: An intellectual society and social club formed by a university professor, Adam Weishaupt (1748–1811), in southern Germany in the 1770s in the spirit of the Enlightenment. It was suppressed by Bavarian authorities in the 1780s. Weishaupt spent the rest of his life writing about the Illuminati. People who believe Illuminati conspiracy theories believe the society never died away but lived on, run by people intent on controlling the world through devious means.
Information Warfare: Synonymous with cyberwarfare, information warfare is the offensive and defensive use of information and information systems to deny, exploit, corrupt, or destroy an adversary’s information, information-based processes, information systems, and computer-based networks while protecting one’s own. Such actions are designed to achieve advantages over military or business adversaries.
Luddites: A movement in the early nineteenth century in England that opposed the Industrial Revolution; more recently used to describe people who fear modern technology and the effects that it is having on the world’s economy and environment.
New World Order: A term used by conspiracy theorists to refer to a global conspiracy designed to implement worldwide socialism.
One-World Government: The concept that there will ultimately be a single governing body that will control the world. Some right-wing extremists fear this occurring, believing that white people will be in the minority, with Jewish people ultimately controlling the world.
Precious Metal Dealers: Dealers in gold and silver who form perhaps the most significant source of financial support for the “patriot” movement. Gold and silver dealers such as Viking International, Discount Gold and Silver Trading Company, and others sponsor shortwave radio programs whose hosts urge people to put all their money into gold and silver so they can survive the “coming collapse.” These cynical dealers will accept Federal Reserve Notes in exchange for precious metals.
Resistance (Passive and Active): The term “resistance” is a term used to describe civil disobedience, knowingly breaking the law as a form of protest. Active resistance is any aggressive action. Passive resistance occurs when an activist fails to comply with a lawful order of police but otherwise does not act proactively.
Silver and Gold: The only “biblical” and “constitutional” money, according to members of the “patriot” movement. Some members go so far as to refuse to use paper money, conducting all of their transactions in silver or gold or through barter.
Survivalisists: The survivalist movement feared a coming collapse of civilization, generally as the result of nuclear war, and tried to prepare themselves to survive it. Survivalists typically stockpiled food, water, and weapons, especially the latter, and instructed themselves on topics ranging from first aid to childbirth to edible plants.
Trilateral Commission: A group, along with the Bilderbergers and the Council on Foreign Relations, that is viewed by the “patriot” movement as being one of the major organizations seeking to implement the “New World Order.” Formed in 1973 by David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Trilateral Commission consists of slightly over 300 members from Europe, Japan, and North America (the three main democratic-industrial regions of the world, thus the term “trilateral”). Members include prominent figures in the media, politics, business, and academia. Conspiracy theorists claim it is a group of elitists determined to promote a one-world government.
Via: Public Intelligence:
In order for criminal justice professionals to effectively combat terrorism/extremism, it is imperative to obtain as much information as possible. Extremist groups often develop languages of their own. Some have created terms that are unique in the English language, while others have given new or expanded meaning to relatively common words and phrases. In addition, certain symbols, events, organizations, and individuals have particular significance for members of some extremist organizations, none of which may be familiar to an investigator or prosecutor who has not previously been involved with such cases.
Investigating Terrorism and Criminal Extremism—Terms and Concepts is a glossary designed primarily as a tool for criminal justice professionals to enhance their understanding of words relating to extremist terminology, phrases, activities, symbols, organizations, and selected names that they may encounter while conducting criminal investigations or prosecutions of members of extremist organizations. Included are terms that may be germane to members of an extremist movement. Also defined are words that are singularly employed by specific extremist groups. Legal terms that have been given new meanings by groups’ adherents are also defined. Similarly, certain terms that describe activities and tactics commonly undertaken by extremists are also included. Significant groups, organizations, movements, and publications that are important for an understanding of terrorism/extremism in the United States and that may be encountered by law enforcement officers and prosecutors are also documented. Inasmuch as this publication is primarily intended to define terms, individuals indexed by name are limited in occurrence. However, there are some people who are of such importance to certain segments of the extremist movement that their very names are equated with that cause. Therefore, some of the better-known terrorists are included.
The key criterion for inclusion of a term, phrase, or name in this publication is the likelihood that investigators and prosecutors may encounter it during the scope of their duties. The fact that an entry appears in this publication does not imply a connection to illegal activity. As an example, the location Waco, Texas, appears in the glossary. Investigators may hear reference to this location while working on certain antigovernment cases. Many terms and names appear under one or more individual entries. For this reason, a concerted effort was made to create a thorough index, allowing for a comprehensive search of terms of interest.
Tests Find Sickened Family Has 50.3 PPM of Corexit’s 2-Butoxyethanol in Swimming Pool
August 30th, 2010? ? ? ? ?
Via: Florida Oil Spill Law:
“Our heads are still swimming,” stated Barbara Schebler of Homosassa, Florida, who received word last Friday that test results on the water from her family’s swimming pool showed 50.3 ppm of 2-butoxyethanol, a marker for the dispersant Corexit 9527A used to break up and sink BP’s oil in the Gulf of Mexico.
The problems began for the Scheblers a few weeks after the April 20 blow-out. “Our first clue were rashes we both got early in May. Both my husband and I couldn’t get rid of the rashes and had to get cream from our doctor,” Schebler noted, “I never had a rash in my life.”
Then, on “July [23], my husband Warren mowed the lawn. It was hot so he got in the pool to cool off afterward. That afternoon he had severe diarrhea and very dark urine. This lasted about 2 days,” she revealed.
Initially, they reasoned this was caused by the heat. The following week Mr. Schebler again mowed the lawn and went in the pool, and again he was sickened with the same severe symptoms.
Suspicious that the pool may be a problem, the family set out to get the water tested…
How Long Has the U.S. Postal Service Been Converting the Value of International Mail Shipments from U.S. Dollars to IMF SDRs?
August 30th, 2010Is this new?
Via: U.S. Postal Service:
323.6 Preparation of Insured Priority Mail International Parcels
323.61 Mailing Receipt and Insurance Number
All Priority Mail International insured parcels must be numbered. PS Form 2976-A, Customs Declaration and Dispatch Note — CP 72, and the mailing receipt issued at the time of mailing will serve as proof of mailing and proof of insurance. Volume mailers may use PS Form 3877, Firm Mailing Book for Accountable Mail, as the sender’s receipt.
323.62 Accepting Clerk’s Responsibility
The accepting clerk must do the following:
1. Indicate on PS Form 2976-A the amount for which the parcel is insured. Write the amount in U.S. dollars in ink in the “Insured Amount (U.S.) block.”
2. Convert the U.S. dollar amount to the special drawing right (SDR) value and enter it in the SDR value block. For example:
INSURED VALUE
$100.00 (U.S.)
65.76 SDR
3. See Exhibit 323.62 for a table showing the conversion of U.S. dollar values up to $600 to SDR equivalents. To determine SDR equivalents above $600, multiply the insured amount, rounded up to the next full dollar, by the conversion factor of 0.6576.
Note: Use the following rates when converting between U.S. dollars and SDR values:
1 U.S. $ = 0.6576 SDR
1 SDR = $1.52 ($1.5206 U.S.)
4. Write a bold capital “V” in the space provided adjacent to the boxes for Insured Amount and Insurance Fees as an indicator that additional insurance was purchased.
5. Indicate special contents for fragile, liquid, and perishable items.
6. Round stamp PS Form 2976-A in the appropriate place on each copy.
Mexico Gunmen Assassinate Second Mayor in Two Weeks
August 30th, 2010Via: Bloomberg:
Mexican gunmen assassinated the second mayor in less than two weeks in the violent northeast region of the country as a fight against drug traffickers intensifies.
Marco Antonio Leal Garcia, the mayor of Hidalgo in Tamaulipas state, was killed when his truck was ambushed by the gunmen. His daughter was also injured in the attack.
A U.S. Man May Face 16 Years in Prison for Posting a Video of His Arrest on YouTube
August 30th, 2010Via: Al Jazeera:
When police arrested Anthony Graber for speeding on his motorbike, the 25-year-old probably did not see himself as an advocate for police accountability in the age of new media.
But Graber, a sergeant with the Maryland Air National Guard, is now facing 16 years in prison, not for dangerous driving, but for a Youtube video he posted after receiving a speeding ticket.
The video, filmed with a camera mounted on Graber’s motorcycle helmet designed to record biking stunts rather than police abuse, shows a plain clothes officer jumping out of an unmarked car and pointing a pistol at the motorcyclist.
It does not portray the policeman in a positive light.
After he posted the video on Youtube, police raided Graber’s home, seized computers and put him in jail.
“The case is critical to the protection of democracy because I don’t think you can have a free country in which public officials are able to criminally prosecute people who film what they are doing,” David Rocah, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union in Maryland who is representing Graber, said.
Research Credit: Uncle Remus
NY Legislators Want Chickens Vaccinated
August 30th, 2010Via: AP:
Two New York State legislators want to require farmers in the state to vaccinate hens against salmonella, which sickened thousands of Americans and triggered the largest egg recall in U.S. history.
Research Credit: Swamp Fox
U.S. Wasted Billions in Rebuilding Iraq
August 30th, 2010This AP piece is maddening. It states, “More than $5 billion in American taxpayer funds has been wasted,” and then, “That amount is likely an underestimate.”
Likely an underestimate? HAHA.
I like Call the Politburo, We’re in Trouble:
Or what about the US Embassy in Baghdad, that 104-acre (42 hectares), almost three-quarters-of-a-billion-dollar, 21-building homage to the American-mall-as-fortified-citadel? It costs more than $1.5 billion a year to run, and bears about as much relationship to an “embassy” as McDonald’s does to a neighborhood hamburger joint. According to a recent audit, millions of dollars in “federal property” assigned to what is essentially a vast command center for the region, including 159 of the embassy’s 1,168 vehicles, are missing or unaccounted for.
And, in other news:
Afghanistan: U.S. Spends $20 Billion Per Year for Air Conditioning in Tents
Cost of Keeping One U.S. Soldier in Afghanistan Per Year: One Million Dollars
U.S. Spends $400 Per Gallon of Gas in Afghanistan
Fitting context on this one would take me the rest of the day. Feel free to post the most ridiculous Iraq/Afghanistan contracts and boondoggles in comments.
Related: War is a Racket by Smedley D. Butler
Via: AP:
A $40 million prison sits in the desert north of Baghdad, empty. A $165 million children’s hospital goes unused in the south. A $100 million waste water treatment system in Fallujah has cost three times more than projected, yet sewage still runs through the streets.
As the U.S. draws down in Iraq, it is leaving behind hundreds of abandoned or incomplete projects. More than $5 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds has been wasted on these projects — more than 10 percent of the $53.7 billion the US has spent on reconstruction in Iraq, according to audits from a U.S. watchdog agency.
That amount is likely an underestimate, based on an analysis of more than 300 reports by auditors with the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. And it does not take into account security costs, which have run almost 17 percent for some projects.
Updated: The Swedish Twins on the M6
August 30th, 2010Mexican Massacre Investigator Found Dead
August 28th, 2010Via: Guardian:
The body of an official investigating the massacre of 72 Central and South American migrants killed in a ranch in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas was found today dumped beside a nearby road alongside another unidentified victim, according to local media.
Earlier, two cars exploded outside the studios of the national TV network Televisa in the state capital, Ciudad Victoria. There were no casualties, but the blasts added to a growing sense of fear in the aftermath of the worst single act of violence in the country’s raging drug wars.
Meanwhile, investigators under armed guard continued the process of identifying the victims, with 20 named by midday on Friday, local officials said.
The migrants, 14 of them women, came from at least four countries, including Honduras, El Salvador, Brazil and Ecuador. They were found bound and blindfolded by the wall of a barn after navy personnel stormed the ranch on Tuesday.
The massacre was discovered after an Ecuadorian migrant, who had been left for dead with a neck wound, escaped. Luis Freddy Lala Pomavilla, 18, found his way to a navy road checkpoint.
He said the migrants had been kidnapped by armed men who identified themselves as belonging to the Zetas, one of the cartels fighting for supremacy in the state. He said the killing began after they refused offers to work for the cartel.
The Kochtopus
August 28th, 2010Polemical essays can be worth reading, as long as one understands that the author’s goal is to push his or her rat poison, by showing you how bad that rat poison is over there. With this caveat in mind, you’re all set to feast on the tidy reality offered by a strongly polemical piece.
I learned more about the Koch syndicate from The New Yorker article below than I had gathered previously, in bits and pieces.
Is the Kochtopus insidious? Sure. But in this huge piece, here is the sum total of material related to the corporate fascists backing the Obama regime:
Of course, Democrats give money, too. Their most prominent donor, the financier George Soros, runs a foundation, the Open Society Institute, that has spent as much as a hundred million dollars a year in America. Soros has also made generous private contributions to various Democratic campaigns, including Obama’s. But Michael Vachon, his spokesman, argued that Soros’s giving is transparent, and that “none of his contributions are in the service of his own economic interests.”
The Soros spokesman is a great source to go to for anything approaching an objective perspective. Pfft. Ok.
The number of times Goldman Sachs is mentioned? Zero.
The number of times Monsanto is mentioned? Zero.
The number of times the Obama regime’s revolving door is mentioned? Zero.
The number of times Obama’s continuation and expansion of diabolical Bush policies into a fascist “new normal” in America is mentioned? Zero.
The number of times the fact that America continues to implode with a Democratic President and with Democrats in control of Congress? Zero.
How many other lies by omission does the piece contain? I got tired of counting after the ones I’ve listed above.
If the Democrats are the solution to the Kochtopus, the U.S. is far more screwed than even I believed possible. The Tea Party is the 2010, 180 degrees out of phase version of Hope and Change. Whether your cabin is on the port or the starboard side of the Ship of Fools, the destination is the same; oblivion. I don’t know what it will take to get the shit for brains Left and the shit for brains Right to understand that billionaires, and the governments that serve them, don’t have their best interests in mind. But, until that basic law of the universe is understood, there’s always the next election… *sigh* Good luck with that.
Via: The New Yorker:
“The Kochs are on a whole different level. There’s no one else who has spent this much money. The sheer dimension of it is what sets them apart. They have a pattern of lawbreaking, political manipulation, and obfuscation. I’ve been in Washington since Watergate, and I’ve never seen anything like it. They are the Standard Oil of our times.”
Research Credit: ottilie
