Congratulations! You May Already Be A Terrorist

No "Zeks" please -- we're Americans: Inmates of Soviet Russia's gulag.

Seeking to catechize the public regarding the all-encompassing threat of terrorism, the State of Alabama's Homeland Security Department created a “Terrorism Awareness and Prevention” curriculum.

Those Alabama residents interested in carrying out their supposed civic duty to keep their neighbors under surveillance – and report anybody deemed suspicious to the government – were advised to pay particular attention to “anti-government” groups and activists, anarchists, and “single-issue extremists.”

“Anti-government” groups, explained Alabama's affiliate of the Regime's Homeland Security Apparat, “usually believe [that] Gun Control = Enslavement ... the Constitution has been subverted ... The U.S. has lost its sovereignty

“Today's anti-government groups have their origins in the shock and outrage among a number of groups to include gun rights groups, tax protestors [sic], and white supremacists over the government actions with the Branch Davidian religious cult at Waco and and white supremacist Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge along with recent laws that limited gun ownership.”

Let's make this clear: It isn't state terrorism to immolate scores of innocent people, as happened at Waco, or for federal assassins to gun down a fleeing teenager and a nursing mother, as they did at Ruby Ridge. Describing those atrocities as I just did, however, is sufficient to distinguish one's self as a potential terrorist – particularly if one draws the sensible, nay irresistible lesson from such episodes that only a suicidal fool would permit the Regime to disarm him.

Referring to militia groups and “leaderless resistance” cells supposedly inspired by such views, Alabama's Homeland Security Directorate continues:

“In general, these terrorists claim that the U.S. government is infringing on their individual rights, and/or that the government's policies are criminal and immoral. Such groups may hold that the current government is violating the basic principles laid out by the U.S. Constitution and that a new world order is attempting to enslave humanity. Some groups also believe that the government and other organizations are transgressing the rule of God as described in the Bible.”

Only an insensate clod – someone as dim as Mr. Dull Normal, the current occupant of the Oval Office – could miss the fact that the Regime systematically violates the “principles laid out by the U.S. Constitution. And only a hypocrite or a State-employed sociopath could believe that the Regime is not transgressing God's law.

And only a totalitarian government would require that its subjects believe in the Regime's inexhaustible righteousness. Remember, this official taxonomy describes those holding anti-government beliefs as terrorists – the domestic face of an enemy we are told must be summarily exterminated, or at least imprisoned in perpetuity without legal recourse.

Similar treatment is given to anarchists, who earn a spot on the Terrorist Watch List because of their belief that “Big is bad... Rich are using the poor to stay rich....Our government in particular is using its power immorally.”

Single-issue activists – such as pro-life protesters – also find themselves on the list because ... well, because the people who wrote that list don't care for their politics, I suppose, and what good is it to be a taxpayer-fed drone if you don't get to anathematize your critics?

After the Alabama TAP curriculum received a great deal of publicity in the Blogosphere, the people who created it reacted in predictable fashion: They removed it from the website. Fortunately, it is still accessible through the WayBackMachine – a veritable Atavachron for Web researchers.

A few years ago, somebody leaked a copy of the equivalent document produced by the State of Virginia, a short manual entitled “Terrorism & Security Awareness Orientation for State Employees" (.pdf).

That document, not surprisingly, is largely indistinguishable from the Alabama version. One very significant difference is found in the fact that Virginia's official definition of domestic terrorists includes not only the “Anti-government and Militia Movement” and “Religious Extremists,” but also “Property Rights Activists.”

So those who believe in the sanctity of private property, and insistently publicize their belief, are to be scrutinized as latent terrorists.

It's important to recognize that terrorist taxonomies of this sort did not spring up after 9-11; many states were working off the same template long before the Towers fell.

The "Redneck Militia" -- Embodiment of the supposed threat that haunts the sleep of Morris Dees and his ilk.

In 1999, as I have noted elsewhere, the Phoenix office of the FBI distributed a counter-terrorism pamphlet that advised readers: "If you encounter any of the following, call the Joint Terrorism Task Force." Several categories of potential terrorists were listed, including "Hate Groups" such as Nazis, Black Separatists, Klansmen, and the like; "Single Issue Terrorists," such as animal rights radicals, eco-terrorists, and "insurgents"; and "Left-Wing Terrorists" motivated by "Marxist/Leninist philosophy."

The very first category listed in the document -- and, one assumes, the single greatest danger -- was "Right Wing Extremists," specifically "'defenders' of US Constitution against federal government and the UN (Super Patriots)." Police were also warned about "Common Law Movement Proponents," who run the gamut from eccentrics who refuse to obtain drivers' licenses and license plates to people who simply "make numerous references to [the] US Constitution."

The FBI's pamphlet, oddly enough, ignored entirely the possibility of radical Islamic terrorism. One former FBI counter-terrorism specialist who worked in Arizona told me that this was something much worse than an oversight, since radicals from the Middle East “just walk across" the border with Mexico: "They just blend in with the illegal immigrants from Mexico, pretending to speak Spanish.”

Ah, but the real danger is that represented by people who invoke the Constitution, rather than the particularly sanguinary passages of the Koran.

My FBI contact told me at the time (late 2001) that the Phoenix counter-terrorism pamphlet “reflects the same mind-set that led to the Megiddo report, which was very anti-Christian and made some ridiculous assertions about the nature of the potential threat.”

The document he referred to was Project Megiddo, a work of indifferent scholarship and untutored alarmism disseminated by the FBI to law enforcement agencies nation-wide in November 1999. Purporting to be a "strategic assessment" of domestic terrorist threats associated with the Y2K observance, Megiddo was inspired by – nay, most likely ghost-written by – left-wing “watchdog” organizations like the dishonestly named Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the racial ambulance-chasing racket founded and operated by self-promoting pervert Morris Dees.

The ADL's Mark Pitcavage: Self-appointed "expert" on the "radical right," full-time gravity well.

"Religious motivation and the N.W.O. [New World Order] conspiracy theory are the two driving forces behind the potential for millennial violence," according to Megiddo. "The volatile mix of apocalyptic religions and N.W.O. conspiracy theories may produce violent acts aimed at precipitating the end of the world as prophesied in the Bible.... Religiously based domestic terrorists use the New Testament’s Book of Revelation — the prophecy of the endtime — for the foundation of their belief in the Apocalypse. Religious extremists interpret the symbolism portrayed in the Book of Revelation and mold it to predict that the endtime is now and that the Apocalypse is near."

Reading those words now, I'm struck by the fact that they seem to describe George W. Bush's core constituency, who consistently support aggressive war and unalloyed domestic tyranny to combat the Mohammedan menace. We should expect them to become born-again believers in the virtue of constitutional restraints on power should Madame Hillary become our next elected dictator.

Megiddo described the beliefs of anti-globalist “conspiracy theorists,” who supposedly represented the most severe internal threat:

"Unlike religiously based terrorists, militia anxiety and paranoia specifically relating to the year 2000 are based mainly on a political ideology.”

By way of illustrating common “conspiracist” beliefs, the FBI document outlined a representative “hypothetical N.W.O./One World Government” scenario:

“1) private property rights and private gun ownership will be abolished; 2) all national, state and local elections will become meaningless, since they will be controlled by the UN; 3) the U.S. Constitution will be supplanted by the UN charter; 4) only approved churches and other places of worship will be permitted to operate and will become appendages of the One World Religion, which will be the only legitimate doctrine of religious beliefs and ethical values; 5) home schooling will be outlawed and all school curriculum will need to be approved by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); and 6) American military bases and other federal facilities will be used as concentration camps by the UN to confine those patriots, including the militias, who defy the N.W.O. Other groups besides the UN that are often mentioned as being part of the N.W.O. conspiracy theory are Jews, Communists, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderbergers and the Trilateral Commission. Law enforcement officials will probably notice different versions of this theory, depending upon the source."

Where, oh where, did the FBI's diligent, intrepid investigators uncover this shocking intelligence? Did they infiltrate a terrorist cell at great risk to life, limb, and virtue? Did they deploy some Samurai-caliber undercover asset who snatched the key of knowledge from the hidden lair of our terrorist enemies, armed only with only his sinewy limbs and MacGyver-quality wits?

Nah. They bought a videotape of the documentary below (which deals with the UN; the anti-Semitic stuff was thrown in by the FBI, or its subcontractor, in a fit of gratuitous dishonesty). Watch carefully and you may be able to recognize at least one of the terrorist chieftains who helped produce it:

Megiddo also diagnosed concerns about civilian disarmament as a symptom of terrorist tendencies: "The passage of the Brady Bill and assault weapons ban in 1994 were interpreted by those in the militia movement and among the right-wing as the first steps towards disarming citizens in preparation for the UN-led N.W.O. Takeover. Some are convinced that the registration of gun owners is in preparation for a confiscation of firearms and eventually the arrest of the gun owners themselves.... Speculation like this only serves to fuel the already existing paranoia of militia and patriot groups."

It's not surprising that profiles of domestic "terrorists" always come back to the theme of civilian disarmament. Nothing riles up those who work for the Regime quite like those of us who resist being disarmed -- especially when we display "paranoid" tendencies, defined here as the habit of noticing things without official government permission. One such truth we're not permitted to notice is the UN's persistent, albeit not yet successful, campaign for universal civilian disarmament. (.pdf)

This sculpture, entitled "Disarmament," is the first thing visitors see when they enter the UN Headquarters compound in New York City. The gun depicted here is a civilian firearm. Some of us regard this to be a clue regarding the intentions of the people running the UN. That makes us "terrorists," of course.

The whole point of Megiddo and the equivalent documents produced at the state level is to designate critics of the government as “socially dangerous persons.” That phrase is taken from the Soviet Union's Fundamental Principles of Penal Legislation, adopted by that regime on October 31, 1924. It was enshrined in Soviet law as Article 58 of the penal code – the legal foundation of the gulag.

The Black Book of Communism — an authoritative study of the crimes committed by the Soviet Union and its descendants – Article 58 "codified the notion of a ‘socially dangerous person.’ Among counterrevolutionary crimes, the law included any activity that, without directly aiming to overthrow or weaken the Soviet regime, was in itself ‘an attack on the political or economic achievements of the revolutionary proletariat.’ The law thus not only punished intentional transgressions but also proscribed possible or unintentional acts."

The category of "socially dangerous persons" was based on "extremely elastic categories" that permitted individuals to be sentenced to the gulag "even in a case of total absence of guilt,” continues the account in the Black Book. Of course, the same is true now of those consigned to Gitmo: Mere exoneration doesn't mean that a detainee is free to go.

Under Soviet “law,” continued the compilers of the Black Book, the state was permitted to “use these measures of social protection to deal with anyone classified as a danger to society, either for a specific crime that has been committed or when, even if exonerated of a particular crime, the person is still reckoned to pose a threat to society."

Megiddo and its offspring are designed to create the largest possible pool of potential terrorists, and provide the “legal” justification for their detention (or, quite possibly, their liquidation). This program began long before 9-11; it won't end when George W. Bush vacates the White House, assuming that he ever does.

Obiter Dicta

I was interviewed this morning by the incomparable Scott Horton for AntiWar Radio; keep checking here to find out when the program will be broadcast.

Those not intimidated by the prospect of being tagged as a terrorist are invited to visit The Right Source -- your on-line home for unreconstructed anti-government news and commentary.

My Amerika (first in an occasional series)

"America's Sheriff," Mike Carona, poses with America's Feliks Dzerzhinsky -- Tom Ridge, founder of our Cheka, the Department of Homeland Security.

Several decades ago, Latvian filmmaker Albert Jekste produced a documentary entitled “My Latvia” depicting the Soviet conquest and occupation of the Baltic States. The most memorable sequence in that film presented, in deadpan, roll-call style, a roster of Soviet-appointed civic officials and their previous occupations.

Without exception, each had been a career criminal, generally in the same field as his new “legitimate” profession: The new head of the central bank had been an armed robber, the police chief had been the local underworld boss, and so on.

A similar amalgamation of the criminal underworld and political “over-world” is taking place as America descends into an abyss of Soviet-style corruption and tyranny in the name of Homeland Security. But we have to take note of a very important distinction: We're doing it to ourselves.

As occasion warrants, I'll present case studies illustrating what we could call the “My Latvia Syndrome.” I suspect that we'll suffer from a crisis of abundance rather than one of scarcity in this respect.

Today's example focuses on Mike Carona, a self-professed Christian Republican from Orange County – the Mecca of modern conservatism – who has been designated “America's Sheriff” by Larry King. (Here is a gallery of photos, letters, and other keepsakes from King and other celebrities from the "I Love Me" page of Carona's re-election campaign website.)

A balding man in his early 50s with a swimmer's build and the earnest, buck-toothed demeanor of the world's oldest Boy Scout, Carona is a key homeland security adviser to George W. Bush and California Governor Schwarzenegger. He is also a serial adulterer (click here and scroll down to see a photo of Carona during a Russian junket cradling his, ahem, interpreter, who is depicted in another photo wearing the Sheriff's uniform). To this can be added the fact that he's a bosom chum of at least one significant Mafia figure.

The official certificate naming Carona a "senior adviser" on homeland security affairs.

Several years ago Carona filled his campaign war chest was filled with illegal contributions from a felonious businessman as part of a kickback scheme involving a proposed system called High-speed Avoidance Laser Technology (HALT), which could be used by police to disable automobiles by remote control.

HALT is described in the patent (number 6411217) as “a remotely operable vehicle disabling system where a remote command transmitter transmits a command to a receiver capable of terminating vehicle operation and situated within a vehicle to be so disabled.... The system comprises, first of all, a remotely operable transmit unit for transmitting a command shutdown message which may preferably be an infrared beam. Second, the system comprises a command-receiver vehicle unit capable of responding to the command and physically situated at a site of the vehicle such that a shutdown message from the transmit unit can reach the vehicle unit.”

HALT was to be produced by CHG Safety Technologies, whose founder and CEO, Charles H. Gabbard, had applied to become a California police officer in the late 1950s. After being found unsuitable for such service, Gabbard embarked on a career on the other side of the law, building a criminal resume that included armed robbery, attempted robbery, embezzlement, sundry parole violations, and a murder charge.

In 2000, after “going straight,” Gabbard met Sheriff Carona (who was a little more than a year into his first term) by way of a mutual friend: Lobbyist Bob Levy, a retired U.S. Marshal hard-wired into California's vast network of law enforcement unions and pressure groups.

Gabbard enlisted Levy, Carona, and other influential figures in a scheme to give HALT a monopoly by having the legislature mandate its installation in all automobiles state-wide. The felon-turned-police state profiteer handed out tens of thousands of dollars in bribes (in the form of illegal campaign donations) to then-Governor Gray Davis and various state legislators. His most generous gifts were bestowed on Sheriff Carona.

In February 2000, Carona, Levy, and Gabbard worked out an arrangement through which the Sheriff would promote Gabbard's technology in exchange for campaign cash. In fulfillment of his end of the deal, Carona “spent untold thousands of taxpayer dollars to hold a HALT demonstration at El Toro [a former Marine Corps base] on March 16, 2000, and six days later sent a glowing product-endorsement letter to state officials considering a plan, Senate Bill 2004, to mandate Gabbard's products on all California vehicles,” reported the Orange County Weekly (which has produced Pulitzer-caliber exposes of the myriad law enforcement scandals afflicting that community).

Even more shocking was Carona's offer to provide “certain inmates” at the County Jail to help Gabbard manufacture his product.

On May 18 of that year Gabbard came through with the quo for the Sheriff's quid, in the form of $40,000 in donations from CHG executives during a “birthday party” for Carona at Villa Nova restaurant in Newport Beach.

When the dirty deal became public knowledge, Carona reacted by blaming the entire affair on his second-hand man, Assistant Sheriff George Jaramillo.

Both Jaramillo and his wife received tens of thousands of dollars in “consulting fees” from Gabbard to promote the HALT technology. On January 30 Jaramillo was given a year in jail and three years of probation as part of a plea agreement. He had faced the prospect of 13 years in prison on bribery, misuse of county property, and lying to a grand jury.

Carona insists that he was deceived by Jaramillo, a one-time close friend whom he was grooming as a successor. ("He is not only like a brother to me, he is my brother," Carona once insisted.) But there is a solid evidentiary trail connecting Carona himself to the kickback scheme, and besides, as Sheriff he should bear much of the blame for a scandal involving his second-in-command.

But Carona – or “Calamity Mike,” as the OC Weekly refers to him – appears to be immune to accountability in any form.

*A few years ago, “America's Sheriff” was photographed (wearing his uniform) in a boozy embrace with Rick Rizzolo, a Las Vegas “adult entertainment” mogul who has been identified by the FBI as a Mob associate.

*In September 2003, Carona issued a memo granting Joseph M. Medawar, a con man-cum-filmmaker, access to Orange County's Emergency Operations Center (EOC), a high-tech crisis headquarters center intended for use in the event of a natural disaster or a terrorist attack. The EOC hosts classified training exercises involving most federal and state law enforcement and emergency response agencies.

The Lebanese-born Medawar, who has close ties to Saudi Arabia, claimed that he was filming a pilot for a television series to be called DHS, which would “celebrate federal agents and President Bush.” (He had paid Orange County Congressman Dana Rohrabacher $23,000 for an old script.) A federal indictment described Medawar's enterprise as a scam that defrauded investors of more than $5.5 million.

Thumbs up for evil! Carona poses with demented GOP presidential aspirant John McCain (left), and with McCain's rival Mitt Romney (right).

It's tempting to perceive Carona as a reality-based version of Chief Wiggum, the spectacularly corrupt and heroically inept Police Chief from The Simpsons. As Greg Hall can testify, Carona is more commissar than clown.

Hall, a 40-year-old businessman, was involved in a fender-bender on July 17, 2005. Upon their arrival the police gave him two Breathalyzer tests, both of which revealed a blood alcohol level of 0.00. Hall was cooperative, telling the officer that he had consumed a single beer and was taking Paxil, a prescription antidepressant. For no particular reason, Hall was arrested on suspicion of DUI and taken to the Orange County Jail.

Following a drug test, Hall was left to stew for what he was told would be no longer than an hour. When a group of Carona's deputies appeared on the scene, Hall politely complained that his handcuffs were too tight.

This mild complaint provoked the knot of deputies – a five-man gang referred to in Carona's department as the “Psycho Crew” -- to treat Hall “like a pinata.”

The handcuffed businessman, who had done nothing wrong and wasn't suspected of a violent offense, was subjected to a three-minute beating. He was dragged down a corridor, had his face repeatedly shoved into cell bars and slammed into the concrete floor, and received countless punches and kicks to his ribs.

Hall was left with “a concussion, broken ribs, a gash in his leg, an eye contusion, broken veins in his feet, a shattered front tooth, lacerations and bruises over his body, contusions to the knee, neck pain, a fractured right wrist and nerve damage to his left hand,” recounts OC Weekly, citing medical records. “The handcuffs were locked so tightly that the steel sliced his hands and caused dangerous swelling. An imprint of a deputy's boot could be seen on the back of his leg for days.”

The intensity of the assault made the terrified businessman lose control of his bowels, causing him to evacuate in his pants; his assailants, taking sadistic glee in their handiwork, derisive calling their victim a “sh*t monkey,” and left him in a cell to bleed. Some of them returned later to tie a black mesh hood over his head – a fitting coda to a performance straight out of Abu Ghraib.

Hall was left bleeding, with his hands cuffed behind his back, sitting in his own feces, for more than twelve hours. Deputies denied him food and water or access to a telephone. Eventually his leg wound was stitched up – without anesthetic – and he was permitted to stagger out of the jail without apology or explanation for the treatment he'd received.

This isn't the first time Carona's goon squad has tortured a jail inmate. In December 1999, four deputies assaulted a 20-year-old inmate in an isolated corner of the facility, torturing him by crushing his testicles. Prosecutors conceded that the torture had occurred, but insisted that they were stymied by a “code of silence” within the Sheriff's Department.

A class-action lawsuit brought against Carona's department was dismissed in April 2005 by now-retired federal judge Gary L. Taylor, who was appointed by the George Bush (the elder). Taylor stipulated to the abuses, and acknowledged that there was “room for improvement” -- and then offered the written equivalent of a shrug by saying that “the county and the sheriff show every indication they will perform that high duty.”

Sheriff Carona, predictably, described Taylor's ruling as a “great victory.”

Just a few weeks later, his deputies, entrusted with the “high duty” to maintain professional standards of inmate safety literally beat the sh*t out of an innocent businessman, just because they could.

For maintaining standards of conduct worthy of a Soviet satrap, Mike Carona, “America's Sheriff” and senior national security adviser to George W. Bush, has earned the distinction of being the first figure profiled in our “My Amerika” series.

For news and commentary from a freedom-focused perspective -- as well as Kevin Shannon's no-holds-barred radio program -- please visit The Right Source.

I'm From The Government, So I Get To Kill You

Right Now, justice is being perverted in a court of law...

Right Now, the truth is being obscured...

Right Now, a mad man is wandering the streets of the town you live in...

Right Now, our government is doing things we think only other countries do....

Right Now, a thuggish policeman in a country like China or Cuba is grinding a hapless victim's face in the dirt and then dragging another off to jail. En route to the detention center, the victim starts to pray, asking God to help him and to forgive his captor. This gesture is greeted with a contemptuous belch and a sneering question: “Who's this God you're praying to? Let's see your God get you out of jail.”

"Once you're behind bars," the uniformed thug taunts, his features twisted into a sadistic smirk, "you'll be beaten and most likely raped."

It's not difficult to imagine something of this sort happening in some wretched Communist of Muslim country. Most Americans couldn't imagine this happening in the United States. This could be considered a failure of imagination, except for one thing: What I describe above actually happened in 1997. The assailant was a police officer in Prince George's County, Maryland, an Army veteran named Keith Washington (and a graduate of the Army's Command and General Staff College).

In the decade since that incident – which I'll describe in more detail anon – Officer Washington compiled a lengthy list of complaints for his behavior both on- and off-duty, distinguishing himself even among members of a law enforcement agency notorious for its lawlessness and corruption. On the strength of that job record, as well as fraternity ties to the County Executive, Washington was appointed Deputy Homeland Security Chief for Prince George's County.

That was the rank Washington held when he was involved in a January 24 dispute with furniture delivery men over a scratched headboard. That dispute ended with Washington drawing a gun and shooting the delivery men. The department, in keeping with the Homeland Security ethos, initially charged the men Washington had shot with assault, but withdrew the charges in the interest of public relations shortly before one of the officer's victims died. Washington remains on administrative leave, rather than behind bars, which is where he would be if he weren't employed by the Regime.

The Face of the Enemy: From all appearances a decent and respectable man, Keith Washington embodies the arrogant corruption of the emerging American Reich.

In the weeks leading up to that fatal shooting, Washington had been involved in several arguments with officers of his Homeowners Association, assaulting at least two of them.

None of these developments should be a surprise to those involved in a 1997 traffic accident involving Washington and an attorney named Paul Essex.

In court testimony recounted by the Washington Post, Essex recalled the post-accident confrontation with Washington.

“You caused this accident!” snarled the officer.

“That's a decision for the court to to make,” Essex reasonably replied.

“Out here, I am the court,” declared Washington.

When Essex disagreed, Washington placed him under arrest.

“He grabbed my arm and ... jacked my arm up and pulled me back over to the driver's side front fender,” Essex recalled.

A mechanic named David Paul Maslousky, who was a passenger in Essex's car, was thrown to the ground and arrested for “hindering” Washington in the performance of his duties, a charge that was later dropped.

During the drive to the police station, amid a constant stream of threats and invective from Washington, Maslousky began to pray. It was at that point that the officer slipped into the persona of a Soviet commissar, mocking the man's religious convictions and promising that “Bubba” would soon “have his way with you.”

Maslousky later took Washington to court, winning a $210,000 damage award that was eventually overturned on appeal. The officer's defense strategy was to defend arrogance, pomposity, and aggressive hostility to the civilian public as indispensable traits for a successful law enforcement officer.

“No one has a right to a polite and cordial police officer,” insisted County Attorney Andrew Murray, who represented Washington. Of the behavior on display when he was needlessly provoking Essex and grinding Maslousky into the dirt, Murray insisted: “[T]hese are characteristics that he employs ... so that he can make order out of chaos – these are characteristics that enable him to survive his day-to-day contact with citizens so he can go home and see his family.” (Emphasis added.)

Note this well: Washington's defense assumes that the citizenry is a threat to be subdued, and civilian life a form of chaos to which he must bring order. This is what they're teaching at the US Army's Command and General Staff College, and most likely in police academies across the nation.

Washington's ascent to prominence in Prince George's County is hardly surprising to those who have chronicled the bloody, corrupt exploits of its police department.

In 2001, to cite one example, Howard University student Prince Jones was killed in an execution-style police shooting, his body riddled with four bullets. The police described the incident as a “surveillance operation gone bad,” insisting that Prince – a clean-cut, well-respected man with plans to marry and enlist in the Navy – was mistaken for a dreadlocked drug dealer nearly a foot shorter and substantially heavier.

This incident was regrettably representative of law enforcement in Prince George's county, which “could boast a healthy cross-section of shootings, maimings, and thrashings that would easily make the Blue Beatdowns Hall of Fame,” lamented The Washington Monthly.

Last September, the County was hit with a verdict awarding $6.4 million in damages to Keith Longtin, whose wife Donna was kidnapped, raped, and murdered in 1999. The police took Longtin into custody and subjected him to a 38-hour “coercive interrogation”; he was allowed roughly one hour of sleep and infrequent bathroom breaks as officers worked shifts in the hope of extorting a confession. Eventually the detectives reported that the husband had confessed; he insisted that this was a lie. On the strength of that supposed confession Longtin was held in jail for 8 months – roughly seven months after DNA evidence extracted from his murdered wife's remains exonerated him.

During the 1990s, writes the indispensable James Bovard, the Prince George's County police department “killed and maimed more people than the Unabomber and the Aryan Nation combined. They have a worse human rights record than the Federal Bureau of Investigation [which was involved in the Ruby Ridge and Waco massacres]. If they were a foreign-based entity classified as terrorists (such as Hamas), and you contributed to their cause, you would face up to 10 years in jail for supporting terrorism. Instead, they are supported with your tax dollars. They are the 1400 members of the Prince George's County police department.”

“Among the shootings the police department ruled as justified: `An unarmed construction worker was shot in the back after he was detained in a fast-food restaurant. An unarmed suspect died in a fusillade of 66 bullets as he tried to flee in a car from police. A homeless man was shot when police mistook his portable radio for a gun. And an unarmed man was killed after he pulled off the road to relieve himself.'”

In Maryland, as elsewhere, police officers enjoy immunity from questioning for 10 days following the use of deadly force; this interval can be, and often is, exploited by corrupt police to collude in creating a cover story.

Prince George's County abuts the Imperial Capital, and at the beginning of the decade the odor of corruption became so pervasive that the Justice Department put the police under FBI scrutiny. The elevation of Officer Washington – whose reputation was hardly a secret -- to second in command of the County's Homeland Security office apparently raised no eyebrows in Washington. He's most likely just the sort of hero the Feds had in mind when they created the Heimatsiecherheitsdienst.

Make sure to visit The Right Source to listen to Kevin Shannon's Right Source radio program -- available via streaming or on-line archives.

Submit, Or We'll Kill You

It must never be forgotten that every directive issued by the State and enforced by its agents is coupled with the threat of lethal violence against those who fail to comply. This principle applies to trivial infractions of petty ordinances, such as those dealing with pedestrian conduct and smoking.

Consider the tag-team assault by two policemen on Suren Chukhadzhyan that took place in Pittsburgh a few days ago.

Chukhadzhyan, an Armenian national who resides in Glendale, California, is described as being roughly 6 foot 5 inches in height and weighing in excess of 250 pounds. During a break in a very long bus trip he lit up in what was designated a no-smoking area at a Greyhound bus terminal. This attracted the attention of an employee, who complained to police officer Walter Carlson.

In his report, as related by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Carlson described how he told Chukhadzhyan to move to a designated smoking area. The large man “ignored me and made a cocky smirk to me and was very arrogant,” whined Carlson in his report. “[He] turned away from me an continued to smoke.”

After Carlson ordered him to turn around, Chukhadzhyan did so, blowing smoke “in the direction of the officer” -- hardly a surprising result, since he was now facing that direction. At this point, per the newspaper account, the officer “grabbed the man's arm” -- that is, he caused the situation to escalate to one of physical coercion -- “and said he would be cited.” The Armenian's response – and this is significant – was to de-escalate by extinguishing his cigarette and walking away.

At this point, if Walter Carlson had been a peace officer rather than a juvenile poseur with secret insecurities about the size of his wedding tackle, he would have smiled, shook his head, and walked away. The problem, such as it is, was solved: Chukhadzhyan was no longer smoking in a forbidden zone. That would be the proper reaction of a practicing adult who had chosen to make a living as a peace officer.

Regrettably, nobody fitting that description was on hand at the time. Carlson, like many (quite possibly most) of those now employed by the Homeland Security State, had to assert his Authoritah. He acted on what I've identified as the tacit credo of checkpoint guards and others employed to enforce the State's decrees:

You must show them control.

You must make them submit.

Noticing that Chukhadzhyan had taken a seat inside the terminal and, visibly agitated, was muttering to himself “in what appeared to be Russian,” the officer pursued him inside and “attempted to issue the citation” -- which wasn't necessary to maintain order, and actually created a potential danger to others who hadn't been involved in the matter.

Let's click the pause button on the story at this point to recap and italicize a few things.

Chukhadzhyan's reactions to this point are entirely understandable. He is fifty years old. He was born and lived most of his life in a country ruled by the Soviet secret police. This might explain his contemptuous reaction to Carlson's imperious demand. I know what I would have been thinking: “I lived for decades in the shadow of the KGB, and could have been dragged off to Lubyanka for any of a thousand reasons, and this little gelding thinks he can intimidate me because I'm having a smoke here rather than over there? Well, I'll just take one last drag and then throw the cigarette away; no point in making a big deal out of this.”

I don't know if that's what Chukhadzhyan was thinking, but it would have been in line with his actions, as they were described in Carlson's report.

Chukhadzhyan, confronted by Carlson, walked away peacefully.

By pursuing the matter beyond this point, Carlson is the one who became the aggressor.

That fact is not nullified by the costume he wears or the shiny little shield he was given.

OK – let's hit the “play” button, and resume the Post-Gazette's account:

“Officer Carlson again attempted to issue the citation, but said Mr. Chukhadzhyan stood up suddenly and approached him aggressively. The officer said he pulled out his Taser and warned, `This doesn't have to go this way.'”

Oh, good grief. This guy may not be a “pig,” but he's a Shatner-caliber ham – an honors graduate of the T.J. Hooker Academy for Drama Queens in Blue.

Chukhadzhyan allegedly replied to Carlson's unnecessary threat to use deadly force by saying, “arrest me” and pushing the officer. The Taser was fired by Carlson, but failed to operate because of the Armenian's heavy coat. At this point, according to Carlson, “Chukhadzhyan charged.”

Chad Stevens, an off-duty police officer from out of town, pitched in to help Carlson. Eventually the two of them were able to bull-rush Chukhadzhyan, pinning him against a vending machine, forcing the cuffs on his wrists, and tripping him to the floor. This melee “knocked over seats and sent other travelers scrambling,” notes the paper, offering a rather bland description for a needless episode of violence that placed innocent people at risk. As I noted above, avoiding situations of this sort would be the chief priority of a genuine peace officer.

Chukhadzhyan was placed under arrest for “disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and aggravated assault on Officer Carlson.” How an unarmed man commit “aggravated assault” on a heavily armed individual – who summons his buddy to help him out – is a question that could be profitably pondered by people not hopelessly held hostage by statist assumptions.

He was also reported to the local Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Here's an interesting possibility: If this is treated as a “terrorist” incident, Chukhadzhyan could be held indefinitely, since as a foreign national the habeas corpus guarantee doesn't apply to him as of October 17, 2006 – the day the Bushling signed the Military Commissions Act and the Homeland Security Death Star became fully operational.

Here's something else to consider: Is there any rational reason to doubt that if Carlson the Blue Knight and his equally heroic side-kick hadn't been able to subdue Chukhadzhyan, they would have resorted to lethal force? In fact, given the growing body count racked up by officers using the “non-lethal” Taser, Carlson actually did use potentially lethal force against Chukhadzhyan.

For smoking a cigarette.

After he had put it out and walked away.

And the real outrage is that this episode is not an aberration. This is how law enforcement operates in the era of Homeland Security.

Another beautiful day in the Land of the Free! (Thanks to Infowars.com for the photo.)

Former congressional candidate David Brownlow experienced that reality last December 9 when he and his family (including his 12-year-old daughter) were accosted by Oregon State Trooper Ken Moore and threatened with arrest for the supposed offense of holding up an anti-war protest sign on a sidewalk near a Portland shopping mall.

Brownlow, whose son Jared is serving in Iraq, has described how Trooper Moore was among the motorists who saw the family's sign, which read “Support the Troops – Bring Them Home!” Moore, “visibly agitated,” stomped over to the family, accused them of “breaking the law,” and ordered them to “leave the area immediately.”

Constitution Party of Oregon activist (and suspected Thought Criminal) David Brownlow.

When Brownlow asked politely what law he and his family had broken, Moore bellowed: “When a trooper tells you that you are breaking the law, that's all you need to know,” and that if they didn't move immediately, they would be arrested. Brownlow's wife Suzanne pointed out that they weren't blocking the road or the sidewalk; this prompted the (storm)trooper to jab a finger at her and hiss: “If you do not stop talking, I will arrest both of you for disorderly conduct!”

This would have meant taking into custody the couple's 12-year-old daughter, who by this point was terrified and hiding behind her mother.

The trooper seized the banner – which is to say he stole the family's property at gunpoint – and ordered them to meet him in a nearby parking lot. Once the group had reassembled, the officer – still breathing out various threats to do unpleasant things to the Brownlows – demanded that David produce his driver's license and asked if he was carrying a weapon (he wasn't, despite the fact that he had a concealed carry permit). When Suzanne Brownlow asked where they could “legally” protest if they weren't permitted to do so on a public sidewalk, the officer snarled: “In your front yard.”

At this point, Brownlow recalls, Trooper Moore's rage subsided and he became civil, returning their banner and offering apologies for terrorizing their daughter. “I wondered if this trooper was bipolar or something,” he comments.

While that's a possibility – and an unsettling one at that – I suspect the reason for the officer's change in demeanor is this: He had succeeded in carrying out his mission by controlling the Brownlows and making them submit to his supposed authority.

The Brownlows have filed suit against Trooper Moore, who – like any other armed terrorist – deserves at least to be driven into financial ruin (although his family, if any, would be non-combatants not deserving the same fate).

Thousands or tens of thousands of officious armed bullies like Officer Carlson and Trooper Moore infest our communities. They are not the “local police” who are fondly remembered by many of us (myself emphatically included) with respect and gratitude. Back then, of course, it was possible to find corrupt and abusive police officers, a fact sometimes washed out by the sepia-toned sentimentality that colors our recollections. But we're not dealing with simple corruption, or occasional abuses of power; we confront the product of a social transformation that has taken place over several decades, and that has turned the police into a literal army of occupation.

Law enforcement consultant Tony Cooper, an instructor in terrorism negotiation skills at the University of Texas-Dallas, warned about that transformation more than a decade ago. "I see the formation of a curious crusading mentality among certain law enforcement agencies to stamp out what they see as a threat to government generally,” he told the Washington Post in 1995 “It's an exaggerated concern that they are facing a nationwide conspiracy and that somehow this will get out of control unless it is stamped out at a very early stage."

While Cooper was chiefly concerned with that mindset among federal agents, his students included many state and local officers attached to SWAT teams and other tactical units, who helped propagate that mindset more widely among police units. With the aid of federal subsidies and material aid from the Pentagon, many “local” police agencies are rapidly taking on the traits of occupying armies.

Bad as this situation already is, it can always be made worse by gun-toting adolescents on the State's payroll who are dressed up like Village People wanna-bes and eagerly looking for an opportunity to push people around. What's really alarming is the extent to which that personality type is increasingly over-represented in our Homeland Security Apparatus.