To the Police State, We’re All Criminals Until We Prove Otherwise – Investment Watch

 by John W. Whitehead

“In a closed society the place everyone’s responsible, the one crime is getting caught.”—Hunter S. Thompson

The burden of proof has been reversed.

Now not are we presumed harmless. Now we’re presumed responsible except we will show our innocence past an inexpensive doubt in a courtroom of legislation. Not often, are we even given the chance to take action.

Though the Structure requires the federal government to supply stable proof of prison exercise earlier than it could possibly deprive a citizen of life or liberty, the federal government has turned that elementary assurance of due course of on its head.

Every one in every of us is now seen as a possible suspect, terrorist and lawbreaker within the eyes of the federal government.

Take into account all of the methods by which “we the folks” are actually handled as criminals, discovered responsible of violating the police state’s abundance of legal guidelines, and preemptively stripped of primary due course of rights.

Crimson flag gun confiscation legal guidelines: Gun management laws, particularly within the type of crimson flag gun legal guidelines, enable the police to take away weapons from folks “suspected” of being threats. These legal guidelines, rising in reputation as a legislative means by which to grab weapons from people considered as a hazard to themselves or others, will put a goal on the again of each American whether or not or not they personal a weapon.

Disinformation eradication campaigns. In recent times, the federal government has used the phrase “home terrorist” interchangeably with “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” to explain anybody who would possibly fall someplace on a really broad spectrum of viewpoints that might be thought-about “harmful.” The ramifications are so far-reaching as to render virtually each American an extremist in phrase, deed, thought or by affiliation. Within the authorities’s newest assault on those that criticize the federal government—whether or not that criticism manifests itself in phrase, deed or thought—the Biden Administration has likened those that share “false or deceptive narratives and conspiracy theories, and different types of mis- dis- and mal-information” to terrorists. This newest authorities salvo towards shoppers and spreaders of “mis- dis- and mal-information” widens the web to probably embrace anybody who’s uncovered to concepts that run counter to the official authorities narrative. In different phrases, for those who dare to subscribe to any views which are opposite to the federal government’s, you might be suspected of being a home terrorist and handled accordingly. On this means, authorities and company censors claiming to guard us from harmful, disinformation campaigns are, actually, laying the groundwork now to preempt any “harmful” concepts that may problem the facility elite’s stranglehold over our lives.

Authorities watch lists. The FBI, CIA, NSA and different authorities businesses have more and more invested in company surveillance applied sciences that may mine constitutionally protected speech on social media platforms corresponding to Fb, Twitter and Instagram so as to establish potential extremists and predict who would possibly have interaction in future acts of anti-government habits. The place many Individuals go unsuitable is in naively assuming that it’s important to be doing one thing unlawful or dangerous so as to be flagged and focused for some type of intervention or detention. In truth, all it’s worthwhile to do nowadays to finish up on a authorities watch checklist or be subjected to heightened scrutiny is use sure set off phrases (like cloud, pork and pirates), surf the web, talk utilizing a cellular phone, limp or stutter, drive a automobile, keep at a lodge, attend a political rally, categorical your self on social media, seem mentally ailing, serve within the army, disagree with a legislation enforcement official, name in sick to work, buy supplies at a ironmongery store, take flying or boating classes, seem suspicious, seem confused or nervous, fidget or whistle or odor unhealthy, be seen in public waving a toy gun or something remotely resembling a gun (corresponding to a water nozzle or a distant management or a strolling cane), stare at a police officer, query authorities authority, or look like pro-gun or pro-freedom.

Thought crimes. For years now, the federal government has used the entire weapons in its huge arsenal—surveillance, risk assessments, fusion facilities, pre-crime applications, hate crime legal guidelines, militarized police, lockdowns, martial legislation, and many others.—to focus on potential enemies of the state primarily based on their ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and different traits that is perhaps deemed suspicious or harmful. It’s not simply what you say or do that’s being monitored, however the way you assume that’s being tracked and focused. There’s an entire spectrum of behaviors starting from thought crimes and hate speech to whistleblowing that qualifies for persecution (and prosecution) by the Deep State. It’s a slippery slope from censoring so-called illegitimate concepts to silencing reality.

Safety checkpoints and fusion facilities. By treating a complete populace as suspect, the federal government has justified wide-ranging safety checkpoints that topic vacationers to scans, searches, pat downs and different indignities by the TSA and VIPR raids on so-called “mushy” targets like purchasing malls and bus depots by black-clad, Darth Vader look-alikes. Fusion facilities, which signify the mixed surveillance efforts of federal, state and native legislation enforcement, monitor the citizenry’s actions, document their conversations, and catalogue their transactions.

Surveillance, precrime applications. Facial recognition software program goals to create a society by which each particular person who steps out into public is tracked and recorded as they go about their each day enterprise. Coupled with surveillance cameras that blanket the nation, facial recognition know-how permits the federal government and its company companions to warrantlessly establish and monitor somebody’s actions in real-time, whether or not or not they’ve dedicated a criminal offense. Fast advances in behavioral surveillance should not solely making it doable for people to be monitored and tracked primarily based on their patterns of motion or habits, together with gait recognition (the way in which one walks), however have given rise to complete industries that revolve round predicting one’s habits primarily based on information and surveillance patterns and are additionally shaping the behaviors of complete populations. With the rise in precrime applications, risk assessments, AI algorithms and surveillance applications corresponding to SpotShotter, which try and calculate the place criminality would possibly happen by triangulating sounds and pictures, the burden of proof has been turned on its head by a surveillance state that renders us all suspects and overcriminalization which renders us all lawbreakers.

Mail surveillance. Nearly each department of the federal government—from the Postal Service to the Treasury Division and each company in between—now has its personal surveillance sector, approved to spy on the American folks. For example, the U.S. Postal Service, which has been photographing the outside of each piece of paper mail for the previous 20 years, can be spying on Individuals’ texts, emails and social media posts. Headed up by the Postal Service’s legislation enforcement division, the Web Covert Operations Program (iCOP) is reportedly utilizing facial recognition know-how, mixed with pretend on-line identities, to ferret out potential troublemakers with “inflammatory” posts. The company claims the net surveillance, which falls outdoors its typical job scope of processing and delivering paper mail, is critical to assist postal staff keep away from “probably unstable conditions.”

Risk assessments and AI algorithms. The federal government has a rising checklist—shared with fusion facilities and legislation enforcement businesses—of ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and different traits that might flag somebody as suspicious and outcome of their being labeled potential enemies of the state. Earlier than lengthy, each family in America shall be flagged as a risk and assigned a risk rating. It’s only a matter of time earlier than you end up wrongly accused, investigated and confronted by police primarily based on a data-driven algorithm or threat evaluation culled collectively by a pc program run by synthetic intelligence.

No-knock raids. No-knock, no-announce SWAT group raids are what passes for court-sanctioned policing in America immediately, and it might occur to any one in every of us. Nationwide, SWAT groups routinely invade houses, break down doorways, kill household pets (they all the time shoot the canine first), injury furnishings, terrorize households, and wound or kill these unfortunate sufficient to be current throughout a raid. Now not reserved completely for lethal conditions, SWAT groups are actually more and more being deployed for comparatively routine police issues corresponding to serving a search warrant, with some SWAT groups being despatched out as a lot as 5 occasions a day. Police perform tens of 1000’s of no-knock raids yearly nationwide.

Militarized police. America is overrun with militarized cops—vigilantes with a badge—who’ve virtually absolute discretion to determine who’s a risk, what constitutes resistance, and the way harshly they’ll take care of the residents they have been appointed to “serve and shield.” It doesn’t matter the place you reside—large metropolis or small city—it’s the identical situation being performed out again and again by which authorities brokers, educated to behave as decide, jury and executioner of their interactions with the general public, journey roughshod over the rights of the citizenry. That is how now we have gone from a nation of legal guidelines—the place the least amongst us had simply as a lot proper to be handled with dignity and respect as the subsequent particular person (in precept, at the very least)—to a nation of legislation enforcers (income collectors with weapons) who deal with “we the folks” like suspects and criminals.

Structure-free zones. Merely residing inside 100 miles inland of the border round the USA is now sufficient to make you a suspect, paving the way in which for Border Patrol brokers to look folks’s houses, intimately probe their our bodies, and rifle by their belongings, all and not using a warrant. Practically 66% of Individuals (2/3 of the U.S. inhabitants, 197.4 million folks) now reside inside that 100-mile-deep, Structure-free zone.

Asset forfeiture schemes. Individuals now not have a proper to personal property. If authorities brokers can invade your private home, break down your doorways, kill your canine, injury your furnishings and terrorize your loved ones, your property is now not personal and safe—it belongs to the federal government. Exhausting-working Individuals are having their financial institution accounts, houses, automobiles electronics and money seized by police below the idea that they’ve been related to some prison scheme. As libertarian Harry Browne noticed, “Asset forfeiture is a mockery of the Invoice of Rights. There isn’t a presumption of innocence, no have to show you responsible (and even cost you with a criminal offense), no proper to a jury trial, no proper to confront your accuser, no proper to a court-appointed lawyer (even when the federal government has simply stolen all of your cash), and no proper to compensation for the property that’s been taken.”

Automobile kill switches. Bought to the general public as a security measure aimed toward maintaining drunk drivers off the roads, “car kill switches” might rapidly turn out to be a handy instrument within the arms of presidency brokers to place the federal government within the driver’s seat whereas rendering null and void the Structure’s necessities of privateness and its prohibitions towards unreasonable searches and seizures. As such, it presumes each driver probably responsible of breaking some legislation that might require the federal government to intervene and take over operation of the car or shut it off altogether. The message: we can’t be trusted to obey the legislation or navigate the world on our finish.

Bodily integrity. The federal government’s presumptions about our so-called guilt or innocence have prolonged all the way down to our very mobile stage. The controversy over bodily integrity covers broad territory, starting from pressured vaccinations, pressured cavity searches, pressured colonoscopies, pressured blood attracts and compelled breath-alcohol assessments to pressured DNA extractions, pressured eye scans, and compelled inclusion in biometric databases: these are only a few methods by which Individuals proceed to be reminded that now we have no actual privateness, no actual presumption of innocence, and no actual management over what occurs to our our bodies throughout an encounter with authorities officers. The groundwork being laid with these mandates is a prologue to what’s going to turn out to be the police state’s conquest of a brand new, comparatively uncharted, frontier: interior area, particularly, the interior workings (genetic, organic, biometric, psychological, emotional) of the human race. “Guilt by affiliation” has taken on new connotations within the technological age. But the talk over genetic privateness—and when one’s DNA turns into a public commodity outdoors the safety of the Fourth Modification’s prohibition on warrantless searches and seizures—is actually solely starting. Prepare, people, as a result of the federal government has launched into a diabolical marketing campaign to create a nation of suspects predicated on a large nationwide DNA database.

Limitations on our proper to maneuver about freely. We expect now we have the liberty to go the place we wish and transfer about freely, however at each flip, we’re hemmed in by legal guidelines, fines and penalties that regulate and limit our autonomy, and surveillance cameras that monitor our actions. For example, license plate readers are mass surveillance instruments that may {photograph} over 1,800 license tag numbers per minute, take an image of each passing license tag quantity and retailer the tag quantity and the date, time, and placement of the image in a searchable database, then share the information with legislation enforcement, fusion facilities and personal corporations to trace the actions of individuals of their automobiles. With tens of 1000’s of those license plate readers now in operation all through the nation, police can monitor automobiles and run the plates by legislation enforcement databases for kidnapped kids, stolen automobiles, lacking folks and wished fugitives. After all, the know-how shouldn’t be infallible: there have been quite a few incidents by which police have mistakenly relied on license plate information to seize suspects solely to finish up detaining harmless folks at gunpoint.

The battle on money and the introduction of digital forex. Digital forex gives the federal government and its company companions with a mode of commerce that may simply be monitored, tracked, tabulated, mined for information, hacked, hijacked and confiscated when handy. This push for a digital forex dovetails with the federal government’s battle on money, which it has been subtly waging for a while now. In recent times, simply the mere possession of serious quantities of money might implicate you in suspicious exercise and label you a prison. The rationale (by police) is that money is the forex for unlawful transactions on condition that it’s tougher to trace, can be utilized to pay unlawful immigrants, and denies the federal government its share of the “take,” so getting rid of paper cash will assist legislation enforcement struggle crime and assist the federal government notice extra income. A cashless society—simply monitored, managed, manipulated, weaponized and locked down—performs proper into the arms of the federal government (and its company companions).

The Safety-Industrial Advanced. Each disaster—manufactured or in any other case—for the reason that nation’s early beginnings has turn out to be a make-work alternative for the federal government to broaden its attain and its energy at taxpayer expense whereas limiting our freedoms at each flip. What this has amounted to is a battle on the American folks, fought on American soil, funded with taxpayer {dollars}, and waged with a single-minded willpower to make use of nationwide crises, manufactured or in any other case, so as to remodel the American homeland right into a battlefield. Because of this, the American folks have been handled like enemy combatants, to be spied on, tracked, scanned, frisked, searched, subjected to all method of intrusions, intimidated, invaded, raided, manhandled, censored, silenced, shot at, locked up, denied due course of, and killed.

These applications push us that a lot nearer in direction of a suspect society the place everyone seems to be probably responsible of some crime or one other and have to be preemptively rendered innocent.

The ramifications of empowering the federal government to sidestep elementary due course of safeguards are so chilling and so far-reaching as to place a goal on the again of anybody who occurs to be in the identical place the place a criminal offense takes place.

The groundwork has been laid for a brand new sort of authorities the place it gained’t matter for those who’re harmless or responsible, whether or not you’re a risk to the nation, and even for those who’re a citizen. What’s going to matter is what the federal government—or whoever occurs to be calling the pictures on the time—thinks. And if the powers-that-be assume you’re a risk to the nation and ought to be locked up, you then’ll be locked up with no entry to the protections our Structure gives.

In impact, you’ll disappear.

As I clarify in my guide Battlefield America: The Battle on the American Folks and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, our freedoms are already being made to vanish.