According to Pew Research, the respectability of the brand name known as the United States appears to be locked in freefall. Let’s begin with a brief excerpt from Andrea Peterson’s 7-14-14 Washington Post article entitled “America’s ‘Freedom’ Reputation Is on the Decline a Year after NSA Revelations”:
A main selling point of the U.S.
brand on the international stage has long been summed up with the screech of
eagles and one word: “Freedom.”
But in the wake of the revelations about U.S.
surveillance programs from former National Security Agency contractor Edward
Snowden last year, the world is less convinced of the U.S.’s respect for personal
freedoms according to new
survey results from
Pew Research.
The Snowden revelations appear to
have damaged one major element of America’s global image: its reputation for protecting individual
liberties. In 22 of 36 countries
surveyed in both 2013 and 2014, people are significantly less likely to believe
the U.S.
government respects the personal freedoms of its citizens. In six nations, the decline was 20 percentage
points or more.
Pew calls this decline “the Snowden
Effect.” And some of the drops are
significant—especially in countries where NSA surveillance received major
domestic news coverage like Germany
and Brazil.
Those who have lost faith in the U.S. government would be
even more devastated to learn that Snowden’s “revelations” regarding the NSA’s
domestic surveillance program pales in comparison to what’s actually happening
every day in this great land of ours.
Way back in December of 1956 a British science fiction film
called The Gamma People was released
on the lower half of a double bill (its companion feature was the first film
adaptation of George Orwell’s anti-totalitarian novel, 1984.) The Gamma People told the tale of a phantasmagoric dictatorship
known as Gudavia whose fat and happy citizens are mind controlled by mad
scientists run amok and constantly surveilled by drone-like halfwits—the unsightly
results of behavioral experiments gone very wrong. No doubt, this film and its more famous
co-feature were intended to be interpreted by its 1950s whitebread audiences as
satirical critiques of communist Russia. Sixty years out, however, The Gamma People seems more like an
eerily prescient look into the future (i.e., the present) of the United States
of Amurrrica. The reality of our
situation is closer to the cinematic science fiction of 1956 than it is to the
reportage of mainstream newspapers published today.
In the spring of 2015 OR Books released my book, Chameleo: A Strange but True Story of Invisible Spies, Heroin Addiction, and Homeland Security, which chronicles the bizarre experiences of my friend,
Dion Fuller, and his ongoing battles with the police state into which the
United States has devolved since the dawn of the twenty-first century. To summarize the story briefly, in the summer
of 2003 Dion allowed a stranger—a young man named Lee—to sleep on the floor of
his apartment in San Diego. It turned out that this stranger was a Marine
who had gone AWOL from nearby Camp
Pendleton. Before leaving the military base, Lee decided
to abscond with sensitive military equipment, including two dozen hi-tech night
vision goggles and a DOD laptop computer that contained Above Top Secret field
journals written on the battlefield in the Persian Gulf. Some of this equipment Lee decided to bring
with him into Dion’s apartment. This
equipment led the NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigative Services) right to Dion’s
front door. Both Dion and Lee were
arrested and taken to the San Diego County Jail, where Dion was “interviewed”
for a week. The authorities decided that
Dion and Lee were in league with international terrorists and had been planning
to sell this equipment to al-Qaeda. Dion
tried to convince them that he barely knew Lee and was simply trying to help
out a kid who seemed to be down on his luck.
The NCIS did not believe Dion, and told him so over and over again
during their 24/7 Abu-Ghraib-style interrogation sessions. Dion refused to cooperate with the NCIS’s
investigation, since he knew nothing that could help them. After about seven days had passed, the San Diego police told Dion he was free to go. And indeed, Dion was able to leave the jail
and return to his home—but that was only the beginning of the nightmare. From that summer day in 2003 until now, Dion
has been harassed by a seemingly endless series of psychological warfare
tactics perpetuated by a group of government flunkies that have come to be
known among targeted individuals as “gangstalkers,” i.e., people who stalk
innocent civilians as an organized gang, often employing sophisticated
technology to drive the target insane.
Dion is not the only such target in the United
States, or even in the world.
The phenomenon known as “gangstalking” is a worldwide problem, and has
grown more and more common since the events of 9/11.
The particulars of Dion’s story can seem quite unreal, but the fact is that I’ve received countless messages from people who have read Chameleo and insist that they too have experienced similar harassment. More often than not, a targeted individual is someone who is considered to be a threat to national security. For example, during the past few months I learned that members of the Clamshell Alliance, an anti-nuclear-power organization, have been recently gangstalked due to their organized attempts to shut down an atomic power plant in New England. Some targeted individuals might be officially labeled “terrorists” simply because they’re exercising their right to protest public policy. Here are excerpts from a 6-12-14 UK Guardian article entitled “The Met Turned Me into a Domestic Extremist—with Tweets and Trivia” by Jenny Jones:
I would describe myself as many
things, but domestic extremist is not one of them. In the eyes of the Metropolitan police,
however, that is what I am; and that’s why my name is on a file in their secret
database of “domestic extremists” […].
The supposed point of this database, which is managed by the Met, is to
gather intelligence from police forces, counter terrorism units, industry and
open sources about domestic extremism threats, of which I am apparently
one.
Flicking through the file I was
able to read copies of tweets I had made, a note that I was speaking at a
demonstration in Trafalgar Square—even something saying I was the Green
party mayoral candidate for London […].
As an elected politician who has
never been arrested, I was naturally surprised to find I even had a file on
this database. But I am not alone. There is a Green party councillor in Kent who
was spied on for
two years for peacefully and legally protesting about live animal exports. His file even included details of organising
a public meeting in support of equal marriage.
There is also John
Catt, an 89-year-old from Brighton who campaigns for peace and human
rights. He found he had a file on this
database which even included descriptions of his appearance (“clean shaven”)
and his habit of sketching demo[nstration]s.
He has since launched legal action against the Met, winning a decision
at the court of appeal to have information held on him deleted. A police appeal is due before the
supreme court soon.
A related article (entitled “Why I’m Fighting the Met in Court over Undercover Relationships”) appeared in the
6-3-14 edition of the Guardian, in
which a woman known only as “Alison” wrote about the six-year-long relationship
she was duped into having with an undercover police officer who, hiding behind
a false identity, had infiltrated an organization to which Alison
belonged. This organization was “an
independent political group that had exposed police corruption in the early
1990s and promoted trade union, anti-fascist politics.” At the time this article was published, at
least eight other women were taking legal action against the Metropolitan
police for having been similarly victimized and manipulated by overzealous
covert agents.
As you’re no doubt already aware,
various police organizations and intelligence agencies have been infiltrating
social justice groups for generations.
Perhaps the casual reader might think, “Well, what’s so new about
that? Who cares? What’s the big deal?”
The “big deal” is this: The examples provided above are relatively
harmless compared to the gangstalking phenomenon running rampant in the United
States and abroad. At least the above
examples are ones that can be dealt with in a court of law. The official stamp of the Metropolitan police
is indelibly marked on the cases cited above.
A specific government organization, therefore, can be sued and punished
for these flagrant violations.
But the various police organizations
and intelligence agencies mentioned above have learned a great deal since the
1960s and ‘70s. Why bother with court
orders and filing for warrants when the job can get done much easier and
quicker outside the constricting
influence of the law?
Plausible deniability, so in vogue
during the Watergate era, has now been supplanted by total deniability.
To Be Continued In “A World of Stalking
Fools” Part Two (Coming Soon)….
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