DHS Social Media Keywords

KEYWORD EXERCISE #1

SKIN   RIP   PEEL   WARNING   BLOOD   KILL   MUTILATED   BOMB

“The whole car trip I was cold right down to my skin. The wind would rip along so hard I thought it would peel the roof off. And here’s a warning: Don’t ever travel with relatives. Blood may be thicker than water, but trying to kill time listening to Uncle Harry’s mutilated jokes bomb was just too much”¹

KEYWORD EXERCISE #2

TIDY   PRETTY   FLOWERS   BEAUTIFUL   WELCOME

“Tidy up your affairs and buy some pretty flowers, because God has ordered me to take you to his beautiful place, where he is anxious to welcome you.”

Intuitively, which of these two keyword exercises seems more alarming to you? If you chose the second, you’re correct. It was written by a fifty year old man to a ten year old girl that lived near him. Although all of the words in the first entry may denote serious danger, their connotations are harmless. The same cannot be said of the second entry. Assessments focusing on keywords are not a real good threat assessment method. So, it is not surprising to know that the U.S. government does just that.

Most of us know that the government tracks internet communications. What we don’t know is what they monitor, until now (at least ostensibly). The Electronic Privacy Information Center decided to peer into the governments social media tracking through the use of the Freedom of Information Act. What it produced was a thirty-nine page document titled Analyst’s Desktop Binder 2011. Within this document are three pages of keywords that the Department of Homeland Security monitors. If you keep in mind, the overall mission of the DHS, most of the strange words will make sense. Also note that this document only addresses the DHS and not agencies like the CIA, NAS, etc. I also doubt full disclosure.

Social media outfit, Mashable.com, asks the questions: Do you feel safer with U.S. Intelligence watching over what people say on the Internet? Or do you feel it’s a violation of privacy?

I don’t really have a problem with my communications being monitored as a concept. All things are eventually brought to light and exposed for good or bad. If I have anything to say or do before God, I certainly should not have a problem with doing it before someone lesser. Regardless, I certainly do not feel any safer. And that is where my apprehension rests.

A government that rules in the interests of the common good, either by Monarchy, Aristocracy or Republican forms poses no real problem. But a government that rules for its own benefit either by Tyranny, Oligarchy, or Democracy poses an extreme danger to life, property, and liberties. America no longer exists as a republic (if we ever did). We have morphed into more of a mixed form of government that leans toward the latter three forms instead of the preferred former structures. This is why I fear the U.S. governments tracking of its citizens social media activities through the use of keywords. I don’t feel that our best interests are the focus. 

The U.S. government is moving quicker and with greater strides toward the oppression of its citizens in the name of governmental self-preservation than most imagine (recall how quickly the Jews went from equal citizenship in Germany to mass murder by Hitler.) I stand alert with respect, but also with suspicion and fear of the twisting, misrepresentation, and persecution from the human interpreters of such keywords that are robotically preserving the government instead of its citizens. Not only do I not feel safer, I feel the danger level is greater.

PM

1 The Gift of Fear by Gavin deBecker

KEYWORDS

Rights! What Rights?

Can someone explain what the fight about “GLBT Rights” is about?  President Obama claims he has ferociously defended GLBT rights during his political career, so there must be a massive effort to keep the enumerated Constitutional rights from gays, lesbians, bi-sexual and transgendered people.  Maybe it’s far more sinister than this….has there been an evil push to keep GLBT’s from the inalienable rights; you know, the rights that come straight from God?  What rights have they been denied?  Someone please enumerate these denied rights.  I’ll wait for a response.

More on this later…..

A Simple Solution to High Crime and Poor Education

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” – John Adams

Our Constitution, as written by our Christian Founders, presupposes our nation’s citizens can be self-governing; that is our nation’s citizens can control themselves and self-govern their behavior.  Mr. Adams clearly articulated that our Republic will cease to exist as it should when we begin to falter in our self-governance and our devotion to Christian principles.  If individuals can’t govern themselves, we can never pass enough laws to make them.

Our Founding Fathers saw the necessity of covering our government, jurisprudence, and education with the atmosphere of religion, the Christian religion, and for good reason.  They understood the following truth:  “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” – Proverbs 9:10.  They wisely knew our government, education and citizens would regress if we weren’t careful to self-regulate.

Honestly examine our public education in the last 50-60 years compared to the first 200 years and discover what we all inherently know; our nation is regressing due to a foolish and unconstitutional belief that there must be an influential separation of religion and state.  The “wall of separation” as cited by Thomas Jefferson was an institutional separation, not an influential one.  The consequence of this influential separation in our education is evident.  Review The New England Primer, a text book used to teach elementary age children in early America.  The literary ability of children from this era far surpassed any ability our elementary school children possess today.  Quite honestly the elementary age children of early America are far more advanced than most adults in today’s America.  Take a quick look at Noah Webster’s “A Grammatical Institute of the English Language” 1783, better known as Webster’s “Blue-Back Speller”; an elementary age text book that Noah Webster wrote to “provide a uniquely American, Christ-centered approach to training children.”  These books taught morality, its originator, and various concepts far more difficult than most modern elementary schools.  When our 1960’s liberal courts removed Christian principles (influence) from education, our school children began the dreaded fall from excellence; as did our entire nation.  The United States used to be the most literate nation in the world; since the 1960’s we’ve become the 60^th most illiterate nation in the world, falling behind some third world nations.    How can anyone with any intellectual honesty claim our education system is getting better as a result of the 1962 Engel v. Vitale court decision?

A.W. Tozer, a brilliant preacher in the 1960’s, stated in Experiencing The Presence of God, “History has proven that you cannot change a man by legislating his actions.  Only conduct can be legislated, but this never gets inside the man to affect his motivation.”  Our criminal justice system has also experienced the adverse effects of the destructive belief that religion must be influentially separated from our system of laws; which is utterly unimaginable since our system of laws is derived from Biblical law.  Crime in our nation is steadily increasing, despite “wonderful” crime fighting initiatives devised by our most brilliant publicly educated minds.   Our prisons will continue to remain full, our police officers will have ever increasing demands, our legislators will continue to foolishly reject the obvious solutions to our crime problems, and our judges will continue to ignore the moral and Constitutional requirements that they be righteous, wise and discerning.  The ever widening ignorance gap in America is painfully obvious by the very fact people think secular government programs can eliminate crime, a problem of the heart; even after 50-60 years of horrible results from trying to do it without Christian influence.  Politicians, judges, prosecutors and police can no more prevent crime than a public school teacher can force a student to learn.  The heart of each man and woman is sinful and broken, and in dire need of regeneration.  No law can regenerate the corrupt heart.  Our ego driven politicians and high-minded academicians, our race-baiting “clergy” and racist evolutionists, our God-hating socialists and self-loathing liberals cannot fix an immoral heart, educate a single child, or prevent a single crime.  All too lofty a goal is reserved for a single Man that is able to accomplish all He promised, but He’s been kept from our public square.  Wisdom, knowledge, charity, selflessness, humility, redemption and salvation are rooted in a foundation that has been substantially rejected by our government since the 1960’s, and the results are frightening.  The foundation of our nation, which used to rest on the promises of God and His provision, have eroded and sunk into the ever shifting sands of moral relativism.  The current path is leading to a very unhappy ending.

“Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country.  Amen.”  - New Hyde Park, New York, 1962.

Default to Diversity

One of the central beliefs of thePoliPit.com is “Diversity without discernment is destructive.”  This truth is proved daily by the hiring and promotional practices of various businesses and government agencies and their results.  Diversity for diversity’s sake is foolish and destructive. We have written several articles on affirmative action type issues, and the results are always the same when diversity is given prominence over discernment; a starved ability to succeed.  Private businesses and government agencies are committing suicide by implementing policies that demand diversity for diversity’s sake.  Think of the logic involved with this foolish belief:  Don’t hire and promote the most qualified candidate, hire and promote the candidate with a specific skin color or sexuality without consideration of merit.  I suppose you could also add the example of voting for someone based on race rather than ability; there seems to be a similar untenable result.

Before Mayor Ballard decides on another Public Safety Director he must use proper discernment.   The desired qualities of the next PSD should reflect the desired qualities you want from the men and women he/she will lead.  Certainly the next Public Safety Director must have a working knowledge of public safety related matters, but more importantly the next PSD must have a proper philosophy on leadership, hiring and promotion.  IMPD needs some reform, but the most important reform should be a repudiation of hiring and promoting based solely on diversity.  Why would an agency struggling to fill its roles with people of character, integrity, intelligence and aptitude ignore those qualities so they can be more diverse?  Doesn’t that sound destructive to the very goal of improving accountability, morale, and professionalism?  If a black citizen can’t trust a white officer to do his/her job because he/she looks different, then the problem rests squarely on the shoulders of the bigoted citizen, NOT the police department.  Skin color is not an indicator on the quality and merit of an individual.

I’ve been told there are a number of excellent leaders in positions of rank within IMPD who possess great character, integrity, intelligence and aptitude that the members of IMPD will follow.  Somehow these individuals have weathered the “Straub storm” and kept their jobs.  Promote those individuals, no matter their skin color, especially if they are exceptional leaders.  Why run the risk of hiring another Straub-like Public Safety Director for the mere perception that the Mayor is sensitive to diversity.  We need a Mayor and Public Safety Director that places discernment above diversity.