An American Lion

Who's watching out for you?

Perhaps it is the old Cold Warrior in me who doesn't get it, but I would have thought that the killing of a religious leader by the Federal Bureau of Investigation would have elicited more interest than this:

The FBI is trying to determine whether members of a radical Detroit-area Islamic group were homegrown jihadists or merely a "bunch of thugs with bluster," a congressman said Thursday. One thing is certain: They are not mainstream Muslims, the agency said.

Luqman Ameen Abdullah skimmed 20 percent of the profit off the furs, electronics and other items his followers fenced, and he preached that it was OK for them to steal as long as they prayed, FBI agent Gary Leone wrote in an affidavit filed with a criminal complaint against 11 group members.

Abdullah, 53, was killed Wednesday in a shootout with agents after the FBI raided a suburban warehouse the group used. Eight members, including Abdullah's son, have been arrested and authorities were seeking the public's help in capturing the other two. The group members are charged with various federal crimes, chiefly conspiracy to sell stolen goods.

This man was an enemy of the state. Not only did he preach the false religion of jihad while pretending to be a Muslim, but he was a common crook. What's the difference between him an a mafia don? What's the difference between him and the good old Michigan Militia and the clowns who organize themselves into little compounds and refuse to file their income taxes? I can't understand the relative indifference to this incident--I would have thought that it would have been bigger news.

The end of privacy rights in this country means that the government finds the imams and the thugs and the crooks and the crazies faster than it used to. Before, it would take local law enforcement to notify the FBI of this sort of thing, unless of course the old FBI was gunning for certain individuals of its own volition. The process has been sped up. Now, the government Poindexters are looking for exactly this sort of behavior and they can identify it much faster because they can view the purchasing and banking and telecommunications activities of the people involved and datamine it and come away with more accurate profiles.

If an associate of the imam behaves like a crook, the electronic record of such activity is staggering. Say, for example, the associate buys a car with cash--the registration of the vehicle, the name he used, his credit rating all indicate whether he actually could afford it and it probably records how he paid for it. It tracks back his insurance information, the registration at the Department of Motor Vehicles, then who he is employed by and for how long he has been employed. If he works for the imam, if he is in a place rented by the imam or connected to him by a common address or by telephone and internet records, the connection is made. An associate of the imam just bought a Lincoln he couldn't afford. This tells them that crime is afoot, and all a judge needs to do is rubber-stamp the investigation making it legal so that all must comply. The Poindexters gather voluminous amounts of data--social networking profiles, online habits, websites visited, banking sites accessed, porn viewed--oh, the government loves knowing what kind of porn the bad guys are looking at--and they database it. Hierarchies are built, connections however tenuous are established, charts are created. They can build a physical profile and look at the clothes the person buys, what personal hygiene items are being bought at such-and-such store, all itemized on receipts paid for with credit cards. Using voice and face recognition software, good luck escaping scrutiny.

All to keep us safe. Safe from whom?Who keeps us safe from the Poindexters?