Some pretty scary stuff in Tuesday’s Asbury Park Press.
Official: Home-grown terrorists more a threat than Islamic radicals
There is a greater risk of terrorism in Ocean County from white supremacists and anti-government radicals than Islamic extremists, said a former top state Homeland Security official.
“What kind of problems do we have in this county? Do we have problems with people, Arabs, that are coming here to threaten the (Brick Municipal Utilities Authority)? No, we’re mainly dealing with a lot of homegrown, lone wolf type problems,” said retired State Police Lt. Col. Bill Malast, who now works for the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office.
If white supremacists and “anti-government radicals” are the biggest terrorist threats that Ocean County officials can come up with, then it’s clear that they have too much time on their hands. What they really fear, I’m sure, is any reduction in state or federal homeland security funding. So since there aren’t a lot of Arabs in the area, and it’s politically incorrect to watch them too closely anyway, they come up with this nonsense about Ocean County being some sort of hotbed of scheming white supremacist, anti-government radicals. (Maybe since Ocean County went so strongly for Christie in 2009, that’s just his terminology for “Republicans”.)
Really, this is just crap. I’d like to know just what sort of “homegrown, lone wolf type problems” Bill Malast is referring to. Where are the news stories? I’ve been called an anti-government radical myself. And I’m already a skinhead, although not by choice. (I sure hope that Monmouth County is doing it’s job and getting lots of federal funding so it can keep an eye on “lone wolves” like me.)
It gets worse.
We have problems with Aryan Nation in this county, we have Hammerskins, which is associated with the Aryan Nation in this county,” he said. “We watch Sovereign Citizens group in this county, and there may be some in here.”
The Aryan Nation and Hammerskins are white supremacist, anti-Semitic organizations. Sovereign Nation is an organization that advocates anti-government beliefs. Last year, a “father-son team of Sovereigns” murdered two police officers with an assault rifle when they were pulled over while traveling through West Memphis, Ark., according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Malast wants you to think that anyone who is against the government, or who holds views that are controversial, or, in the case of white supremacists, just plain stupid, is a threat that can only be controlled by spending lots of your money. With the country mired in a depression, and government at all levels staring at bankruptcy despite the population being taxed to it’s eyeballs, I’d like to know just how much of our money Lt. Col. Bill Malast thinks we need to spend to keep white supremacists from taking over Ocean County.
Besides, I’m sure there have been murders by members of Moose Lodges and Elks Lodges. Do we need to monitor these groups too?
When I called this story “scary” it wasn’t the terrorist threat I was referring to. I worry that this nonsense about white supremacist terrorists might someday be used as an excuse to spy on everyone.
Oops, too late!
Keeping Ocean County safe from terrorism has become a full-time job for the Prosecutor’s Office, though advances in technology are helping law enforcement to do that with greater stealth, Malast explained……..
…….In areas of Ocean County that are classified by the state as “critical infrastructure areas,” such as power plants, Jewish schools, college campuses, areas where large crowds congregate, and other potential terrorist targets, there is a greater reliance on electronic surveillance.
“The biggest thing right now, and you’ve seen them out there and maybe you’ve been a victim to one if you didn’t register your car, are license plate readers,” Malast said. “They’re in police cars now and there are eight in this county and there are two more coming.”
Police officers can patrol up and down roads around their critical infrastructures and while keeping the license plate reader running, Malast said.“They’ll run 2,200 plates in a matter of three or four hours. What do they get from that? They get a tracking of every plate that went through. If you’re unregistered, if there’s a warrant out for you, it’s going to ‘beep.’ He’s got you right there. It’s just like a radar machine,” Malast said.
When the power of government is used to pick winners and losers, both at home and overseas, it will cause resentment in some (like me) and outright blind fury in others (like Islamic terrorists, and Timothy McVeigh types). Just because some people who can’t control their anger resort to terrible violent acts doesn’t mean they didn’t have a reason to at least resent the government’s actions. When the government endeavors to re-order society, or re-order the world, it never considers that it’s actions could be what drives some people to violence.
I bet that if government simply adhered to the principles set forth by our founders in the U.S. Constitution, and stopped trying to run our lives and run the world, there would be a lot fewer angry people around. (But then they would not have the excuse to be watching us so closely.)
Like Ron Paul says:
“Freedom brings us together, it doesn’t divide us.”
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