If You're Doing Nothing Wrong

Trey Smith

I am sure you've heard the refrain before. If you decry the growing police state in this nation, a friend or relative will say, "If you're doing nothing wrong -- you are not up to "no good" -- you have nothing to be afraid of." This sentiment informs us that all these restrictions of our basic civil rights are being instituted to get the "bad guys." Law abiding citizens may be inconvenienced a tad, but it's no reason to get your panties in a wad. It really won't impact your life much at all.

It sounds good, but more and more, it is turning out not to be true. Our government seems far more concerned with keeping tabs on and putting down law abiding Americans rather than with sinister foreign "bad guys." That's the conclusion Naomi Wolf comes to when she writes,

It was more sophisticated than we had imagined: new documents show that the violent crackdown on Occupy last fall – so mystifying at the time – was not just coordinated at the level of the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and local police. The crackdown, which involved, as you may recall, violent arrests, group disruption, canister missiles to the skulls of protesters, people held in handcuffs so tight they were injured, people held in bondage till they were forced to wet or soil themselves –was coordinated with the big banks themselves.

The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, in a groundbreaking scoop that should once more shame major US media outlets (why are nonprofits now some of the only entities in America left breaking major civil liberties news?), filed this request. The document – reproduced here in an easily searchable format – shows a terrifying network of coordinated DHS, FBI, police, regional fusion center, and private-sector activity so completely merged into one another that the monstrous whole is, in fact, one entity: in some cases, bearing a single name, the Domestic Security Alliance Council. And it reveals this merged entity to have one centrally planned, locally executed mission. The documents, in short, show the cops and DHS working for and with banks to target, arrest, and politically disable peaceful American citizens.

According to that hallowed document -- the US Constitution -- Americans have the right of a) free speech, b) free assembly and c) peaceful protest against the government. If you engage in any or all of the above rights, you don't lose your status as a law abiding citizen. And yet, it is those law abiding citizens that the police state targeted for abuse!!

Even worse, this was not solely a government-run operation. No, the government worked hand-in-hand with Wall Street to limit and punish public dissent. When the government and wealthy oligarchy merge into one, we no longer call that a representative democracy; it's called fascism!

For all of those folks out there who believe that the erection of our police state is about the "bad guys," Wolf reveals the truth.

Why the huge push for counterterrorism "fusion centers", the DHS militarizing of police departments, and so on? It was never really about "the terrorists". It was not even about civil unrest. It was always about this moment, when vast crimes might be uncovered by citizens – it was always, that is to say, meant to be about you.