US Official Admits That Following Terrorist Attacks, It Starts Arresting People Based On Ideology To 'Get Them Off The Streets' | Techdirt

20.11.15

US Official Admits That Following Terrorist Attacks, It Starts Arresting People Based On Ideology To 'Get Them Off The Streets' | Techdirt



The story mostly talks about how the FBI similarly ramped up its
wiretapping following the shootings in Garland, Texas, and then admits
that law enforcement will then use that information to arrest people
based on non-terrorism charges just to "get them off the street."

The Garland attack ushered in several months of stepped-up use of 24/7
monitoring on suspected ISIS supporters. FBI Director James Comey has
described the period between May and July as one that stretched the
FBI's resources, and that isn't sustainable. Dozens of arrests were
made, in many cases not for terrorism-related charges if the FBI
couldn't gather enough evidence of a plot.



"In some cases we just needed to get people off the streets," one senior law enforcement official said.

In other words, the wiretapping becomes a pretense to find anything to
lock up people based on their ideological views, even if they're doing
nothing related to terrorism. That seems like the very definition of a
police state.