Eyeing What Americans Are Buying
[guest post by Dana]
Homeland Security’s Jeh Johnson has a new idea about how to identify potential terrorists: watch what people are buying.
DHS will provide guidelines to retailers this week:
Mr. Johnson said retailers should be trained to look for anyone who buys a lot from what he described as a “long list of materials that could be used as explosive precursors.”
He said it was an extension of the “If you see something, say something” campaign launched by his predecessor, former Secretary Janet Napolitano, which tries to enlist average Americans to be aware of their immediate environment.
“We can’t and we shouldn’t prohibit the sale of a pressure cooker. We can sensitize retail businesses to be on guard for suspicious behavior by those who buy this kind of stuff,” Mr. Johnson said during a question-and-answer session after a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations.
In 2013, the Boston Marathon bomber used two pressure-cookers in the bombing that killed three people and injured hundreds more.
–Dana
Hello.
Dana (4dbf62) — 9/11/2014 @ 5:02 pm‘Cause, yeah, TWO pressure cookers is clearly an action only a terrorist could love.
Yeesh. Get people used to spying on each other and sticking their nose into everyone else’ business.
Then raise the bar incrementally.
:-S
Smock Puppet, "Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses." (225d0d) — 9/11/2014 @ 5:05 pmPerhaps they should mandate a two week waiting period and a back round check for purchasers of pressure cookers. I say they fall under the Dept. of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and pressure Cookers. What say you?
And those damn dirty restaurateurs, why the hell do they need pressure cookers, they have Henny Penny’s?
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 9/11/2014 @ 5:07 pmwhen a loser-assed freedom-averse country like America wants to get its fascism on it doesn’t mess around
happyfeet (a785d5) — 9/11/2014 @ 5:20 pmCFPB is an agency to watch going forward, it has no real oversight, not least because Congress does not control its budget (something I think is unconstitutional).
SPQR (c4e119) — 9/11/2014 @ 5:47 pmdo they even have a cogent reason for this, or are they doing it just because they can, for our own good, of course?
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 9/11/2014 @ 6:02 pmI bet buying a one way plane ticket will get you flagged on that DHS list.
Everyone knows terrorists look to not waste money on a round-trip ticket.
DejectedHead (9b0c64) — 9/11/2014 @ 6:26 pmThis isn’t a new idea.
But you have to know waht’s a tell-tale sign that somebody may be trying to put together a bob and what is not. And then check sort of unobtrsively for othe things maybe that have been purchased.
Asking uninformed people to start looking for this just creates more false positives.
Sammy Finkelman (96f386) — 9/11/2014 @ 7:15 pmI don’t know Mr. Sammy
once they were told to start looking public school teachers were even able to find guns in pop tarts
don’t underestimate the power of vigilance
happyfeet (a785d5) — 9/11/2014 @ 7:17 pmI am reminded that it was claimed Richard Jewell had bomb making material in his garage, which turned out to mean nails and duct tape. These are just not the wise and honest people that could be trusted with this power, even if we decided freedom was not worth it and we needed wise masters to rule us and protect us from ourselves and our foolishness.
machinist (313c6a) — 9/11/2014 @ 8:16 pmdoesn’t do a thing for cash purchases either, or checks, for that matter…
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 9/11/2014 @ 9:07 pmThis will or course mean they will hoover up all your Amazon records and if something unusual shows up, they’ll send a car around. Or maybe a SWAT team. Just to be safe.
Total. Information. Awareness.
Kevin M (b357ee) — 9/12/2014 @ 12:41 amThose that are into SF should check out C L Moore’s 1957 classic “Doomsday Morning” about a comprehensive communications system that the nation relies on utterly and which the government uses to spy on everyone utterly. What a concept!
Kevin M (b357ee) — 9/12/2014 @ 12:50 amSay, why not eye what aliens are buying? Just a thot.
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 9/12/2014 @ 7:02 amSay, why not eye what aliens are buying? Just a thot.
Or make a list of people who are buying lots of Mexican and Central American brand names. Any data-mining operation worth its name should be able to identify illegals by pattern, given all the info these folks are grabbing.
But they’ll probably cite privacy laws and refuse.
Kevin M (b357ee) — 9/12/2014 @ 7:40 amKevin @15.
What are you talking about?
The data mining operation will give you grocery stores, and the owners of thise stores are probably legal residents, or the ownership is listed in the name of legal residents.,, or do you think food is bought by mail order?
You can get areas, but it is no big secret. Census figures wll tell you.
Sammy Finkelman (e6d54e) — 9/12/2014 @ 7:51 amAnd when you report someone for buying pressure cookers and bombing materials, the FBI will ignore them and then investigate you for racism.
Patricia (5fc097) — 9/12/2014 @ 8:32 amI know it’s not funny, but I had to laugh. These idjits telling retailers to report suspicious activity are the same idjits who accused Army personnel who reported Major Nidal Hassan’s not only suspicious behavior but actual, specific threats presented in the form of a pre-jihad powerpoint briefing of bigotry. And went on to threaten their careers if they dared mention it again.
Diversity uber alles.
To put it in an international context, these are the same idiots who commanded social workers in Rotherham, England to never, ever again mention the fact the child rapists in that town over the past two decades were almost exclusively Pakistani Muslims. Then sent them to
re-education campracial sensitivity training to pound home the point. In Norway, Muslim immigrants account for every single rape in Oslo. The same is true in Sweden, but these same idjits who imported the problem in the name of diversity have made it illegal to say so.Naturally, by these same idjits I don’t mean the same individuals are involved in all cases. But these idjits are interchangeable, demonstrating the exact same perverse thought processes. Like former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Casey, who lamented after Maj. Hassan went on his lone-wolf jihad that killed 13 of his soldiers that it would be an even greater tragedy if his precious diversity initiatives suffered a setback.
So now these same idjits want retailers to report suspicious activity to them.
If the individual committing the “suspicious activity” is white, wearing an NRA ball cap and a TEA Party t-shirt, shows a retired military ID when the store processes their credit card, and says something about government being out of control they’ll be OK. But woe to them if they report some swarthy bearded guy wearing sandals, dishdasha, and keffiyeh praying loudly in Arabic for buying a dozen pressure cookers at one time.
Steve57 (3971c0) — 9/12/2014 @ 10:42 am@11– easy-peezy. Keep track of people who make inordinate trips to the ATM, especially at night, or who wear sunglasses during daylight hours while withdrawing case.
An can’t Dutch over get some respect..?
A 5-day waiting period to buy galvanized pipe and fittings is a no-brainer.
gramps, the original (7adb80) — 9/12/2014 @ 11:41 amAll those helpful MacGyver tips are useless now, along with the recipes in the Anarchist’s Cookbook.
askeptic (efcf22) — 9/12/2014 @ 11:59 amSteve57 (3971c0) — 9/12/2014 @ 10:42 am the same idiots who commanded social workers in Rotherham, England to never, ever again mention the fact the child rapists in that town over the past two decades were almost exclusively Pakistani Muslims. Then sent them to
re-education campracial sensitivity training to pound home the point.I don’t think they were idiots. They were corrupt.
The only way that story makes sense was if theer was corruption. You just don’t get certain things that happened – like “loss” of evidence, or warning parents not to file complaints – if thiswas merely a form of prejudice.
Or do you think let’s say, when some bosses in places send people who complain of wrongdoing to psychiatrists, they really believe they might need psychiatric treatment?
http://www.villagevoice.com/2012-03-07/news/the-nypd-tapes-confirmed/
Sammy Finkelman (e6d54e) — 9/12/2014 @ 12:02 pmSammy, they may have had corrupt motives, but they were still idjits.
The British left did some moronic addition. They already had the British white working class vote. They calculated that by importing an underclass from the Muslim world they would have a permanent winning majority.
By white working class I mean white Britons who are middle class and on down the socio-economic spectrum.
Little did they realize they were simply setting the stage for the UKIP and BNP to rise and and take over the British white working class vote, whom Labour et al were no longer representing.
The fact that the Pakistani Muslims in Rotherham were preying on the daughters of exactly the people who used to vote Labour but now vote UKIP in large numbers (and BNP in small numbers) illustrates my point in microcosm.
Steve57 (3971c0) — 9/12/2014 @ 12:42 pm@19 Arrrrgh! Dutch OVEN.
gramps, the original (7adb80) — 9/12/2014 @ 4:34 pm“See something say something” was not dreamed up by Napolitano as Jeh says.
It was dreamed up by the NYC MTA after 9/11 and is trademerked.
I wonder if Jeh has permission from the MTA to use it?
John Henry
John Henry (d483c3) — 9/13/2014 @ 8:28 pmi saw this lady at pick up stix fresh asian flavors put a bunch of soy sauce and splenda in her purse but i didn’t say anything
happyfeet (a785d5) — 9/13/2014 @ 8:44 pm