DHS: Public awareness or indoctrination?

By Douglas J. Hagmann, Director

21 January 2011: As a professional investigator and undercover surveillance specialist serving the corporate world, my assignments have required me to stay at hotels and motels throughout the northeastern United States in excess of 150 nights per year over the last two years alone. Traveling with another investigator, we’ve spent a great deal of time in motels in the metro New York City area as well as other large cities in densely populated areas. Depending on the assignment, circumstances or even the type of accommodations (those that have limited pre-dawn access to the front desk, for instance), we’ve sometimes paid our bill in advance with cash. For lack of need as well as various other reasons, we don’t identify ourselves as investigators upon check-in.

Working undercover or long hours in cramped spaces, we’ve often checked in to motels looking disheveled due to the wear of the road or the nature of the assignment.  As a strict matter of routine, we’ve always carried our expensive surveillance equipment to our room rather than keeping it inside of a vehicle more vulnerable to theft.  Also, depending on the type of assignment,  we frequently prepare or modify the equipment in our room for its upcoming use. That sometimes involves the use of small hand tools, wires, extra batteries, and other items that might not normally be considered standard travel items for the normal business professional.

Preparing for the assignment, we’ve often left maps and other notes in the cramped confines of our hotel rooms while leaving the room for breakfast, lunch supper or just for some “down time,” depending on the times we needed to be on assignment. While we always place the “do not disturb” sign on the door while away, we’ve noticed that does not always stop housekeeping from entering the room in our absence.

I am providing the above account as necessary background in response to the newly expanded U.S. Department of Homeland Security “Commercial Facilities Sector Training and Resources” program, accessible at the DHS website at this link, which includes a nine minute, 17 second “training” video for hotel workers. This “awareness” video is disturbingly generic – perhaps deliberately so – and contains numerous generalities that do not comport with the level of actual intelligence we have with regard to threats in this venue.

I believe that most intelligence professionals will be critical of the video and the ancillary information provided by the DHS based on the above. I further believe that many historians will see this and other related videos as having some of the same traits and qualities of propaganda films that were designed to make spies out of ordinary citizens, but for all of the wrong reasons.

The best assessment I’ve seen that addresses these concerns of this initiative is the excellent analysis of the DHS program by Paul Joseph Watson at InfoWars.com this link, which I encourage everyone to read. As pointed out by Mr. Watson, “[this] video equates people who use cash or have a distrust of credit cards as suspicious and potential terrorists.”

Perhaps most importantly, Mr. Watson argues that the public [is] “being indoctrinated to assume the role of domestic spies reporting on their friends and neighbors as America sinks deeper into a decaying police state.” After watching the video, with particular attention to the areas of focus on what should be considered suspicious activity, I agree with Mr. Watson that the DHS video indeed “instigates paranoia by turning everyday activity into potential terrorist warning signs.”

At some point over the last decade, we’ve turned from focusing on the real enemy – those who want to cause us carnage and destruction – to each other. Note that in the now infamous MIAC report and the DHS Lexicon of Domestic Extremists there are no mentions or references to Islamic or Muslim threats. Instead, the DHS has engaged in the demonization of American patriots, making such individuals and groups the targets of domestic investigation.

Although this process admittedly began in its current incarnation under the previous administration, it was not until Janet Napolitano and this administration pulled out all of the stops to distill and distort the identity of the real terrorists, instead turning on those who have long been considered to be true American patriots. The proof, as well as the intent, is contained in the various memos and DHS publications over the last few years.

The deployment of backscatter x-ray machines at airports and coming soon to other transportation points, malls, stadiums, and areas of populated gatherings, the increased scrutiny of Second Amendment advocates, Christian conservatives, Constitutionalists, opponents of illegal immigration and others represent an increasing evisceration of our civil rights, liberties and freedoms.

The near breathtaking acceleration of initiatives like the one described above should be enough for most reasonable people to question the motives of our government, and this administration in particular.

That being the case, an unexpected visit by a hotel maid of our unoccupied room, especially after seeing this video, might result in a 4:00 am visit to our hotel room by some SWAT team. And we’re the good guys.