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The government would still have the burden of proof of knowledge.
Can you give me some examples of how such a thing would be proven?
Let's say someone I'm acquainted with says something suspicious on Facebook. I look at Facebook maybe once a day, sometimes less. If I skip a day or two, I'll forever miss many posts, because I don't have time to search all the way back and because of the way Facebook keeps moving posts around based on responses. So it's very easy for me not to have seen any particular post. So how is the government going to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I saw it?
And as I've asked before, what does "suspicious" mean? What is suspicious to you might not be suspicious to you, and what may be unusual (and thus suspicious) to one ethnic group might be utterly common to another. So how is the government going to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I should have thought it suspicious?
The only way to prove I knew something is to prove that I was implicit in it.
Meanwhile 12 year old Sikh student is arrested and held without communication for three days while his parent frantically look for him because a fellow student reported that his solar powered backpack was a bomb!
In the late 80's, I was doing Provost Marshal work for the Navy......and part of a belly dancing troupe. One of the girls in my class was an immigrant from a Warsaw Pact country and under the information regulations at the time, I was required to report this to my superior security agency which was NIS (as NCIS was at the time).
In my case, I was fortunate that I could report it directly to NIS and have fewer people know I was belly dancing. The head agent came over and conducted an interview. When I noted all this to my belly dancing class mate, .........
........she was shocked. She thought she had left attitudes and practices as such back behind the iron curtain.
So, two things.
First of all, do we really want to be like the old Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact and be making it law to snitch on people? Is this really what America is all about?
Secondly, at the time, I was in Intelligence and one just accepts that there are people looking over your shoulder consistently. But is this the kind of world we want the American people to have to experience, that they are always being watched?
Encourage them through patriotism but don't make it a rule or a law.
I was also in Navy Intel, and you're comparing apples and oranges. When you work Intel, you are privy to classified military information, and who you associate with is rated on the chance of your being compromised. Associating with someone that may have ties to a beligerant government is a cause for concern no matter how superficially innocent it may appear. I knew/and had drinks with a couple of Russian officers that were stationed at the same base. My commander knew about it because I told him. He approved my activities, but instructed me to keep my ears open. Intelligence is a two way street.
If I had met the same guys in civilian life, whole different story.
Big difference between spying on a possible enemy operative, and reporting to the cops your neighbor has too big of a garden or are hording MREs.
If you see someone new in your neighborhood, recent immigrants that don't speak English, are secretive, always hauling stuff in a closed van, getting deliveries late at night, seem to have a lot of money, but no jobs, yeah, those are activities that make me nervous and I would alert the authorities.
There used to be such a thing as common sense when deciding what constitutes suspicious behavior.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralph_Kirk
Let's say someone I'm acquainted with says something suspicious on Facebook. I look at Facebook maybe once a day, sometimes less. If I skip a day or two, I'll forever miss many posts, because I don't have time to search all the way back and because of the way Facebook keeps moving posts around based on responses. So it's very easy for me not to have seen any particular post. So how is the government going to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I saw it?
As far as your "Facebook" analogy goes, that should be a governmental function. They should have sleuths looking at it and they should have access to the IP addresses of these inciting posters. Those posters should rapidly receive an unwelcome visit.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralph_Kirk
And as I've asked before, what does "suspicious" mean? What is suspicious to you might not be suspicious to you, and what may be unusual (and thus suspicious) to one ethnic group might be utterly common to another. So how is the government going to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I should have thought it suspicious?
The only way to prove I knew something is to prove that I was implicit in it.
How about this for an answer to your question? See response from MTSilvertip, excerpted here. I couldn't have said it better. And as for your Facebook example, again, common sense.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MTSilvertip
If you see someone new in your neighborhood, recent immigrants that don't speak English, are secretive, always hauling stuff in a closed van, getting deliveries late at night, seem to have a lot of money, but no jobs, yeah, those are activities that make me nervous and I would alert the authorities.
There used to be such a thing as common sense when deciding what constitutes suspicious behavior.
Perfect. I'm both repping this and using it in response to another clueless poster.
If you see someone new in your neighborhood, recent immigrants that don't speak English, are secretive, always hauling stuff in a closed van, getting deliveries late at night, seem to have a lot of money, but no jobs, yeah, those are activities that make me nervous and I would alert the authorities.
There used to be such a thing as common sense when deciding what constitutes suspicious behavior.
Why again would "recent immigrants that don't speak English" have anything to do with your judgment of "suspicious" versus "nothing to worry about?"
They could be all-American drug dealers who are secretive because they're...drug dealers.
Of course, they could merely be avid eBay dealers...whether they spoke English to you or not.
As far as your "Facebook" analogy goes, that should be a governmental function. They should have sleuths looking at it and they should have access to the IP addresses of these inciting posters. Those posters should rapidly receive an unwelcome visit.
How about this for an answer to your question? See response from MTSilvertip, excerpted here. I couldn't have said it better. And as for your Facebook example, again, common sense.Perfect. I'm both repping this and using it in response to another clueless poster.
See my response to MTSilvertip. Your concept of "common sense" works only in the Ward Cleaver neighborhood.
Why again would "recent immigrants that don't speak English" have anything to do with your judgment of "suspicious" versus "nothing to worry about?"
They could be all-American drug dealers who are secretive because they're...drug dealers.
Of course, they could merely be avid eBay dealers...whether they spoke English to you or not.
Just a quick FYI, drugs are illegal too, and cause a huge amount of damage to our society, so alerting authorities to those activities is still beneficial to the community, and a lot of drug money goes to support terrorism, so there is no downside to reporting activities of this kind.
The time I spent engaged in chasing Muslim terrorists taught me that many do speak English, however, if someone is trying to blend into a typical American neighborhood, or work under a visa, but don't speak the language, it does raise some questions in my mind.
Heck, they may just be some poor illegal aliens that need a ride back home to their own country, so reporting them could help them return to their families at taxpayer expense.
Suspicious behavior is just that, and if they are on the up and up, fine, but I won't take a chance on allowing terrorists or criminals endanger innocent people in my town just so I can be P C and sanctimoniously smug that I didn't report some possibly dangerous people for fear that it might be seen as racist or some other such nonsense.
If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but if I'm right, I may have just saved some lives.
To me, that is a risk worth taking.
Inaction is tatamount to supporting their activities, thereby making you just as guilty as they are if you know they are up to something, but fail to tell someone to stop it.
I for one don't want that kind of guilt on my conscience.
Jbgusa is right, and I owe a rep as soon as I can give it. Jbgusa has a good grip on this subject, and you should get off your high horse and listen for a change. It might give you some enlightenment and open your eyes to the real world out there.
We constantly hear Obama talk about the "if you see something, say something".
The neighbor saw men coming and going from the apartment of Farook. He saw them bring in boxes during visits. He thought it looked "suspicious". When asked why he didn't say anything he said he didn't want to appear to be a racist. Had he spoken up 14 people wouldn't have died and 20 wouldn't have been injured but the double standard PC correctness stopped him.
Totally false. I've heard this so many times, but the only stories about this neighbor I can find are on sites like Infowars, the same website that claims the Newtown shootings were staged and 911 was an inside job. Fox commentator, former Congressman Allen West also claims that the next door neighbor saw illicit activity. He's the man who said we needed to investigate the liberals in Congress for Communist activity and wrote an article about Sharia Law in Walmart because a clerk whom he believed was Muslim wouldn't sell him liquor. Turns out the clerk was under 21 and needed to get assistance because he could not sell him alcohol.
I doubt if political correctness is the reason any person with a brain didn't call the cops when he suspected people were making bombs or preparing for a terrorist attack. Here's a link to a local CBS station in Los Angeles.
[url=http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2015/12/02/authorities-search-redlands-home-tied-to-suspect-syed-farook/]Authorities Search Redlands Home Tied To Suspect Syed Farook « CBS Los Angeles[/url]
"Neighbors in Redlands were shocked that the suspects had ties to their area."
“I was in awe that it was happening four houses down from my property,” one neighbor said.
The person who mentioned racial profiling was not a neighbor.
"A man who has been working in the area said he noticed a half-dozen Middle Eastern men in the area in recent weeks, but decided not to report anything since he did not wish to racially profile those people."
I am not arguing with you, because I heard the same thing after the shootings. Both the right and the left put spin on stories to fit their agendas. In this case, a man who worked in the area and noticed some men who appeared to be Middle Eastern became "a neighbor who saw people at night carrying packages with guns and ammunition into the home."
Even tonight a related question was asked during the Democratic debate about racial profiling. Bernie Sanders quickly answered that of course you should "call 911 if someone is loading guns and ammo into a house."
However, that's not what a neighbor in San Bernardino saw, at least not what I've read since the attack.
Last edited by justNancy; 12-20-2015 at 12:10 AM..
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