NEW: Docs we obtained show how @FBI equates protected online speech to violence. According to @FBI using the terms “based” or “red pilled” are signs of "Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremism" pic.twitter.com/JSQiCoiKdT — Oversight Project (@OversightPR) April 3, 2023 The FBI uses a “glossary of terms” to look for online that could indicate someone is involved with “violent extremism. According to the FBI glossary, “based” means “someone who has been converted to racist ideology.” “Red pill” or being “redpilled” means someone is accepting racist, antisemitic or fascist beliefs, according to the FBI. I’ve never heard those definitions. I’ve heard “based” used in tech culture to admire, sometimes ironically, someone’s authenticity and boldness. Let’s run it by ChatGPT: The word “based” is often used to indicate that something has a foundation, source, or origin in something else. It means that a particular thing, person, or concept is rooted or founded… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Extremism
In Which We Learn That You’re Much More Likely to be Killed by a Bed Than by a Political Extremist
‘We are a tinderbox’: Political violence is ramping up, experts warn — Los Angeles Times Politically motivated violence has ebbed and flowed throughout U.S. history. Currently, America is going through an upsurge in right-wing violence, according to researchers who track attacks and other incidents. They say today’s climate is comparable to that in the mid-1990s, when a similar wave of right-wing violence culminated in the 1995 bombing of the federal office building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people. I’ll call bullshit on that. In fact, to avoid having to repeat myself, I’ll call bullshit on most of the article. It’s extremely slanted. There were 9,625 threats against members of Congress and their families last year, according to the Capitol Police — more than twice as many as in 2017. How many of the threats were carried out? I’ll estimate zero. “Death threats” are the biggest scam . . .… Read more →
Republican Extremists
Shannon Brandt, 41, struck and killed [18-year-old Cayler Ellingson] with his Ford Explorer SUV early Sunday in an alley. His mother said Ellingson called and asked her if she knew Brandt (she did). The boy called again a short time later and said that “‘he’ or ‘they’ were chasing him.” The mother could no longer reach him after that. Court documents said, “Brandt admitted to striking the pedestrian with his car because he had a political argument with the pedestrian and believed the pedestrian was calling people “to come get him.” He claimed the teen was part of an unspecified Republican “extremist group.” Brandt was released on bond. — dailysignal.com He was a MAGA Republican, a threat to the country like Joe Biden said. So I crushed him with my truck. To make America safe for democracy. Read more →
Assessing the Dangers That We Face in Life
Since a mentally disturbed 18-year-old white supremacist murdered 10 African Americans and injured three others at a Buffalo market May 14, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) report “Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2021” has been cited repeatedly as evidence of the lethal threat posed by far-right extremists. There are a lot of problems with the ADL data, starting with the fact that many of the “white supremacist” killings were not hate crimes aimed at terrorizing blacks or other minorities. For example: Two members of a white supremacist prison gang allegedly killed a member of the rival Southwest Honkeys prison gang. A New Jersey man who had vandalized synagogues and distributed neo-Nazi pamphlets strangled his wife. A white supremacist with a swastika and SS tattoos on his face killed another man in an extended-stay hotel following an argument over a social media post. A member of a white supremacist… Read more →