I totally missed this March article at Alternet. The VES Program just hit L.A.

There's a community meeting on this program taking place at LACAN (Los Angeles Community Action Network) so I may have a local update later.

Just what we need. Further militarization of high school campuses.

Under new guidelines, Muslim students will be disproportionately targeted – but all young people will be suspect.

Naturally, the FBI is just trying to keep us safe from radical Islam.

The FBI’s justification for such surveillance is based on McCarthy-era theories of radicalization, in which authorities monitor thoughts and behaviors that they claim to lead to acts of violent subversion, even if those people being watched have not committed any wrongdoing. This model has been widely discredited as a violence prevention method, including by the U.S. government, but it is now being imported to schools nationwide as official federal policy.

Thanks Obama! Because they hate our freedoms?

The document aims to encourage schools to monitor their students more carefully for signs of radicalization but its definition of radicalization is vague,” said Arun Kundnani, author of The Muslims are Coming! Islamophobia, extremism, and the domestic War on Terror and an adjunct professor at New York University. “Drawing on the junk science of radicalization models, the document dangerously blurs the distinction between legitimate ideological expression and violent criminal actions.”

Free speech is such a quaint, archaic luxury. Here are the existential threats we should be on the lookout for:

If the FBI’s criteria are to be believed, children who exhibit “development delay or disorders, resulting from low quality supportive environments” are at greater risk. So too are the “disenfranchised – student feeling lost, lonely, hopeless, or abandoned.” The FBI calls for greater scrutiny of students with mental health disorders and identifies neighborhoods families, and socio-economic status as factors to watch out for.

I can't continue with this. Go read the full, sad story: http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/fbi-has-new-plan-spy-high-schoo...

I gotta take a sanity break.
Peace Out.