The privacy of American teenagers is under full scale assault by the FBI.
From: Preventing Violent Extremism In Schools (2016):
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Unaccountable or unobserved space provides a window of opportunity for students engaging in activities contrary to their family norms or desires, thus creating additional vulnerabilities and opportunities for exposure to violent extremists or violent rhetoric. Students in unobserved space may contact or be contacted by a known violent extremist, who assesses the youth for possible future recruitment. Students’ consumption of violent propaganda while in unobserved space may ignite the radicalization and mobilization process. Limiting idle times and unobserved space provides less time to engage in negative activities. Replacing idle times with positive social interactions may reduce activities in unobserved space.
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Idle time or unobserved space wasn’t my only priority as a teenager but I certainly enjoyed both when the opportunities arose.
Without writing them down, think about the top ten things you remember from high school that occurred in unobserved spaces.
Physical intimacy, your first drink, cigarette, marijuana, pranks, general teenage mischief, all happened in unobserved spaces.
How many of those experiences would you want to give up now?
Same here.
The FBI has decided that teenagers should not have “unobserved spaces,” as reported in: The FBI Has a New Plan to Spy on High School Students Across the Country by Sarah Lazare.
From the post:
Under new guidelines, the FBI is instructing high schools across the country to report students who criticize government policies and “western corruption” as potential future terrorists, warning that “anarchist extremists” are in the same category as ISIS and young people who are poor, immigrants or travel to “suspicious” countries are more likely to commit horrific violence.
Based on the widely unpopular British “anti-terror” mass surveillance program, the FBI’s “Preventing Violent Extremism in Schools” guidelines, released in January, are almost certainly designed to single out and target Muslim-American communities. However, in its caution to avoid the appearance of discrimination, the agency identifies risk factors that are so broad and vague that virtually any young person could be deemed dangerous and worthy of surveillance, especially if she is socio-economically marginalized or politically outspoken.
This overwhelming threat is then used to justify a massive surveillance apparatus, wherein educators and pupils function as extensions of the FBI by watching and informing on each other.
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.
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Sarah’s post will leave you convinced the FBI has gone completely insane.
American teenagers, not to mention the rest of us, deserve unobserved spaces in which to grow, explore and be different from the thought police lemmings at the FBI.
If you see an FBI agent at any school, post their picture and school name, city, state, with #IspyFBI.
If nothing else, it will be a way to see how FBI agents like living in a fish bowl.