by Jeff Davis

Once again, we have to rely on a British newspaper to tell us what’s going on in our own country. The U.K. Daily Mail reports: “The Department of Homeland Security has been forced to release a list of keywords and phrases it uses to monitor social networking sites and online media for signs of terrorist or other threats against the U.S. The intriguing the list includes obvious choices such as ‘attack’, ‘Al Qaeda’, ‘terrorism’ and ‘dirty bomb’ alongside dozens of seemingly innocent words like ‘pork’, ‘cloud’, ‘team’ and ‘Mexico’.”

Well, Mexico is a threat to the United States. Don’t know about pork, though.

The Daily Mail goes on: “Released under a freedom of information request, the information sheds new light on how government analysts are instructed to patrol the internet searching for domestic and external threats. The words are included in the department’s 2011 Analyst’s Desktop Binder used by workers at their National Operations Center which instructs workers to identify media reports that reflect adversely on DHS and response activities.”

The ultimate objective of a Surveillance State is for the secret police to spy on everybody, all the time and that includes even the news media.

More Daily Mail: “Department chiefs were forced to release the manual following a House hearing over documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit which revealed how analysts monitor social networks and media organisations for comments that reflect adversely on the government. However they insisted the practice was aimed not at policing the internet for disparaging remarks about the government and signs of general dissent, but to provide awareness of any potential threats.”

“As well as terrorism, analysts are instructed to search for evidence of unfolding natural disasters, public health threats and serious crimes such as mall/school shootings, major drug busts, illegal immigrant busts.”

Our government recently claimed that al Qaeda is setting wild fires in the US. An Obama policy to let wild fires burn themselves out has resulted in a large portion of Colorado catching on fire so of course, Obama incompetence becomes al Qaeda terrorism.

Curious that the Feds are looking for busts of illegal aliens. I guess the Obama regime wants to step in and halt any attempt by the Immigration department to do its job. You’d think by now they would have fired all the responsible leadership at Immigration and replaced them with Obama cronies.

The Department of Homeland Security was originally a boondoggle established by George W. Bush to give government jobs to neocons and their assorted useless relatives who are otherwise unemployable. I mean, what with the FBI and BATFE and ICE and NSA and CIA, it’s not like the U. S. is short on secret police agencies.

It has now transmuted into a vehicle for creating the American Surveillance State.