Prepper gone bad

[TMF]

We currently have a thread in the loung about making homemade explosives. Surely most of us are on one or more watchlists. Do you all see this sort of thing happening to some of us in the future?

Making exploding targets isn't illegal so long as you mind the law. They sell the ingredients in every gun store. However, it is illegal to purchase firearms for felons and make destructive devices, so I don't see how there is any relation between the two as you suggest.

He didn't end up in the radar because he was a prepper. Lots of people are. He ended up on the radar due to association with known felons along with suspicious firearms purchases and reports of giving classes on bomb building.

Just like what happened to that man in Ferguson: "If you don't want the attention of the police, don't break the law!"

[gregintenn]

Making exploding targets isn't illegal so long as you mind the law. They sell the ingredients in every gun store. However, it is illegal to purchase firearms for felons and make destructive devices, so I don't see how there is any relation between the two as you suggest.

He didn't end up in the radar because he was a prepper. Lots of people are. He ended up on the radar due to association with known felons along with suspicious firearms purchases and reports of giving classes on bomb building.

Just like what happened to that man in Ferguson: "If you don't want the attention of the police, don't break the law!"

Assuming he's guilty of legitimate charges, and it sounds like he probably is, you are correct.

 

If you believe internet use and phone calls aren't saved, stored, and scanned in some way by the government, then I don't know how to convince you otherwise.

 

I'm quite curious as to the motive behind this type behavior. It undoubtedly is used for legitimate crime prevention and prosecution, but could it not just as easily be used for less noble purposes?

Edited August 21, 2014 by gregintenn

[TMF]

If you believe internet use and phone calls aren't saved, stored, and scanned in some way by the government, then I don't know how to convince you otherwise.

I dunno, proof?

Doesn't matter if that's true anyway. With the millions of Americans speaking out against the government in one form or another, it would be logistically impossible for any monitoring of phones and social media to matter. How does one filter through the white noise? If there was to be some great "list" that we are on, we'd be on it with millions of other Americans making any such list pretty moot.

This guy got himself on the radar because of who he associated with and how public he made his crimes known. You think none of the dozens of nut jobs attending his domestic terrorist training sessions might talk to the police? Especially since some of them had records and would us such information to reduce any charges they might be facing?

Or, I dunno, maybe when he told one of his neighbors that he's holding bomb making classes in his backyard one of them said something to cops? I'm all about letting people do what they do and it not be my business, but if some idiot is building bombs next door to where my babies sleep, I just might call up the FBI.

Or maybe the all knowing, all seeing government is just listening and reading every little thing we say with their millions of analysts that have absolutely nothing better to do than listen to phone calls and read social media. Yeah, you're probably right.