Far-Right Extremism and Facebook

A while back, I mentioned the Facebook group “I’m 10-15,” which is the Border Patrol radio code for “alien in custody,” and the loathsome posts by current and former CBP agents. 

The online news site Revealnews.com recently reported on a number of “Confederate, anti-Islam, misogynistic or anti-government militia groups” who have public, private, or secret Facebook pages. Another investigative site, TheVerge.com, identified more than 400 law enforcement officers posting to hate groups. ProPublica.org cited a 2018 investigation into Border Patrol Agent Matthew Bowen, who referred to immigrants as “guats” (Guatemalans), “wild-ass shitbags,” “beaners” and “subhuman” (the Nazis used to refer to Jews as “sub-human,” as do their current adherents). And on Friday (July 12), Slate posted an article on the “10-15” group, including the interesting fact that Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost participated in the group, which has come under (well-deserved) fire for its hateful vitriol. The article says Provost commented on a post regarding her ascendancy to the head of the agency, but they very fact that she was able to comment shows (a) she was a member of the “secret” group, and, by extension, (b) she was familiar with the overall tone of the group.

Perhaps the most telling post on the “10–15” group is the one with the Associated Press photo of Óscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez and his 23-month old daughter Valeria, lying dead on the bank of the Rio Grande:

“Ok, I’m gonna go ahead and ask…… have y’all ever seen floaters this clean. [sic] I’m not trying to be an a$$, but I HAVE NEVER SEEN FLOATERS LIKE THIS, could this be another edited photo. [sic] We’ve all seen the the dems and liberal parties do some pretty sick things….”[1]

Politico reports that senior CBP officials had been told of the group’s existence as late as 2016, and that senior officials had been monitoring the group “as a source of intelligence,” but had apparently not taken any action against CBP officers posting racist or supremacist comments. The agency did not deny, however, that Provost and other senior Border patrol agents had participated in the group.

At its peak, the “10-15” group claimed about 9,500 members. The Border Patrol currently has about 20,000 active agents. Since the group includes retired agents, let’s be generous and say the pool of prospective members is 40,000 (20,000 active, 20,000 retired). 9,500 is roughly 25% of the total… a truly disgustingly large percentage, but reflective of the percentage of racists, white supremacists, xenophobes, and assorted other haters in law enforcement as a whole.

Many would say that this hateful speech is protected under the First Amendment. But retired TV newsman Dave Statter and attorney Curt Varone (and retired Deputy Assistant Fire Chief in Providence, RI) both point out that not all speech by public employees is protected. Statter refers to “SMACSS,” or “Social Media Assisted Career Suicide Syndrome,” in which public employees manage to shoot themselves in the foot with amazing regularity.

Varone cites the “Pickering Balance Test,”[2] which holds:

Public employees have protection under the 1st Amendment when they are speaking on a matter of public concern as a private citizen, and their interest “in commenting upon matters of public concern” outweighs the “interests of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees.[3]

While this may appear to grant blanket protection to the speech, Varone discusses several caveats:

•          “… [If] public employee speech involves a matter of public concern and even if said as a private citizen – if the speech causes actual harm or disruption to the mission & function of the employer, there is no First Amendment protection. In this regard, speech of a racist or discriminatory nature has been found to be unprotected when it causes actual harm or disruption.” [4] [Emphasis in original]
•           Speech that threatens violence or harm or encourages others to commit violence/harm to any person or group loses First Amendment protection
•       Likewise, speech that threatens to or encourages others to withhold public safety services from any person or group is not protected.

Varone was responding to a social media post in which (now former) North Chatham (NC) firefighter Caleb Folwell stated “They should exterminate all captive [sic] right now and broadcast it over Mexican National TV to send a message if you cross illegally you die.” Caleb’s father, Jeff Folwell, was forced out as chief of the Julian Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department (where Caleb also volunteered) also as a result of the post.

Now, the question is, “what do we do about these hideous groups?” Politico said, “[…] it wasn’t clear as of Wednesday that either the Trump administration or Facebook would be able to shut the Facebook group down…”

Bull.

Facebook is a privately-owned entity, and the First Amendment, which protects against governmental infringement of speech, has no application there. Additionally, Facebook can, and has, shut down other hate groups recently. They are very quick to suspend users (including your humble host) who post disparaging comments about trump or the far-reich wing in general.

According to ProPublica, Heidi Beirich, the director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said she’d been pressing Facebook to pursue secret groups like 10-15 and hidden hate speech for years. Facebook, she said, “can use their AI or their people to identify these groups, and with the horrible language in there, they should have been finding these people.”[5] Since Facebook has been able to identify, and suspend, liberals referring to conservatives as “trailer trash,” it seems disingenuous for Facebook to claim they cannot identify hate speech in the extremist groups.

What is becoming clear, moreover, is Facebook’s apparent dedication to protecting the far-right extremists on their platform. Whether from a misguided sense of “fair play” for “the underdog,” or outright support for their hatred and loathing, Facebook is rapidly becoming the “safe space” for the far right, a place where they can post their hate and misogyny and supremacy and homophobia and xenophobia without fear of reprisal, while knowing that the “libtards” will be severely punished for hurting their feelings. And yet they have the nerve to call us “snowflakes.”

---

[1] I have seen “floaters this clean.” If a drowning victim is found within a day or two, there has not been an opportunity for decomposition to set in. Floaters achieve their gruesome appearance over a period of weeks or months, during which a process called “saponification” allows anaerobic bacterial hydrolysis of fat tissue, resulting in the formation of “adipocere,” a soapy or waxy substance (see, e.g., Kahana, T., et al., “Marine Taphonomy: Adipocere Formation in a Series of Bodies Recovered from a Single Shipwreck,’ Journal of Forensic Sciences, Vol. 44, No. 5, 1999, pp. 897-901) . Óscar and Valeria were found the morning after they vanished.

[2] Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563 (1968)

[3] http://www.firelawblog.com/2019/07/04/nc-facebook-post-results-in-two-cybercasualties/, 07-04-2019, retrieved 07-13-2019

[4] Ibid.

[5] https://www.propublica.org/article/investigation-of-secret-border-patrol-group-launched-as-new-degrading-facebook-posts-surface, 07-01-2019, retrieved 07-13-2019

Reviewing the 14-Year-Old Blogroll

(My God, my blogroll is older than the girls trump and Epstein like!!)

It's been a while, so I figured I would see which blogs I blogrolled were still active.

I also have two new ones to add, when I get energetic enough to update the blogroll, FireLawBlog (firelawblog.com, duh...). Attorney and retired chief officer Curt Varone's fascinating and informative analyses of legal problems affecting the fire service. The second is Statter911 (statter911.com, of course), by retired newsman Dave Statter... a great way to keep track of news of importance to the fire service. Pay special attention to his SMACSS pieces -- Social Media-Assisted Career Suicide Syndrome (similar to Chief Varone's YCMTSU category).

Political
BadTux, but he's at a new address: https://snarkypenguin.wordpress.com/
Skippy, The Bush Kangaroo, https://xnerg.blogspot.com/
Mustang Bobby, https://barkbarkwoofwoof.com/
Blue Gal, http://bgalrstate.blogspot.com/
Jurassic Pork, http://welcomebacktopottersville.blogspot.com/
Mock, Paper, Scissors, https://mockpaperscissors.com/


Medical
Ambulance Driver, http://www.ambulancedriverfiles.com/
Rescuing Providence, http://rescuingprovidence.com/ (Providence lost a great firefighter/medic when Michael retired)
The Happy Medic, http://happymedic.com/



Apparently Defunct
Ambulance Ranger
Firegeezer
Life Under the Lights
My Two Cents
White Noise Insanity

Some Changes at 618Rants

I have spent virtually my entire working life trying to help people, to make them safe, to make sure they go home to their loved ones at night. All too often, though, I put the needs of the many ahead of the needs of the few, or of the one, as Mr. Spock might say. My career in law enforcement and private-sector security cost me two marriages, a couple of intervening relationships, and almost cost me my life. It left me an alcoholic, vicious, mean, bigoted bastard; it took me almost twenty years to recover from that (I haven't done any drinking since 1989, and had it not been for the lovely yet talented Mrs618, I might never have recovered).

More recently, I've been engaged in firefighting and yet another round in EMS (my third). Because these are paid-on-call jobs, they weren't as time-consuming as police work, but I still tried my very best.

No more.

A couple of things happened yesterday, including hearing my alcoholic, psychologically-abusive father tell my drunk junkie brother that HE was the reliable one... after the lovely yet talented Mrs618 and I left a pair of $50,000-a-year jobs and moved to Maine to take care of my parents. After I've been fixing their house -- at MY expense -- for six years. After putting myself in the hospital a bunch of times with exhaustion, chest pains, bad knees, pneumonias, and a few things that looked like strokes or heart attacks.

Plus, I've been getting some really snotty emails from the local logistics person at the Red Cross, who seems to feel it is MY job to verify all the logistical issues for a class (if that is the case, why do we pay a full-time logistics person? And what does she do to earn her keep?).

I lay awake all night, thinking about things. About 4:00 AM, I felt a door close, then I got really cold, then everything just kind of mellowed out.

I had made my decisions:

• No more caring about anybody other than the lovely yet talented Mrs618, Emily (the Lab), Joey (the cat), and my son.
• I will continue to do the best job I can with the FD and EMS, but that's all it is now, a job. If you live, fine. If you don't, well, sucks to be you.
• Someone else can do the 14 or 15 different functions I'd been filling at the Red Cross for the last six years, including getting up in the middle of the night to go to house fires (I'll still go for the FD, cause they pay me).
• No feelings, no emotion, no empathy, no sympathy. Talk to the hand, dude.
• Ditto with their cultural norms, belief systems, languages, religions or other ethnic crap. You live in the United States, you adjust to OUR way of life. You don't like it? Go back to Trashcanistan.
• I'm not going to worry about watching my tongue anymore. Fat-Ass Paul LePage is a fat-assed teabagging douchbag. So is his fat-assed daughter. So is Rafael Eduardo Hijo de Puta Cruz, Canadian-born anchor baby spawn of cigar-sucking Cuban émigré, Castro supporter and Desi Arnaz wannabe Rafael Bienvenido Chinga tu Madre Cruz. So is Bible Spice and her oxygen-thief brood. And all the other cretinous yahoos who need to chlorinate their little corners of the gene pool, like the various Kardashians: Kleenex, Klepto, Klamato, and Klimax. Half of those fucks oughta be shot. Hell, most of 'em oughta be shot.

I don't know if this blog is going to continue. I may post again, I may not. I don't know.

For those who have stopped by and commented in the past -- the folks like BadTux, Jurassic Pork, The Dark Wraith*, skippy the bush kangaroo, the gone-but-not-forgotten Firestarter5 -- thank you. You gave me the encouragement to continue, and you let me think that maybe I had something worthwhile to offer. For the newer folks, the medical and fire service folks like Michael Morse, Justin Schorr, and Curt Varone, we may not agree on everything, but we tried. By God, we tried. To the folks on the old Yahoo wildlife groups, DLP in particular, thank you for the encouragement (and the occasional ball-busting).

BTW, I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Jurassic Pork and his missus are in pretty tough financial straits; if you can toss a few coins his way, please do. They really do deserve to have a roof over their heads.

* The Dark Wraith has been missing in action for a couple of years now, and Google is now showing his old site (and the companion site BigBrassBlog) as possibly infected with malware, so no links. DW, if you should happen to see this, you are missed. Same for Firestarter5.

_

Fox "News" - Fair and Balanced...

...and dumber than a box of rocks.

Only Fox would get a press release naming the crew of Asiana Flight 214 as "Sum Ting Wong," "Wi Tu Lo," "Ho Lee Fuk" and "Bang Ding Ow" and run with it.

As Curt Varone says on his Fire Law blog, "YCMTSU."

PD versus FD... One to Watch

Dave Statter has a post up at STATter911.com, involving a situation in which a Wisconsin police officer engaged in a high-speed (and high-risk) pursuit trying to stop a vehicle that turned out to be a volunteer firefighter/EMT. The FireLaw blog, written by chief officer and attorney Curt Varone, also weighs in on the issue.

The jackass involved is suing the police department, for excessive force (apparently due to the fact the cop approached with his gun in his hand).

Statter has a good portion of the officers dash-cam video posted; here is what *I* got from it:

• the cop was already watching for a person allegedly impersonating a police officer; the suspect was allegedly driving a black Challenger;
• the officer saw a black Charger with a spotlight and push bar go past his location at high speed, running red lights and siren;
• the officer initiated a pursuit of this vehicle, based on the impersonation complaint;
• the officer ran between 85 and 105 mph for roughly the first minute and a half, attempting to catch up to the Charger;
• the Charger, when the cop caught up, was driving between 70 and 80 on a basically-deserted open-country secondary road, with virtually no other traffic;
• both vehicles reduced speed to 45-55 in a more developed area, and 15-30 mph in an obvious residential zone;
• both vehicles pulled into the "Brooklyn EMS building," at which time the officer was able to see a Wisconsin EMS marker plate, but he still handled the situation -- at this point -- as a felony stop (bearing in mind the earlier impersonation complaint and the fact that a chase had occurred);
• the officer approached the Charger with his gun drawn, as is standard for felony stops;
• as soon as the driver of the Charger identified himself, the officer holstered his weapon, and explained his view of the situation to the driver of the Charger, in a polite professional manner.

Statter links to a Wisconsin State Journal article, which picks up the story:

By the time the two vehicles pulled into the station, a bay door was open and other firefighters were arriving, so the situation should have been clear to the officer, Dean said. Also, according to an in-squad video of the incident, the officer learned prior to drawing his gun that Dean's vehicle had a state-issued Emergency Medical Services plate.

The dashboard video, made available to the State Journal by the Oregon Police Department, shows Dean getting out of his car, then ordered by Gilbertson to "Get back in the car" and "Get your hands out the door, right now, both of them."

Gilbertson then approaches the car with both hands on his pistol and appears to hold the gun close to Dean's head. Dean can be heard apologizing and explaining he's a Brooklyn firefighter.

Unfortunately, possessing an EMS marker plate is not a guarantee that the driver isn't a bad guy: there have been many EMS personnel arrested for various offenses, plus of course, there's the possibility the Charger was stolen.

One thing that is not mentioned in the fire blog reports is this:

Clark's written report faults the firefighter for acting without "due regard" for public safety. The call went out as an "Alpha-level" page for an "odor investigation."

According to Dane County policy, Alpha-level calls are non-emergencies and should be answered with "no lights, no siren (and) normal driving conditions," Clark wrote. [emphasis added]

I have no idea what the laws are like in Wisconsin, and every state's laws differ, but...

Here in Maine, when I am responding to a fire, the use of a red light requests the right of way, it does not demand it (the way a police car can; even fire apparatus cannot demand right-of-way). I am not allowed to exceed the speed limit, nor am I allowed to violate any other traffic regulation (stop signs, one-way, etc). Our local department restricts the use of lights to in-town only... if I am in the next town over, I cannot use the light till I cross into my town. The only volunteer FF who can use a siren is the chief, and he/she can only use it on a fully-equipped emergency vehicle (which has to be registered and insured as such, which, for an individual, would be astronomical).

As far as I know, every state requires "due regard for the safety of others" -- even police officers cannot drive like complete lunatics (though some certainly do; see, for example, Fausto Lopez, formerly of Miami PD).

Unfortunately, there are a few circumstances that make things look bad for this particular FF/EMT and the fire service in general:

• The FF/EMT was a driving a POV (privately-owned vehicle) that is a black Dodge Charger, which is about the only police package sedan available right now.
• The vehicle had a pillar-mounted spotlight (which firefighters could find useful) and a push bar... sounds a little too much like he was trying to make people think he's a cop.

It's like all the volunteer FFs over the years who brought Crown Victorias (here, here, here, here, here, here). Some of these yahoos go so far as making traffic stops (here, here, here [and I love the gold badge that says 'concealed weapon permit' and 'second amendment, my freedom']). The more firefighters -- especially volunteers -- try to look or act like police officers, the more it'll piss off the "real" cops. There was a similar case just a few months back... a volunteer FF in a Crown Vic with a spotlight and LED light heads all over the place, who got into a dispute with a guy in a Corvette... who happened to be a real cop who called for uniformed backup.


This jamoke will hopefully be convicted, thrown off the FD, and -- if we're really lucky -- the state will seize his car as an instrumentality of the crime.