Spying on the Enemy

A little while ago we saw a black flag with a skull on it, boldly proclaiming that:  

"Your liberties aren't dying, they are being killed by people with names and addresses"

Not incorrect even if it is a little sinister. We would never advocate tracking down such enemies for the purpose of anything illegal. On the other hand, though, the lunatic Left, whether Marxists, Alisnky-ites, Communists or national socialist Nazi types, have no such moral compass, ethics or respect for law. Regime after regime have gone door to door rounding up those who are different or viewed as dangerous and sentencing them to the gulag or worse. And in modern day America the same type of indoctrinated thugs will happily dox, swat or get in the face of anyone who does not agree with them. Just ask Tucker Carlson about the busloads of union workers paid to protest on his lawn or Senator Kyrsten Sinema who could not go to the bathroom without being assailed by a screaming activist.

There is, however, a thread worth pulling here. The fact is that the people who want to destroy America, flip Wyoming, crash the economy, ban hunting and trapping, ban logging, force boys and girls to share bathrooms, mandate vaccines and masks etc all live somewhere. Thankfully, not that many of them live in Wyoming - which is one of the many reasons we like it so much. But there are some in every community and, like a cancer, they can all too easily spread and multiply when not kept in check. And Wyoming does suffer from unacceptable levels of out of state money, lobbying and interests which try to interfere with how we live, educate and do business.

And since some of these people live among us, we perhaps should pay closer attention to them. The military call it "Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield" (IPB). Mapping out your environment, identifying the enemy, friendly forces, terrain features and all the other factors which play into a fight. For us, a political fight. We have talked a little already about researching the social media history of your local school board or candidates for office, even if they are not (yet) controversial figures. Power does strange things to people and the world is chock full of politicians, judges and officials who say one thing on the campaign trail and do another once appointed. Capturing their soundbites and promises then monitoring their performance is all part of holding them accountable and setting the standard for what we expect from them. After all, they work for us and should never be allowed to forget it. Not anymore.

We know there are specialist political consultants who help scrub anything negative from the past internet life of public figures. But, if you know where to look, nothing truly disappears from the Web. Finding such material, deploying it during a campaign or saving it for a rainy day can be extremely valuable. Get them to withdraw from the race or resign in shame.

The government has files on everybody. Maybe it is time for us to have files on them. The process of accumulating those files could fit under a number of similar umbrellas: opposition research; citizen journalism; investigation; or even spying. Increasingly, the government spies on the citizens. The Patriot Act is as far from being true to patriotism as you can get and you know it is not about taxing the rich when the IRS and their Democrat overlords want access to every bank account for $600. It gets worse with the corrupt love fest between government and big tech: they will not only mine your data for wrong think but they will also force feed you the regime's propaganda. So we could easily and justifiably call it spying on those who spy on us. The spy world even has a special term for this: counter intelligence. Watching the watchers.

We prefer the term "vetting". Anyone who asks for the vote of the people must be thoroughly vetted by the people. By each one of us. We can no longer trust the Fourth Estate to do its job fairly and professionally - journalism has been corrupted beyond repair into a partisan advocate for a socialist revolution. Nor can Republicans be trusted to do the job of policing its own let alone standing for the values of its base: too many of them are part of the problem, not the solution. Too many of them are Republicans in Name Only. But from the school boards and county commissioners upwards, it should become the sworn duty of each one of us to vet these people, not just during an election but from the moment they show any inkling of political aspiration all the way through multiple terms in office. They need to know they are being scrutinized and will be called out for what they do, what they say, what they have done and what they have said.

The tools required for this vetting are a good amount of Open Source Intelligence collection (OSINT), a dash of Social Engineering and a modicum of political activism. OSINT is all about getting smart on extracting useful information from free and paid public databases. Social Engineering is about winning friends and influencing people to find out additional useful information. And the political activism comes in through attending meetings and fundraisers, asking questions, getting quotes, taking pictures, recording a conference call (legally) and possibly following people around. Protesting, creating a scene, drawing attention, shaming and embarrassing might also be tools in the tool box. All will be the subject of future articles. And maybe you too can get the recording of the "basket of deplorables" or "bitter bible and gun clingers" or become the next Joe the Plumber. Or unearth the politician's affair or crooked business dealings (ten percent for the big guy, anyone?). Or, more likely these days, identify their Chinese Communist handler or Russian KGB handler.

Start locally. Very locally. Who are the trouble makers in your own neighborhood? What do they say on social media, in person and in private? Make a record of it. To which radical groups do they belong? Which are the radical groups active in your part of the state? What agendas do they have? What are the statewide radical groups? Who else is on their membership list? Where do they live? What do they do? Who occupies a position of responsibility and authority? For a violent group like Antifa or Black Lives Matter, you would be surprised at where some of their senior members lead "regular lives" when not plotting the overthrow of the country. How mentally ill do the L, G and Bs think the Ts and Qs are? What is the racist history of the Ts? What do the BLMs really think of all of the LGBTQs? Capture their hypocrisy, help them fight and destroy each other. Keep them from forcing their agendas on everyone else. Stop them being exploited as puppets by those with even worse agendas. Expose their lack of real unity.

It used to be that people who committed grievous acts against their community ended up tarred and feathered for all to see. Maybe there is a modern equivalent of publicly shaming them to the point that there are disgraced, shunned and no longer welcome. A poster on every corner, an ad in the paper, their story everywhere. The bank teller or public works official who likes to riot and throw gasoline bombs in their spare time out of state should not be tolerated. They should be treated like pedophiles. The same for FBI snipers or ATF Swat teams who kill women and children. Any school trustee who permits the introduction of Critical Race Theory filth. Any teacher who fawns over Che in the classroom and pushes a rainbow flag down children's throats. Any vegetarian who has to tell others how to eat. Any Karen who thinks they have the right to dictate how others live.