See Something? Shut The Hell Up!

You have no doubt heard the government's slogan "See Something, Say Something", but is this really the right thing to do?

Some studies (in 2015) showed that an American is 58 times more likely to be killed by the police than by a terrorist.

Previously, estimates of citizens killed by police were based on the self-reported data supplied by police departments, compiled into a yearly FBI uniform crime report for “justifiable homicide” by officers.

This information drastically underrepresented the number of people being killed at hands of police officers thus giving an unclear perspective of what is actually transpiring on the streets of America.

Data, as reported by the Guardian in 2015, suggests that an average of 545 people killed by police went unaccounted for yearly on average in the FBI data.

In 2019, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America reported that "Police violence is a leading cause of death for young men in the United States. Over the life course, about 1 in every 1,000 black men can expect to be killed by police. Risk of being killed by police peaks between the ages of 20 y and 35 y for men and women and for all racial and ethnic groups. Black women and men and American Indian and Alaska Native women and men are significantly more likely than white women and men to be killed by police. Latino men are also more likely to be killed by police than are white men."

Abstract

"We use data on police-involved deaths to estimate how the risk of being killed by police use of force in the United States varies across social groups. We estimate the lifetime and age-specific risks of being killed by police by race and sex. We also provide estimates of the proportion of all deaths accounted for by police use of force. We find that African American men and women, American Indian/Alaska Native men and women, and Latino men face higher lifetime risk of being killed by police than do their white peers. We find that Latina women and Asian/Pacific Islander men and women face lower risk of being killed by police than do their white peers. Risk is highest for black men, who (at current levels of risk) face about a 1 in 1,000 chance of being killed by police over the life course. The average lifetime odds of being killed by police are about 1 in 2,000 for men and about 1 in 33,000 for women. Risk peaks between the ages of 20 y and 35 y for all groups. For young men of color, police use of force is among the leading causes of death." 

"See Something, Say Something" too often tends to target ethnic minorities or people that have come to the United States as refugees. But the odds of being killed by a refugee committing a terrorist act on U.S. soil is about 1 in 3.6 BILLION! 

"See Something, Say Something" becomes even more concerning when 'Anti-Terrorism Officers' insist that "nothing is too trivial to report" and encourage reporting outside of official channels (such as sending "tips" via Facebook, Twitter and Gmail to avoid oversight and conceal their monitoring from FOIA requests). 

In a 2011 article in the Northwest Guardian, an official newspaper for Joint Base Lewis-McChord, "Dan Vessels, antiterrorism officer, said nothing is too trivial to report. People observing the installation, taking photographs, soliciting questions, questionable postings on Twitter or Facebook or anything that seems out of place should be reported to officials.

It is just this type of collection of information about people and monitoring of locations, because of trivial acts, that makes "See Something, Say Something" such a concern. 

"See Something, Say Something" violates our human rights and undermines basic democratic principles. It effectively gags civil society and oppresses free speech and freedom of expression. It gives government the basis to criminalize anyone who opposes or resists it. Conversely, it emboldens government to commit human right violations with greater impunity.


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