Political Profiling

Political profiling is an activity certain "watchdog" organizations engage in on various computer bulletin boards, chat rooms and wikis. A internet user's postings under either their real life identity of psydonym may be "profiled" for their ideoplogical convictions based upon editing patterns, interests, subject matter, common references, or declared beleiefs. The profile is then pigeon-holed into predetermined character assessments published by the watchdog organizations. Poltical profiling has been refereed to as the rough equivalent of surveilling all Black males on the grounds that a certain percentage may commit violent crimes. In the sense that targeting minorities for special surveillance is called “racial profiling,” the watchdogs engage in “political profiling.” Some watchdog groups hold law enforcement conferences, seminars and training sessions on this “profiling” behavior.

Daniel Brandt, founder of the Wikipedia-Watch website describes watchdog organizations that promote political profiling as "private intelligence agencies", and remarks,

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As a private agency" they enjoy "no oversight, no requirements for probable cause prior to political spying, and no Privacy Act or Freedom of Information Act responsibilities to the public. By contrast, the FBI, CIA, and some major police departments in the U.S. are held accountable by various hard-won legal restrictions.

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Walter O'Brien refers to them as "civilian agencies." And Laird Wilcox uses similiar language in dicussing their activities,

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Any citizen can obtain their FBI files through the Freedom of Information Act....There is no such mechanism by which a private American citizen can obtain their files compiled by private Watchdog organizations.... You cannot correct errors... they may have obtained information that government agencies cannot legally collect on its own. This... is something that goes on all the time and represents a serious civil liberties issue.

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The Wikipedia project has worked in close collaboration with several alleged humanitarian "watchdog" groups to manage it's political content. The "Notable Wikipedians" entrusted with this venture are immune to all Wikipeidia's published policies, Attribtution, No self promotion, Experts do not hold a place of privilege, Citing self, No personal attacks, Civility, and Wikipedia is not a battleground are the most often cited complaints that go unenforced against these private smear factories.

While police are prohibited from engaging in "racial profiling," watchdogs engage in political profiling and publish materials distributed widely which even falls into the hands of law enforcement who by law cannot compile manuals themselves.

The issue of serious watchdog impropriety arises in the context of any alliance with the police agencies of government, especially when dealing with political minorities, and agenda-driven private interest groups - which is what watchdog organizations are.

Profiled groups

The following list is taken from Understanding the Right Wing, by Scot Nakagawa written about 1999 and lists various groups classified as "right wing" and "proto-facsist". This list and accompanying search engine terms have been expanded in the following years. Nakagawa accredits Political Research Associates (Chip Berlet, Surina Khan, and Jean Hardisty, [ed. note:now retired]), the Coalition for Human Dignity (Jonathan Mozzochi, Steven Gardiner, and Gillian Leichtling), People for the American Way, The Institute for First Amendment Studies, Sara Diamond, and the Western States Center (Tarso Ramos).

All these groups and the person associated with them have been the target of "political profiling", as discussed by Laird Wilcox. Dr. Dobson and Paul Weyrich, among several others, have been viciouosly smeared in Wikipedia, in violation of Wikipedia's own policies on Neutral Point of View {NPOV}, WP:What Wikipedia is not (WP:NOT), WP:Attribution, and a host of other policies.

Theocratic

• Concerned Women for America (CWA)
• Christian Coalition
• Focus on the Family (James Dobson)
• American Family Association (AFA)
• Traditional Values Coalition
• Free Congress Foundation (Paul Weyrich)

Wise use

• Alliance for America
• Evergreen Foundation
• Sea Lion Defense Fund
• Environmental Conservation Organization
• People for the West
• National Wetlands Coalition

The following list was taken from the SPLC's Intelligence Reoprt and written by Berlet. It classifies these groups as "hate groups", and some of the defamatory smears have made their way into Wikipedia, despite numerous violations of Wikipedia's stated policies.

Hate groups

• The American Cause
• American Enterprise Institute {AEI}
• American Immigration Control Foundation
• The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
• Castle Rock Foundation
• Center for American Unity
• Center for the Study of Popular Culture (David Horowitz)
• Federation for American Immigration Reform
• Free Congress Foundation (paul Weyrich)
• Institute for the Study of Man
• Ludwig von Mises Institute (LvMI)
• New Century Foundation
• John M. Olin Foundation
• Pioneer Fund
• Rockford Institute
• Scaife Foundations
• U.S. Inc.

Wise use movement targeted

A particularly shocking and dangerous example of guilt-by-association targeting and profiling occurred when two New Mexico grandmothers found themselves suspected of being terrorists after appearing on a radio talk show where they criticized the federal government and the United Nations. Kay Stone and Jean Vallance were investigated by New Mexico Department of Public Safety (State Police) after appearing on KINN radio in Alamagordo in June, 1998.

State police Lt. Bill Bowers called the station and spoke with talk show host Mike Shinaberry, who was asked about the couple and Maude Rathgeber, the Otereo Republican party chairwomen, who had also been on the show in the past. According to Shinaberry:

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It bothered me that anyone would be the subject of an investigation simply because they got on the radio and said what they believed... None of them ever came close to espousing violence.

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According to The Dallas Morning News, which covered the story from the beginning:

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Maj. Michael Francis, another state police officer...said the inquiries into Ms. Stone and Ms. Vallance sprang from the activities of a Domestic Terrorism Task Force, comprising local, state and federal agents.

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The two women were also investigated by the military officials at a nearby Air Force Base:

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Six days later, on June 17, Mrs. Vallance said she received a phone call from Special Agent Amanda Finerty, from the office of special investigations [OSI] at Holloman Air Force Base. Mrs. Vallance, a retired nurse who is married to a civilian employee at Holloman, said Agent Finerty asked about her religious affiliation and whether anyone was “planning something” against German pilots [stationed at the base].

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All of this came about by the issuance of a manual entitled The Extreme Right: An Overview containing in large part material from a leftist "Watchdog" organization to law enforcement agencies. According to news sources:

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The 73-page document included profiles of fringe groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, as well as skinheads and extremists who believe each race should have its own land in the United States. Lumped into the manual’s description of terrorists, racists and other pariahs is an excerpt on the so-called “wise use” movement, which advocates more local control over federally owned lands.

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Shinaberry was spurred to investigate this manual. Speaking again with Lt. Bill Bowers he was told “that the federal government had asked state police to create a -- he used the term intelligence database’ -- to make lists of people who might be radicals.” He also noted that the manual suggests an anti-government continuum of groups that apparently run from the most peaceful to those with a reputation for violence, with no distinction made between them. As it happened the contents of the manual were leaked to the public after the police inquiries into the two women.

Ranchers and loggers erupted in anger at the manual’s juxtaposition of the wise use movement with Nazi and Klan groups....Local government officials, concerned about the impact of federal policies on rural economies, also objected to the manual.

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“They labeled us as dissidents when all we went to do is participate in decisions about how federal lands are used,” said Adam Polley, a Catron County official in western New Mexico.

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Darren White, the Governor’s cabinet secretary for the state police, apologized for the manual and issued a written apology dated 9 July 1998:

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“I recognize that across New Mexico thousands of farmers, ranchers, miners, loggers and others are committed to preserving a way of life free from unnecessary regulation,” he wrote. “I believe free speech and the spoken word sustain our freedom.”

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The "Watchdog" organization manual and others like it continue to be circulated among law enforcement officials nationwide, even though its effect is to target ordinary American citizens on the basis of the values, opinions and beliefs. The Wise use movement was the target of political profiling and placed on the this leftist Watchdog list because if frequently takes positions contrary to the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society.