In a few hours as the sun sets and Halloween descends upon us, the streets of this country will turn into battlefields, pitting masked anarchists against uniformed cops, escalating this so-called War on Police, who are only trying to keep us safe.
That is, if you believe the FBI and the countless news sites that regurgitated its warning earlier this week about a group called the National Liberation Militia planning a “Halloween Revolt” this evening.
Never one to believe the hype, especially when it comes from unnamed FBI sources talking exclusively to the New York Post, we called out the warning as bullshit from the moment it came across our desk.
And now a handful of other sites are doing the same, including Reason, FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting), Snopes and the Phoenix New Times.
The Phoenix New Times even went as far as contacting the writer of the original New York Post article, Melkorka Licea, to inquire about the origin of the tip.
New Times spoke with the Post’s Licea, who said she got the alert from her editor and had no idea the story would blow up like it did. She assumed at the time that it was a typical media release sent to multiple outlets.
She declined to send New Times a copy of the release, noting that a colleague was worried about revealing a confidential source, but she did say she planned to post it online sometime today.
During a phone interview, Remus of the local FBI offered to pass on a copy of the alert, but then a little while later, he e-mailed to say he couldn’t find it.
“So far I can only find the [New York Post] article, I have engaged my national office to see if they can send me the link,” he wrote. (New Times followed up, but received no response.)
So is the threat credible? Is the group even real?
First of all, why would the FBI use a “confidential source” to send the tip to the New York Post when it has a National Press Office in Washington D.C. that can reach all the major news organizations in this country with an official press release?
And second of all, if Kurt Remus of the Phoenix FBI office is unable to find a copy of the alert he received from headquarters to send to the Phoenix New Times to confirm its accuracy, then how the hell does he expect to find any of the alleged anarchists with malicious intentions?
Since we published the article on Tuesday, we’ve learned there is an actual group called the National Liberation Media, which appears to be a Facebook group seeping with activists, trolls, agent provocateurs and undercover cops, possibly feds.
We also received the following message from somebody claiming to be from Anonymous, accusing me of making a “very dangerous statement” by stating the group does not exist, proving that hyperbolic spin comes from both side of the aisle.
The Google documents mentioned in the above message consists of conversations between members of the National Liberation Movement, accusing other members of being infiltrators with ties to law enforcement.
We can’t vouch for the accuracy of those accusations, so we’ll just post the documents here, and allow you to make a decision for yourself.
Whether the group exists or not and whether or not they plan an all-out assault on police will be determined tonight.
But what is certain is that the mainstream media failed miserably in regurgitating the tip, obviously done to keep on the good side of their local police department.
FAIR summed it up perfectly in its report posted Thursday:
FAIR reached out to the FBI for specifics on the threat, but via email it declined to do so.
Why was this “alert” subsequently carried by a dozen mainstream media outlets without anyone questioning the core substance? Even the claim of an “anarchist” group with “national” in its name is manifestly dubious–since anarchists, by definition, decry nationalism.
The fundamental problem with FBI terror warnings, as I’ve discussed before, is that there’s no downside. FBI terror warnings are polluted with moral hazard: Don’t warn and something happens, you’re in trouble. Warn, and nothing happens, no one cares. Warn and something happens—which it never does—and you’re a hero.
Especially in the context of increased scrutiny over police abuse, the incentives for the FBI to mindlessly issue warnings of lurking police killers are great–providing police with PR cover in the coming weeks and sowing the “war on cops” narrative in the hearts of scared, low-information viewers and tabloid consumers.
If fear is the currency of control, then this never-ending string of FBI warnings is a blank check that never needs to be cashed. Is there an “anarchist revolt” scheduled for Halloween? Unlikely. But millions of Americans now think there is, and ultimately that’s all that matters.
One only has to view the ABC 15 news clip out of Phoenix, posted below, to see how pathetically a news station will pander to local police.
Just remember, the Police PR Spin Machine is strong, which is why we must be stronger not to be swayed by it.
The post FBI Unable to Prove Existence of Planned “Halloween Revolt” Ambush on Cops by National Liberation Militia appeared first on PINAC.