I wrote about The Intercept article in the video above here:
The Thin Blue Line Project is basically training for white supremacist police.
...In his view, everyone who isn’t Christian poses a threat—especially Muslims.
"The seminar was titled "Understanding the Threat: Investigating and Understanding the Jihadi Threat to United States Law Enforcement," according to the notice, which promised that attendees "will walk away with the knowledge of a real time security threat" to the rule of law in the U.S. and will learn "ideas and techniques on how to combat this threat."
“The Thin Blue Line Project is taking a page from the playbook of oft-used tactics by extremists on the radical right, most notably by white supremacists and anti-abortion extremists, by publishing names and addresses of adversaries,” says Heidi Beirich, the director of SPLC’s Intelligence Project."
“If you want to boil it down to what the greatest problem is…I believe it’s us,” Guandolo said back in September 2014, speaking with an earnest lilt. By this, he was referring to his followers — the white, Christian majority — who Guandolo believes need to reinvent society to target those who don’t fit. In his view, everyone who isn’t Christian poses a threat—especially Muslims.
Guandolo now keeps his talks under wraps, but they are legion across the country. They take place in police union halls, conference centers, colleges, and church basements. They are sponsored by private funders, unions, and local police departments where he offers trainings on “the Islamic threat.” They tend to occur in places where local officials appear more receptive to his message — namely Colorado, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, the latter being where his company is based. Law enforcement in Arizona paid Guandolo $11,000, not including the cost of catering and a hefty supply of his books, to give a lecture eligible for continuing education credits.
"As Guandolo has written, 'understand that LOCAL POLICE are the tip of the spear, and this problem will be solved by citizens at the LOCAL level.'
In other words, the point of the Thin Blue Line Project is to bring hateful rhetoric to state and local governments, who also have increasing power to survey and prosecute individuals."
Yet Guandolo offers more than just lectures. At these talks and on his website, Guandolo promotes a tool of his own creation, designed to support local law enforcement in their quest to conquer what he calls “homegrown terrorism.” The Thin Blue Line Project is a website intended to assist federal and local law enforcement with finding and targeting radicalized Muslims. It has no official government affiliation, but according to a press release, the website is being used by members of the NYPD, the FBI, Homeland Security, ICE, and Border Patrol. The Thin Blue Line Project offers training videos, tips on catching terrorists, a live stream of news, a message board, and, most importantly, a national map that geolocates Muslim targets. The locations are benign: Muslim student associations; mosques; offices of the Council On American-Islamic Relations. But, in Guandolo’s words, it’s a way to “locate these jihadis...
Guandolo used to represent an extreme branch of law enforcement—one that sat far enough from the mainstream power structure to spread its ideology. But now, under the Trump administration, Guandolo represents the new anti-Islamic guard, along with Flynn, who has spoken at several local ACT conferences about the supposed dangers of Islam. And, like Guandolo, Flynn insists that Islam isn’t a “real” religion and therefore isn’t protected under the First Amendment.
On that day in the fall of 2014 at Colorado Christian University, Guandolo laughed about being called an Islamaphobe. Yet Guandolo and Flynn’s teachings, ideas that are enforced by ACT, are becoming entrenched in Washington’s power structure—namely, the notion that all of Islam, not just ISIS or Al Queda or other so-called radical movements, wants to threaten the American way of life. That Islam is a violent religion, which makes every Muslim susceptible to radicalization. That every Muslim is a potential danger. In other words, that the enemy is next door.
If Guandolo’s concern is about “Sharia Creep,” then his outsized and undue influence on the Trump administration is another kind of creep altogether.
MORE AT:
BACKCHANNEL
The Police Can Target Muslims Using This Conspiracy Theorist’s Website
How a former FBI agent delivered a tool for tracking Muslims into the Trumpian mainstream.
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BREAKING NEWS:
REUTERS
Exclusive: Trump to focus counter-extremism program solely on Islam - sources
Thu Feb 2, 2017 | 10:51 AM EST
By Julia Edwards Ainsley, Dustin Volz and Kristina Cooke | WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO
The Trump administration wants to revamp and rename a U.S. government program designed to counter all violent ideologies so that it focuses solely on Islamist extremism, five people briefed on the matter told Reuters.
The program, "Countering Violent Extremism," or CVE, would be changed to "Countering Islamic Extremism" or "Countering Radical Islamic Extremism," the sources said, and would no longer target groups such as white supremacists who have also carried out bombings and shootings in the United States.
SPLC:
TRUMP'S PLANNED CHANGES TO GOVERNMENT'S 'COUNTERING VIOLENT EXTREMISM' PROGRAM ARE POLITICALLY MOTIVATED, DANGEROUS
February 02, 2017
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