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      Kamala Harris Touts Homeland Security Program Encouraging High School Spying

      news.movim.eu / TheIntercept · 15:57 · 6 minutes

    When Vice President Kamala Harris toured the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School this week, site of the infamous 2018 Parkland, Florida, mass shooting, she pushed for more gun control and called for communities to accept more federal help in stopping school shootings. “I will continue to advocate for what we must do in terms of universal background checks and assault weapons ban” Harris said.

    But in a land where gun control is politically impossible , the only tangible help the Biden administration offers schools are resources to conduct better behavioral profiling of students, doing so through a Secret Service center founded to study the psychology of presidential assassins. The push, supported by a bipartisan bill that would strengthen the role of the Department of Homeland Security in school violence, would turn America’s schools into another adjunct of the national security apparatus, a veritable school for spies.

    School shootings are indeed an epidemic in America, and Nikolas Cruz, who killed 17 and injured 17 more in Parkland is a tragic example of yet another juvenile who fell through every social service safety net that American society had to offer. He is a poster child for the ease with which mentally ill Americans can acquire guns. But can the Secret Service really help to deal with the scourge, and is it the right agency to do so?

    The Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center, or NTAC, was created in 1998 to examine threats to the president and security at complex public gatherings. Its focus was expanded a year later to the psychology of school shootings after the Columbine shooting resulted in 15 deaths and horrified the nation. Today, NTAC is “a multidisciplinary team of social science researchers” who assist “law enforcement, schools, government, and other public and private sector organizations to combat the ever-evolving threat of targeted violence,” according to its website .

    Over decades, the NTAC has created desks in over a half-dozen Secret Service field offices , staffed by domestic security strategists who conduct school visits and staff training that mostly focus on recognizing “behavioral” traits that its study associates with mass violence. Last year alone, the NTAC touted some 331 training sessions, and it brags that over the last five years, it has trained hundreds of thousands of school administrators and teachers. The demand for its assistance, the Secret Service says, is thanks in part to NTAC publications regarding threats to schools. In its most recent report , “Improving School Safety Through Bystander Reporting,” the NTAC suggests schools encourage programs for students to report suspicious behavior, removing barriers that might impede any such tattletale reporting.

    “For reporting programs to be a useful tool for intervention and prevention in K-12 schools, students and other members of a reporting community need to be aware of the importance of reporting, their role in reporting, what to report, and any resources that are available when it comes to reporting threats and other concerns,” the NTAC report says. “Research finds that the fear of being ostracized, or experiencing other forms of retaliation, is a significant barrier to reporting. When students view reporting as ‘snitching,’ they are discouraged from coming forward with their concerns.”

    Another NTAC study , “Averting Targeted School Violence: A U.S. Secret Service Analysis of Plots Against Schools,” studied nearly 70 averted attacks against schools, using demographic information to identify school shooters. Attributes tracked by NTAC include history of school discipline, contact with law enforcement, experience being bullied, mental health issues, alcohol and drug use, and the broadly defined psychological trauma “impacted by adverse childhood experiences.”

    NTAC stresses that the goal of school monitoring of students and its suggested “see something, say something” practice is successful intervention. It is the same framework originally created to deal with international terrorism and now expanded to thwart domestic “ extremists ” and government “insider threats.”

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    But are such government programs created to deal with national security threats appropriate when applied to K-12 schools? Not only is NTAC’s list of behavioral threats just as applicable to skateboarders as they are to potential shooters, but lodging the school safety program in the Secret Service, and its Protective Intelligence Division (where NTAC is assigned), also questionably pushes school systems to adopt a national and homeland security curriculum.

    “One thing I learned is that threat assessment doesn’t happen in a vacuum,” Bev Baligad, chair of Threat Team Hawaiʻi, said after the Hawaiʻi Threat Assessment Conference last year, where NTAC and the Department of Homeland Security’s National Threat Evaluation and Reporting office made presentations. NTER houses the national “see something, say something” campaign and its own behavioral threat assessment and management program office. “There is a statewide push to build threat assessment capacity on all islands,” Baligad told the conference.

    At an NTAC training in Arizona last month, Cochise County School Superintendent Jacqui Clay said , “As the county school superintendent, the reason that we’re doing this is that we have to become a learning community and not be in silos, especially when it comes to school safety.”

    “As we come together, the sheriff’s department, the police departments, the (Arizona) Rangers, Border Patrol, superintendents, the community, that’s a deterrent. It’s more of a deterrent because they see we’re working together,” Clay added. “If we all learn the words to the song, then we can sing the song together, better. This is part of the song.” Some of those singing the song are law enforcement agencies without a prior mandate in U.S. schools.

    “Messaging should demonstrate to students that there is a big difference between ‘snitching,’ ‘ratting,’ or ‘tattling,’ and seeking help,” a Secret Service guide says .

    Last year, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced the EAGLES Act to prevent acts of mass violence, a bill that would bolster the NTAC by creating a national program on targeted school violence prevention, while expanding the NTAC’s “research and training on school violence and its dissemination of information on school violence prevention initiatives.”

    “Accurate behavioral threat assessments and early interventions are essential to maintaining a safe environment in our schools and communities and preventing another tragedy from taking place,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said, in reintroducing the legislation. “The U.S. Secret Service is uniquely equipped to help evaluate these threats, and our bill would enable them to share their tools and expertise with school safety partners across the country.”

    Not everyone horrified at the rise of gun violence inside schools has signed on to the mission of reauthorizing and expanding the NTAC as proposed in the EAGLES Act.

    The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights wrote of the bill that “Threat assessment, including as proposed in this legislation, poses major risks for and to students, including increased and early contact with law enforcement, overidentification of students … for ‘threatening’ behavior, distraction from the role of easy access to guns in enabling mass shootings in schools and elsewhere, and undermining of students’ rights under civil rights laws, including the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Section 504. School safety belongs in the hands of educators, and those trained in child/adolescent development — not law enforcement, and we should never start from a place of viewing some children as threats.”

    The Consortium for Constituents With Disabilities followed suit, adding, “The U.S. Secret Service is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security — a border security and counterterrorism agency. This agency has no expertise in student behavior or child development. Nonetheless, they would develop best practices and train school staff on threat assessment, treating children as potential terrorists.”

    The post Kamala Harris Touts Homeland Security Program Encouraging High School Spying appeared first on The Intercept .

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      Kamala Harris announces new office to implement ‘red flag’ gun control laws

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 5 days ago - 17:53

    Vice-president launches national resource center at site of 2018 Florida school shooting where 17 were killed

    The White House has announced a new national office to support states implementing “red flag” laws to combat gun violence , an initiative funded by the justice department.

    Kamala Harris made the announcement on Saturday during a visit to Parkland, Florida, where she toured the site of the nation’s worst high school shooting, the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas massacre that killed 17.

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      Kamala Harris to make historic visit to abortion clinic in Minnesota – US politics live

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Thursday, 14 March - 13:11

    Harris’s trip to Planned Parenthood clinic will be first time a president or vice-president has visited a reproductive health clinic

    Kamala Harris is expected to visit a clinic in the Minneapolis-St Paul area during operating hours today.

    Her office declined to identify the facility before she arrives there, citing security reasons. The center provides a range of services, including abortion, birth control and preventive wellness care.

    A federal judge in Florida will hear arguments on whether to dismiss the federal criminal case against Donald Trump involving his handling of classified documents. In addition to Trump, his co-defendants in the case, Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira, are expected to attend the hearing.

    10am. The Senate will meet to take up Dennis Hankins’ nomination as US ambassador to Haiti, with a vote at noon.

    2pm. Joe Biden will participate in a campaign event in Saginaw, Michigan.

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      Harris is reaching Democrats where Biden isn’t – on abortion and Gaza

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Saturday, 9 March - 12:00

    As 2024 campaign begins, US vice-president’s gender and race are strengths in fight to retain young voters and voters of color

    Standing on the arch of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, to commemorate the 59th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, Kamala Harris said she felt compelled to begin her remarks by addressing the deteriorating humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.

    “People in Gaza are starving. The conditions are inhumane. And our common humanity compels us to act,” the vice-president said, then stated: “Given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate ceasefire.” Loud, sustained applause followed, before she added, after a pause: “For at least six weeks.”

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      The Guardian view on starvation in Gaza: Palestinians need solutions, not symbols | Editorial

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Tuesday, 5 March - 18:30

    The Biden administration is gradually turning up the volume, but Israel’s prime minister is ignoring it. Airdrops are just a gesture

    The cogs of US diplomacy are grinding. But they are turning neither far nor fast, and the people of Gaza are dying now. The World Health Organization says starvation is killing children in the north . The UN has warned that over a quarter of the territory’s population are one step away from famine.

    In this context, the US airdrops that began last weekend offer such trivial relief that they verge upon the insulting. They are usually a last resort for delivery into hostile environments; this time the impediment to aid is a US ally that is itself dependent on US aid .

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      Kamala Harris issues sharp rebuke of Israel over ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ in Gaza

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Monday, 4 March - 00:22

    The vice-president called for a ceasefire and the immediate release of hostages, in comments that appeared to be the strongest yet by a US leader on Gaza

    US vice-president Kamala Harris has bluntly called out Israel for not doing enough to ease a “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza as the Biden administration faces increasing pressure to rein in its close ally while it wages war with Hamas militants.

    Harris, speaking on Sunday in front of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where state troopers beat US civil rights marchers nearly six decades ago, called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and urged Hamas to accept a deal to release hostages in return for a 6-week cessation of hostilities.

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      Biden and Harris meet congressional leaders to try to avert government shutdown

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Tuesday, 27 February - 20:09

    Chuck Schumer says ‘we’re hopeful we can get this done quickly’ after meeting in Oval Office before 1 March deadline

    Joe Biden and Kamala Harris met congressional leaders on Tuesday in hopes of striking a deal to try to avert a government shutdown.

    “We’re making good progress, and we’re hopeful we can get this done quickly,” the top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said after the meeting, adding that the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, “said unequivocally he wants to avoid a government shutdown”.

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      Despite Republican rumours, Michelle Obama probably won’t be the next president | Arwa Mahdawi

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Saturday, 17 February - 14:00


    The murky depths of the rightwing mind have turned up conspiracies lately on Taylor Swift and the former first lady

    I hope you’re not squeamish, because we are about to journey into the murky depths of the rightwing mind where brain worms abound.

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      ‘She’s part of the plan’: Kamala Harris makes critical pitch as South Carolina primary kicks off

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Saturday, 3 February - 14:55

    Vice-president’s rip to the state signals she is vital to the campaign because of her ability to galvanise Black voters and her abortion rights messaging

    Joe Biden’s closing argument on Friday to South Carolina, the state that rescued his White House dreams four years ago, was not made by Joe Biden. Instead it was Kamala Harris who strode out under a brilliant blue sky to the thunderous cadence of South Carolina State University’s drumline.

    It was because South Carolina’s voters showed up in the middle of a historic pandemic that Biden became president, she told a modest but enthusiastic crowd in Orangeburg, “and I am the first woman and first Black woman to be vice-president of the United States”.

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