DHS Apologizes For Misinformation on Militias

It seems that Homeland Security’s “Modern Militia Movement” wasn’t as well researched as they would have perhaps liked it to have been. At least now that it’s had holes poked through some of its primary assumptions. Shame the damage has been done, seeing as this report was a source for many a viral news story.

<a href="https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/aug/14/fusion-center-militias/?utm_content=buffer5ded7&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer"> Homeland Security Forced to Apologize for marking Patriots as Terrorists"

Anything framing conservatives, libertarians, and anti-statists of any sort to low IQ, bigotry, violence, and potential domestic terrorism proves an instant success within large portions of the legacy media outlets. Consider the very quietly retracted “study” about how conservatives have a greater tendency to low IQ, psychotic traits, prejudice.

<i>LiveScience</i>, <i>American Journal</i> of <i>Political Science</i>, <i>Journal of Theoretical Politics</i>, <i>Reason</i>, <i>Huffington Post</i>, <i>New York Times</i> reported that this went on for 4 years until <a href=”http://retractionwatch.com/2016/06/07/conservative-political-beliefs-not-linked-to-psychotic-traits/”><i>Retraction Watch</i> reported </a>:

“Researchers have fixed a number of papers after mistakenly reporting that people who hold conservative political beliefs are more likely to exhibit traits associated with psychoticism, such as authoritarianism and tough-mindedness.

As one of the notices specifies, now it appears that liberal political beliefs are linked with psychoticism. That paper also swapped ideologies when reporting on people higher in neuroticism and social desirability (falsely claiming that you have socially desirable qualities); the original paper said those traits are linked with liberal beliefs, but they are more common among people with conservative values.”

<i>HuffPo</i> gloats over the fallacious study, “the study has taken the Internet by storm, with some outspoken liberals saying that it validates their suspicions about conservatives and conservatives arguing that the research has been misinterpreted.”

The initial study was cited 45 times, according to Thomson Reuters Web of Science Washington Post blamed Trump’s win on the study after it had been debunked showing the power of the echo and reverberation of misinformation.

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Fusion centers may have hindered not aided federal Counterterrorism efforts, according to the FOIA documents appealed for by MuckRock.

“Fusion centers have made significant intelligence errors, for themselves and the Department.” This is not new news, DHS has flubbed up before and in recent history, we have the Russiagate hoax collapsing as a striking example. “Almost no part of the initial reports of the incident had been accurate – not the fusion center report, or DHS’s own intelligence report, or it’s intelligence briefing.” One fact, a water pump in a small Illinois water district burning out, was the closest instance to a verified fusion center intel win.

The second was a report issued immediately following the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords …

The report following Cathy Gifford’s shooting was similarly riddled with inaccuracies.

Luckily, Congress’ umbrage at drawing a correlation between “Constitutionally-protected, nonviolent activity and a tendency towards violent extremism” has led to DHS eating their words with a side of apology. Pity, the old adage still rings true, the truth is still lacing its boots up after the lie has made it around the world.