United Liberty

Remember the MIAC report on militias (you can read it here)? It has come back up in the blogosphere after an open records request to find out what information was used for the conclusions in the report:

This is an extremely chilling chapter in American history. The controversial MIAC “threat advisory” is the stinging report wherein Missouri and other state law enforcement agencies were told to profile as possible “terrorists” all individuals concerned about unemployment, taxes, illegal immigration, gangs, border security, abortion, high costs of living, gun restrictions, FEMA, the IRS, and the Federal Reserve.

The MIAC advisory also stated that potential domestic “terrorists” would be attracted to gun shows, shortwave radios, action movies, movies with white male heroes like Rambo, Tom Clancy novels, and presidential candidates Ron Paul, Bob Barr, and Chuck Baldwin.

Now, they claim to have retained no records of the sources that were used for this report. Nor, they claim, do they even know who wrote it.

According to the Missouri State Highway Patrol’s response to ALG’s Sunshine Law Request, “[b]ackground material was not retained by the author during drafting” and “[t]here is no record listing the individual who wrote the report.” In fact, the only record the state of Missouri apparently claims it has of the report was its single draft version, for which there were no material differences between the report that actually went out.

Basically, whoever wrote this report at the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC), a department of the Missouri State Patrol, pulled it out of their ass.

The good news is lawmakers in Missouri, after hearings during the summer, are taking steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again, among other things giving a broad definition of the duties of the MIAC, what intelligence (or lack thereof) it can report and providing legislative oversight.