https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2012-09-12/ron-pa...
But if you did, there's a link at the bottom to the report they're citing, so let's check that: http://www.austinchronicle.com/documents/fusioncenterreport.... This one isn't original reporting either. It's a 38-page think tank whitepaper from "The Constitution Project" on the subject of Fusion Centers in general.
And IT only mentions Ron Paul in one sentence too, where it mixes it in with two other items in the same bullet point: "A Missouri-based fusion center issued a February 2009 report describing support for the presidential campaigns of Ron Paul or third party candidates, possession of the iconic “Don’t Tread on Me” "ag and anti-abortion activism as signs of membership in domestic terrorist groups" So now we've gone from your 8 year old link to a point three years farther in the past. And the source for that attention grabbing headling is still nowhere to be found.
But that bullet point was footnoted, so let's check that. It's... another news story! Actually the URL in the footnote is stale and broken, but I found the story by headline using Google: https://www.columbiatribune.com/article/20090314/News/303149...
So this tells us all about the Ron Paul thing, right? Nope. It, too, mentions Ron Paul in only one sentence: "Red flags outlined in the document include political bumper stickers such as those for U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, talk of conspiracy theories such as the plan for a mega-highway from Canada to Mexico and possession of subversive literature.". So that's dilluted STILL FURTHER in a bunch of other items, most of which sound... not too terribly off to me.
And the source for this report? They have a link, but not to the report: https://www.infowars.com/secret-state-police-report-ron-paul...
Yup, four hops and we're at Infowars. And the report they cite? Not public. They're apparently the only one who have seen it.
You got fooled by "media laundering" into regurgitating partisan agitprop. I can't prove your "fact" is wrong, but the support for it is VERY thin.
The Missouri Highway Patrol retracted the report from the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) in 2009. They removed the mentions for Ron Paul and Campaign for Liberty.
The Highway Patrol launched an investigation into the origin of the report. The Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder called for the suspension of the Director of Public Safety “until those responsible have been identified”.
We personally investigated the story in 2009. I have seen the report. I served as a national Ron Paul campaign person and currently work within the IC and international law enforcement.
The Fusion of Paranoia and Bad Policy - Center for Democracy and Technology 4/1/2009
https://cdt.org/insights/the-fusion-of-paranoia-and-bad-poli...
[OK, you found an original scan, thanks.] That new link is still broken. Where is the report? Don't give me partisan think tanks or your personal experience on the Paul campaign, give me a source.
OK, now can we take this seriously? What's the language in that report that says that the center was associating Ron Paul support with domestic terrorism or whatever? All I see is that it says militia membership correlates with right wing violence (seems reasonable). I STILL can't find anything significant about Ron Paul. It's certainly not a major point. Please point me to it.
https://web.archive.org/web/20100108060904/media.kspr.com/do...
And I still can't find it. This report isn't about domestic terrorism, it's about the militia movement (which correlates, but it's not the same thing). And it's absolutely not about Ron Paul, I can't even find where it mentions that fact in passing.
You're spinning like crazy here, about a 12 year old report saying (apparently) unflattering things about a 16 year old presidential campaign. No one is being called a domestic terrorist anywhere in these links.
Report, top of page 7: "Militia members most commonly associate with 3rd party political groups. It is not uncommon for militia members to display Constitutional Party, Campaign for Liberty, or Libertarian material. These members are usually supporters of former Presidential Candidate: Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, and Bob Barr."
Honestly, I'm sympathetic to many of the ideologies and ideas that are described in this report, but I actually think the document is important as an internal document for police. They need to be informed about radicals within these ideologies, and knowing who they might vote for for president is very relevant for helping to understand or empathize with them, especially for conflict deescalation.
Say you're in a hostage negotiation with a sovereign-citizen type who's worried you're going to disappear them to some black-ops prison. If you knew enough about the movement to abolish the Fed, about FEMA camps, or about the NWO, and said you're a Ron Paul supporter, you might be able to establish trust. Ron Paul isn't strictly someone involved with the latter two conspiracies, but there is a heavy correlation between the three, and he's the highest profile figure supporting the first.
These documents aren't political, they're tactical information for real-life police work. Police have to deal with the radicals, even if they're a fringe minority.
(this is a mental exercise in principled reasoning. I'm not racist).
"Racial profiling" isn't bad because it's based on the (correct, though specious -- they're poorer) observation that young black men commit more per-capita crimes, it's bad because it leads to law enforcement behavior that causes young black men to be stopped, frisked, detained, prosecuted and incarcerated at rates MUCH HIGHER than their per-capita crime statistics would indicate.
Basically: the idea that "black kids are criminals" leads police to disproportionately enforce the laws against black kids while letting "non-criminal" demographics off the hook.
But no one argues we should censor reports that detail youth crime statistics by race, which is what's happening here.