DHS Snooping on Tea Party Computers

Jeff Jorgenson complains:

"The Department of Homeland Security has a corporate IP address of 216.81.80.134 and is located in Springfield, Virginia—area code 703. The coordinates of this location are latitude 38.7438, longitude -77.2333. How do I know this? Well, let me give you a little background information and then we’ll connect the dots.

I have a web site I use to sell a product that I invented and patented....On April 15th I attended the Council Bluffs, IA “Tea Party” Tax Day protest. I emailed the event organizer the day before that I would be attending the “Tea Party”, along with several fellow co-workers. I got the organizers name and email address through the website theglennbeck912project.com. I was a little hesitant to go at first since I’m not one for protesting, but in the final analysis it was a wonderful experience.

Enough with the background, now let’s connect the dots. On April 18th, two days after the tea party protests, I was checking traffic on my website. I always do reverse IP traces on major hits to see where they are originating so I can evaluate the effectiveness of my marketing strategy. As I checked one particular large hit, I was stunned to see the following on my screen,

Hostname: 216.81.80.134
ISP: Department of Homeland Security
Organization: Department of Homeland Security
Type: Corporate
Country: United States
State/Region: VA
City: Springfield
Latitude: 38.7438
Longitude: -77.2333
Area Code: 703

...my full name is not on my website. Someone had to actively search to make the connection.

I am a Marine Corp veteran, I do practice my religious faith, I do own a shotgun, and I did attend the Council Bluffs, IA “Tea Party” on April 15th. Now I feel I am on the Department of Homeland Security’s watch list of possible terrorists. They appear to have been monitoring the emails of the Tea Party contact organizers. Who and what else are they monitoring?

These are the facts; I’ll leave it up to you to decide what actions you may want to take if you attended a tea party. As for me, I’ve already contacted my congressman to vehemently lodge my complaint."

Tsk, tsk, tsk. They should stop wasting their time and our tax dollars investigating patriotic Americans and look out for real terrorists. At a time like this, if the government does *not* have a dossier on you, maybe you aren't trying hard enough.

For the record, Google Analytics reports no hits on my blog from Springfield, VA in the past month. My top states for readership are California, Alabama, New Mexico, Virginia, New York, Washington, Illinois, Colorado, Michigan and Missouri, in that order.

Skanderberg had something heartening to say. In his bi-weekly conference call with congressmen, 'someone asked about the impact of the “tea parties” in Congress. Both Congressman Scalise (R-LS) and Congressman McCarthy (R-CA) said that they had had a surprisingly large impact on the Congress - because spendthrift members went home and caught h*ll for their spending votes. As a memorable summary phrase, “Congress paid more attention to the tea parties than did the media.” Translation: “Keep up the good work.”'