From ear-splitting jet engines to creepy spy towers, we are sick of the military industrial police complex intrusions upon our lives!
F-35 fighter jets are stationed in South Burlington against the wishes of the majority of residents in greater Burlington, ‘to protect against non-specific threats unknown.’ The F-35 is an attack engine not designed to defend. Likewise, the eight automated guard towers proposed for the Vermont-Canadian border, are intended to “defend” against an imaginary crisis (the alleged smuggling of weapons and exotic birds). In fact, they are insidious additions to a high-tech surveillance culture already invading peoples’ lives, exposing us to additional policing and curtailing freedom of assembly and movement.
We call for the abolition of Customs and Border Patrol on grounds that the agency has a culture of perpetrating egregious violations of human rights and serves no useful social purpose whatsoever. As reported in Seven Days (March 17, 2021): ” ‘Vermonters could not find a less trustworthy federal agency to undertake this proposal,’ James Lyall, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont, said in a statement last month. ‘CBP has a toxic internal culture, is responsible for heinous, widespread and continuing human rights abuses nationwide, and operates with no meaningful oversight or accountability.’ ”
https://www.sevendaysvt.com/OffMessage/archives/2021/03/17/vermont-officials-blast-proposal-for-border-surveillance-towers