Romney, China & Surveillance States. A Story on the Development of Now.
Opinion piece submitted By: Mark Rhodes
Certain information may have been known before Willard Mitt Romney’s run for President in 2012 but the 2012 election brought to light certain contradictions Candidate Romney was sternly fighting with against Barak Obama. China seemed to come up often and whether business was agreed to or not, details were not enlightened upon within this area of debate. If we can start from an earlier time and work our way forward, we may pick up on an extensive trail of scattered crumbs in many damning directions. I’ll be tempted to go off on the branching paths of tangents that Willard Mitt Romney has residue on but for this article I will be strictly focusing on Willard, Willards domestic development, China, and Surveillance State. Given the state of surveillance installments throughout several states I felt this project to be of importance for public knowledge given much happening without public awareness or choice. Here, in the next few paragraphs, is a breakdown and quick history of Willard Mitt Romney before the lead up and financings of Bain Capital, Massachusetts, and national security. Footnotes are linked to information used for this story.
Willard was born in Detroit Michigan in 1947 and came from a well named family with a well-known and infamous past, a past spanning as far back as his great-great grandfather Parley P. Pratt who helped lead the early Mormon church. Willard Mitt Romney was the great-great-grandson to Parley P. Pratt, great-great-grandson to Miles Romney and the great-grandson to Miles Park Romney. Willard Mitt Romney’s father was George W. Romney chairman and president for American Motors Corporation from 1954-1962, Michigan governor and 1968 Republican party presidential nominee. Willard Mitt Romney’s mother was Lenore Romney who was once an actress and in 1970 the Republican Senate nominee in Michigan. Willard Mitt Romney’s father’s cousin was former Chicago Bears quarterback Milton “Mitt” Romney.
Willard Mitt Romney was named after J. Willard Marriott, a family friend and founder of Marriot Corporation. J. Willard Marriot was raised out of Marriott Settlement, Utah. Willard Romney was raised around many influential people and thus dreamed about a business career. His father, being a successful businessman and politically affiliated, advised Willard that a degree in law would be beneficial to his career even if he didn’t practice law. In 1975 Willard graduated from Harvard and was named a Baker Scholar and received his Juris Doctor degree cum laude having ranked top third in his law school class.
After his studies at Harvard and passing his Michigan bar exam, Willard Mitt Romney was recruited by Boston Consulting Group (BGC) in the late 1970’s which was in the Big 3 standing. Romney through BCG became a colleague of Benjamin Netanyahu who he still is friends with. The Big 3 consisted ironically of Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Company, and McKinsey & Company, all three being the world’s largest Management Consulting Firms by revenue.
These Big 3 have a scandal and controversy record meant for another article. Notable companies meant for the other article will include Monsanto tied to Romney and Bain & Company. All but Bain and Company will be excluded in this story because it seems this is where it all begins.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mitt-Romney
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/03/netanyahu-israel-election-romney/
https://www.npr.org/2012/01/22/145574014/mexican-cousins-keep-romneys-family-tree-rooted
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Park_Romney
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Romney
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Romney
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenore_Romney
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Romney
https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2007/02/01/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-mitt-romney
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Willard_Marriott
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney
In 1977 Romney was hired by another consulting group out of Boston named Bain & Company (Bain has many tentacles under the household name Bain) and Romney leaves BCG. In 1978 Romney became vice president of Bain & Company and clients preferred to use Romney as their consultant over even more senior consultants within the firm. This next piece of business will play a key role in creating Bain Capital. Romney left Bain & Company in 1984 but within this time Bain & Company had business with Guinness. The Guinness scandal was in motion in the early 1980’s as Bain & Company had a role with the manipulation of the stock price scandal. Bain & Company was not charged with any wrongdoing and no charges were pressed. An individual who was involved and charged was Jack Lyons along with other individuals. This is where Jack Lyons comes in. Romney within this time left Bain & Company in 1984 to start up Bain Capital.
https://voxday.net/2019/12/27/why-mitt-romney-is-such-a-cuck/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_career_of_Mitt_Romney
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney
https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/romney-and-bain-capital-the-secrecy-is-killing-him
https://thenewamerican.com/romneys-china-investments-the-story-behind-the-story/
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mitt-Romney
Two of Bain Capital’s earliest investors were the late Robert Maxwell (MASSAD agent and father to Ghislaine Maxwell) and the late Jack Lyons of the Guinness stock scandal mentioned prior. Despite Jack Lyons taking the hit, he still invested in Bain Capital….. was this one clients that preferred to work with Romney over senior consultants? Nonetheless Bain Capital is created in 1984 with founder/co-founder Willard Mitt Romney.
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-xpm-2012-jul-19-la-na-bain-creation-20120719-story.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Maxwell
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Lyons_(financier)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinness_share-trading_fraud
Who and what is Bain Capital? Here is a link to their “About Us” on their website https://www.baincapital.com/about-us. Also, Wikipedia quotes them from a 2018 reference as “Bain Capital is an American private investment firm based in Boston. It specializes in private equity, venture capital, credit, public equity, impact investing, life sciences, and real estate. Bain Capital invests across a range of industry sectors and geographic regions. As of 2022, the firm managed approximately $160 billion of investor capital.[2] The firm was founded in 1984 by partners from the consulting firm Bain & Company.[3] The company is headquartered at 200 Clarendon Street in Boston with 22 offices in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.[4][5][6]”. Step one to create Bain Capital.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bain_Capital
https://www.baincapital.com/about-us
Before the ties into China are visited, I feel it’s important to see the ambitious advances Romney has made within the U.S.A. through the numerous roles he’s held being a part of agency progression while holding government positions upon an unaware surveilled public.
The Olympic games help usher in new and permanent surveillance devices. Given the history of prior Olympic terror threats this development of surveillance based off the needs to “fight terror” isn’t all that surprising. The 1972 Munich Olympic Massacre by a cell named “Black September”, 1988 Seoul Olympics radio bombing, 1996 Atlanta Centennial Olympic Park bombing, 2016 Rio de Janeiro-attacks on Europe increase security at the Olympic games.
This quote was the lead to the 2016 Rio Olympics, “But the attacks that killed 130 people in Paris last November and 32 in Brussels in March forced a reassessment by Brazil’s security forces. An anti-terrorism effort is now at the heart of their planning for the Olympics. Security experts are scouring social media, foreign intelligence reports and immigration records for red flags on suspected militants, their networks, and their movements the world over. In addition to a police hub where officers from over 50 countries will help monitor security at the Games, Brazil will also operate an anti-terrorism center with experts from nations including the United States, Britain, France and Spain. “We’ll have people there from around the world to better share information and advice one another on their respective areas of expertise,” says Andrei Rodrigues, a police inspector who heads a special secretariat the federal government established for security during big events.”.
Granted Britain is the most surveilled country in the world with 1 camera to 11 people in a 2008 report. Most global or domestic government events help justify the need for surveillance equipment which is left in place after such events and then are utilized and evolved through the years, but never removed.
Surveillance, safety, and security are the most effective terms used to justify infringing surveillance and with all the money spent these devices and means of security don’t get removed, they don’t get uninstalled and put in a closet for next time, they stay…… in the name of “public safety”.
As Friedrich Hegel said, “Present a problem AND offer the cure”. “An unhealthy economy can equal a healthy economy”, Zeitgeist theory within the controls of economics and public policy. Or the MIC Eisenhower warning of 1961. Revolutionary dictators are much the same and most of these folks, including Karl Marx, ran off of Hegelian dialects where you create the situation for you to offer the cure. Social Contracts run the same for common people to forfeit certain freedoms to preserve those which will be allotted to you, liberty vs safety, security and surveillance.
https://deadspin.com/the-story-behind-the-masked-horror-of-the-munich-olympi-1792823912
https://www.history.com/news/1988-seoul-olympics-north-korea-terrorist-attack
https://web.archive.org/web/20211103171754/https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/zeitgeist
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower’s_farewell_address
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93industrial_complex
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract
As Romney’s life went along so did his political affiliation, his investments, and his agenda. 9/11 “changed the world as we know knew it” much like Covid-19 “this is the new normal and you can forget about how everything used to be“. Many world leaders and media outlets said nearly the exact same thing. 9/11 reshaped privacy throughout the world and within the United States of America developments such as the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), The Patriot Act and even more. They all rose from the ashes and morphed into what we know them to be today.
Even new Foreign and Domestic Policies through surveillance in many forms in the name of “safety” also morphed into what we know and see them to be today, More Security-Less Liberty https://www.hsaj.org/articles/67. Only 5 months after 9/11 Romney is now in charge of the disastrous planning of the 2002 SLC Winter Olympics (remember all the Olympic catastrophes earlier).
This Olympic event being yet another committee became marinated in a U.S. bribery scandal, and Romney’s ticket to favored public appeal as an IOC “hero” through media outlets. Another seat Romney had a shoe in with as “hero” or “a better candidate” was his run for governor of Massachusetts.
Romney’s ascension to governor of Massachusetts may have been a visual performance as an authentic run by an authentic man for people everywhere watching. Although his placement within the candidacy may not have been authentic considering his entry run against Jane Swift. Romney has history within Massachusetts from schooling to business by big players. If advocates went against the GOP rep Jane Swift, who was failing miserably, then a “successful”, charismatic, publicly favored figure, then a yes man or woman would be more advantageous to the party and the people within it.
A candidate beefed up by media outlets unto a desperate-for-better public. “Swift became very unpopular after succeeding Paul Cellucci as governor. Massachusetts’ “long, successful string of GOP governors” would have almost been broken if Swift had been the Republican nominee in 2002. State party activists went to Utah to draft Romney to run, fearing that the governorship was at stake. Polls showed Swift losing to every Democratic gubernatorial candidate while Romney was beating all of them in head-to-head matchups.”
At this point again, Romney would be stepping into a committee riddled with corruption again to “save the day” within James P. Jajuga mishandling of grants with the Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council from 2001-2002. This issue was then followed by the Feb. 17 suicide of Richard St. Louis, a former state employee who received more than $2 million as a consultant from grants approved by his friend Jajuga. The executive office through which Romney planned to remake the state’s homeland security organization (DHS) itself needed to be remade.
https://www.hsaj.org/articles/67
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_Security_Administration
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Homeland_Security
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Counterterrorism_Center
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_policy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_policy_of_the_United_States
https://spectator.org/10700_jane-swift-boating-romney/
https://thecrimereport.org/2004/03/04/fbi-probes-massachusetts-law-enforcement-grants/
In 2003 he was sworn into office as governor of Massachusetts with DHS only being a few months old. With the issues Romney had dealt with in the Utah Winter Olympics, it all led Romney to overhaul DHS and to shape levels of national policy. Joshua Filler, DHS director of the Office of State and Local Government Coordination from 2003-2005 stated, “The Olympics experience exposed him to some of the very real threats faced by the United States in a post 9/11 world. It was clear that experience played a role in his involvement and thinking on homeland security issues.”
Governor Romney pushed for vast data mining centers, wiretapping of mosques, spying on foreign students, and enlisting average citizens to keep tabs on fellow Americans; “An Olympic sized intelligence network“. Rocky Anderson filed a law suit against President Bush and other agencies on the vast surveillance during the 2002 SLC Winter Olympics which only exposed the level of the surveillance topic.
When Bush responded to being called out on the abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Bush replied, “Those rules don’t apply to me“. With President Bush’s administration still looking for people who could help “make-sense” of the post 9/11 world, Romney stuck out.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mitt-romney-homeland-security-massachusetts_n_1467940
https://www.democracynow.org/2016/1/29/former_salt_lake_city_mayor_sues
https://rockyanderson.org/law-practice/nsa/
In Salt Lake City the 2002 Olympic Winter Games were the first Winter Games to use Real-Time Outbreak and Disease Surveillance (RODS) technology. RODS is a digital public health surveillance system according to the International Olympic Committee (IOC). It is is also affiliated with the Bio surveillance section of the U.S. Biological Defense Programs and Projects. According to RODS website, a RODS distinguished former student, post docs and collaborators include:
Wendy Chapman, Chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics at the University of Utah.
RODS is also affiliated with the IOC. IOC stated that “The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York City, and the bioterrorism acts in October 2001 (anthrax)…… The spirit of collaboration and unity prompted by these incidents, and the approaching Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City, provided the opportunity to deploy an automated syndromic surveillance system.”…… Provided the opportunity to deploy an automated syndromic surveillance system!
According to IOC, the Utah Department of Health and local health department officials readily accepted RODS for the Games. According to Cindy Gillespie, a close Romney aide in Salt Lake City and later in Boston, she said Romney learned about “the complexity of the American law enforcement system and how important it is having it work at the local, state and federal level, working together and keeping power dispersed at all levels.”
When asked for comment about Romney’s homeland security views, the Romney campaign referred the call to Gillespie. “He’s had hands-on experience in this area,” Gillespie explained. “He had an understanding that you could never make security work in this country until you figured out how to integrate intelligence available at every level of law enforcement”.
Cindy Gillispie served as a senior advisor to former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, served as a senior executive for the not-for-profit Salt Lake Olympic Committee, responsible for hosting the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Winter Games, and she was director at the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games the non-profit also involved in committee scandals. Gillespie also led the Commonwealth of Massachusetts interactions with the federal government and oversaw the development and implementation of the Administration’s Executive Branch Initiatives. She has a useful track record. She is now resigning as Arkansas director at the Department of Health and Human Services.
https://olympics.com/ioc/news/health-surveillance-technology
https://sgp.fas.org/crs/terror/RL32152.html#_1_3
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mitt-romney-homeland-security-massachusetts_n_1467940
https://nypost.com/1999/02/20/atlanta-gets-tossed-into-growing-olympic-scandal-ring/
In May 2005 Romney opens up two of the country’s first Fusion Centers in Massachusetts one being Commonwealth Fusion Center and Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC)
https://www.mail-archive.com/osint@yahoogroups.com/msg15556.html
https://atlasofsurveillance.org/a/aos2482-massachusetts-commonwealth-fusion-center-fusion-center
These are 2 out of 79 Fusion Centers that collect mass amounts of information and share it with state and federal agencies. Here is the SIAC Fusion Center website for Utah https://siac.utah.gov/. Whether we agreed to this or not as citizens it goes to show as George bush said “These rules don’t apply to me”. Stated in 2011 by Erik J. Dahl Homeland Security Affairs Journal of the NPS Center for Homeland Defense and Security and assistant professor of national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, and a faculty member of the Center for Homeland Defense and Security “More Security-Less Liberty”. Dahl shares “the development of a vast domestic intelligence structure since 9/11 has moved the balance [between security and liberty] quite firmly in the direction of more security, but less liberty.” https://www.hsaj.org/articles/67 .
This is a quote from Romney to CNN host Wolf Blitzer on the Covid-19 lockdowns and economic closure in a 2020 article proving Erik Dahls observation is absolutely accurate, “Mitt Romney: No question, unless you take this very, very seriously and communicate that this is not a political matter, this is not a matter of liberty, this is a matter of safety and public health,” “The extraordinary loss of life is heartbreaking—and in some respects, unnecessary. We have relaxed our standards as individuals.”. So we’ve become complacent again and safety is the term always used to justify “non political” actions.
Romney pushed as chairman of a federal task force for intelligence sharing. “He was definitely instrumental in laying the intellectual framework for fusion centers, and the role of state and local law enforcement in domestic counter terrorism and the need for clear guidelines concerning state and local domestic intelligence gathering,” Joshua Filler said. Oddly yet not so oddly Romney did not seek approval from state legislators or the public but issued an executive order instead, Executive Order No. 476. Before he left the office his aids erased all of his administration’s electronic records. This doesn’t seem to come as a surprise because if the public is left out of developing their own surveillance, then the records that documented much of his development and governing in this area should be erased.
https://www.mail-archive.com/osint@yahoogroups.com/msg15556.html
https://atlasofsurveillance.org/a/aos2482-massachusetts-commonwealth-fusion-center-fusion-center
https://www.hsaj.org/articles/67
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mitt-romney-homeland-security-massachusetts_n_1467940
These developments are all very reminiscent of 1984-Big Brother-Orwell it’s as if over our lifetime the book is literally manifesting as a specter or a KGB/Gestapo whisp. Even so the transition from the justified “foreign Terrorist threat” has miraculously morphed into the “domestic terrorist threats”. It too is unveiled by the government term for “domestic terrorist” as of 2022 and has been turned against the people onto those who are classified, labelled, and deemed as “terrorists”. This term has been applied by the government while almost aiding terrorists themselves as sympathizers. 9/11 and any other global incident has been instrumental in this transition to justify the pressing hand of the specter of governments as the IOC stated.
Take advantage of unfortunate events. As Saul D. Alinsky said and Hillary Clinton amusingly quoting Alinsky, “Never let a good crisis go to waste“- combined with Hegelianism, you seem to have these never-ending man-made crisis opportunities to take advantage of. But Carol Rose of the ACLU said that “while the Obama administration has done little to shrink the national security bureaucracy that Bush built yet Romney was an affirmative, unapologetic proponent of building a domestic surveillance infrastructure” that is “really focused on ‘the enemy within. I haven’t seen a lot of evolution in terms of his thinking on homeland security,” Rose also said. “He still seems to be stuck in a hyper-militarized, hyper-surveillance mindset.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/uncle-joe-and-his-not-so-little-red-speech
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Alinsky
https://www.theintelligencer.net/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/2020/03/virus-an-opportunity/
https://www.salvationandsurvival.com/2014/07/the-hegelian-dialectic-border-crisis.html
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3654155
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Hegelianism
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mitt-romney-homeland-security-massachusetts_n_1467940
By 2003 Romney wanted to enlist common residence into an “intelligence network” to help prevent and detect future plots stating citizens had “fallen into complacency” towards terrorism. Obviously to the evolution of the surveillance states, individuals within IT, engineering, scientific communities have made this evolution possible by joining in intelligence networks. Individuals within law enforcement. Definition of complacent:
complacent
adjective disapproving
US /kəmˈpleɪ.sənt/ UK /kəmˈpleɪ.sənt/
Feeling so satisfied with your own abilities or situation you feel you need not try any harder:
With this assumption, Romney proposed a mandate to give state officials training to analyze intelligence data as the federal government does. The federal government specter expanded into state operations. In Boston, the Boston Police likely have access to these tools, and can view the cameras from their multiple operations centers, including the Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC), the regional fusion/surveillance center funded by the DHS. Again, the same DHS that Romney cochairs at the National Governor’s Association’s Homeland Security Task Force. Romney said, “Massachusetts is engaged in a top-to-bottom assessment of homeland-security needs across all 351 cities towns, and when finished, will seek additional federal help“.
The federal government has continued to help and through the Federal Protective Services (FPS) branch. The FPS has been termed “The Backbone” of the entire system headquartered in the JFK building where numerous cameras were installed during the 2004 Democratic National convention (DNC) in Boston. The FPS was the hub for these cameras then and the federal government allowed the continued use of the space for the CCTV expansion project funded by Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI). Romney wasn’t lying when he said he’d get more federal help on the matters because the federal footprints expanded within the state. Washington sent another $50 million to help pay for security at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. Romney said in 2005. ”Meter readers, EMS drivers, law enforcement, private sector personnel need to be on the lookout for information which may be as useful.”.
John Cohen was Romney’s senior homeland security adviser in Massachusetts and has also been involved in DHS monitoring of social media sites including Facebook and Twitter. If there’s a vague justified reason for government projects eventually it can be turned against the public. All you need is a reason to install anything that will not disappear but only evolve after its initial use. Like the DNC in 2004 and the continuation of the surveillance installed at the Winter Olympics in SLC; it was also so with the Logan International Airport in Boston after 9/11. Romney’s Olympics experience wasn’t the only reason he was on so many homeland security committees. The two planes that crashed into New York’s World Trade Center took off from Boston’s Logan International Airport. Logan International Airport would become a laboratory for dozens of security programs later introduced at airports, institutions, and cities nationwide. Romney advocated wiretapping mosques and spying on foreign students “never waste a good crisis“. As we can see again this has been turned against the people by the same people who advocated unity through a “common enemy”.
How could it have become that “everyone is a suspect” , quoted by Romney, until proven innocent. What became of “innocent until proven guilty” or the presumption of innocence. There is no assumption or presumption of guilt within an entire state or country this is well described in Article VI of the Bill of Rights and the Sixth Amendment. State officials and agencies are not judges unless these states and our country were to be totalitarian deprived of all law. It seems though we are slowly inching in that totalitarian direction and Romney seems ambitious.
https://thecrimereport.org/2003/09/17/complacency-on-terrorism-cited-by-gov-mitt-romney/
https://www.homelandsecuritygrants.info/GrantDetails.aspx?gid=17162
https://thecrimereport.org/2003/09/17/complacency-on-terrorism-cited-by-gov-mitt-romney/
https://privacysos.org/cctv-boston/
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tsa-program-questions-air_n_995171
With the lead to the Boston Marathon Bombing, and having established Romney’s implementation of IP, CCTV, Fusion Center based security, I think moving on from here, from the need for surveillance in the U.S.A., Boston area and beyond, would seem apparent. From convention surveillance to the Logan Airport experiments to fusion centers and Massachusetts inner city projects, all happening under Romney’s watch, it may be even more revealing to endeavor into the investments of such installments that concern companies abroad that specialize in public surveillance and suppression. Companies that have borne Romney a decent amount of criticism. If we can go back to Bain Capital, we may find a few publicly discreet investments. Everything that affects people is disclosed but it’s unfortunate that it’s interwoven within a maze. All is disclosed, we just need to find it. If we can’t find it, then it was intentionally erased but not forever.