{"id":9141,"date":"2016-01-18T15:21:06","date_gmt":"2016-01-18T20:21:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=9141"},"modified":"2016-01-18T21:34:09","modified_gmt":"2016-01-19T02:34:09","slug":"my-supreme-covert-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/18\/my-supreme-covert-failure\/","title":{"rendered":"My Supreme Covert Failure"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Grey-Man-474x300\"<\/a>

Grey Man jpeg from the Liberty Under Attack blog<\/p><\/div>\n

The Liberty Under Attack<\/a><\/strong> blog last week had an essay on “Blending In: The Art of the Grey Man<\/a>” –<\/p>\n

“Given the fact that American dissidents are\u00a0<\/span>unjustly profiled<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>by the government, it stands to reason that\u00a0<\/span>direct action<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>must be taken to stymie the\u00a0<\/span>creation of political prisoners<\/a>. Whether these injustices are due to malice or stupidity, the fact of the matter is that\u00a0<\/span>the answer to security theater is security culture<\/a><\/strong>, and the foundational basis for security culture is the practice of being a grey man. A \u201cgrey man<\/a>\u201d is defined as: ‘A man who can blend in to any scene or situation without standing out, hiding his skills and qualities.’\u201d<\/p>\n

The blog article cited my experience as an example of what not to do:<\/p>\n

Distinguishing the line between appearance and behavior is not as sharp and defined as you would initially assume.\u00a0<\/span>Back in 1995<\/a>, James Bovard was evicted from the press section of the\u00a0<\/span>United States Supreme Court\u2019s courtroom<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>during oral arguments for the Bennis v. Michigan<\/a><\/em>\u00a0<\/span>[516 U.S. 442]\u00a0<\/span>civil asset forfeiture<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>case, simply because\u00a0<\/span>he laughed too loudly<\/a>, although the \u201cofficial\u201d reason was that he was inadvertently violating the dress code. Whether it be due to appearance or behavior (or both), Bovard\u2019s experience is invaluable for demonstrating that when you go visit the government, discretion really is the better part of valor.<\/p>\n

I wish I got a funny writeup in the Washington Post<\/em> every time my subversive tendencies were exposed (as happened with that case in 1995).\u00a0At least Liberty Under Attack<\/em> didn’t suggest that I shave.\u00a0\u00a0The only way that my laugh could fly under the radar is if I stop drinking beer. And if I have to start exercising discretion when I visit federal agencies,\u00a0 my job satisfaction could take a helluva hit.<\/p>\n

\"New-Website-Banner\"<\/a>ing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Liberty Under Attack blog last week had an essay on “Blending In: The Art of the Grey Man” – “Given the fact that American dissidents are\u00a0unjustly profiled\u00a0by the government, it stands to reason that\u00a0direct action\u00a0must be taken to stymie the\u00a0creation of political prisoners. Whether these injustices are due to malice or stupidity, the fact […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[502,274,804,24,665],"class_list":["post-9141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-buffoonery-2","tag-buffoonery","tag-covert-activities","tag-supreme-court","tag-surveillance"],"yoast_head":"\nMy Supreme Covert Failure - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/18\/my-supreme-covert-failure\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My Supreme Covert Failure - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Liberty Under Attack blog last week had an essay on “Blending In: The Art of the Grey Man” – “Given the fact that American dissidents are\u00a0unjustly profiled\u00a0by the government, it stands to reason that\u00a0direct action\u00a0must be taken to stymie the\u00a0creation of political prisoners. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","https:\/\/x.com\/jimbovard"],"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9141"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9148,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9141\/revisions\/9148"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}