Adan Salazar
Infowars.com
February 20, 2013

Efforts to demonize preppers are in full swing as one Philadelphia area survivalist can attest.

Fernando Antonio Salguero, 39, has forged a survivalist reputation for himself in and around the Philadelphia area, founding an 800-member strong Meetup group where people can discuss survivalism and preparedness items.

Salguero recently found himself on the wrong side of the law when he went into his neighboring state of New Jersey to contest a ticket.

He was approached by officers outside of the Somerdale, New Jersey municipal court last Tuesday originally because he was suspected of parking illegally, according to reports.

Police ran his license plate and found he had a previous weapons charge and an offense for driving with a revoked license, enough to evidently prompt them to employ a bomb-sniffing dog.

“A police dog indicated explosive materials in the car, but police found none,” the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote.

According to the Philadelphia Daily News, Salguero demanded police obtain a warrant prior to the search (destruction of his property?) – a right afforded him under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution (The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated..) – but when police failed to produce one, they went ahead with a K9 that alerted, and a bomb squad robot that “blew open the trunk of Salguero’s 2005 Ford Crown Victoria.”

“I offered them a key, but they just blew it open with their robot to justify them having their toys,” he said.

What dangerous items did they find in his trunk? Items you would normally find in any prepared person’s trunk: flares, an extendable baton and pepper-spray, which police labeled as “tear gas.”

When pressed to explain why he would have such dangerous items in his trunk, Salguero expressed to the Daily News that ideally he would like to be prepared for various scenarios and that New Jersey’s over-paranoia has led them to nearly become a complete “slave state”:

“If there’s a car accident and something’s on fire and there’s leaking fuel, I want to be able to affect a rescue of that person. A baton is there to break the windows. There’s no problem [with having a baton] here in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, but in the state of New Jersey the people are much closer to the slave state. Slaves are not allowed to be armed . . . at all.”

He was charged with weapons violations and possession of destructive devices and held on a $35,000 bail.

“Salguero, 39, is the founder of Survive and Thrive, an 800-member group that meets regularly to discuss such topics as ‘stealth and subterfuge,’ ‘repelling home invasions’ and ‘flexing the U.S. Constitution,’” according to the Philadelphia Daily News.

He supports Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Copblock.org, jury nullification, and pledges to the Constitution. He also refuses to fly because of invasive TSA airport procedures and is a staunch supporter of Ron Paul. Does this sound like someone you know?

Next month, he hopes to have the charges against him dismissed.

This is just one of the latest cases illustrating a concerted effort to single out “preppers” as thought criminals and potential terrorists.

Last year, a “prepper” from the National Geographic show Doomsday Preppers visited his doctor complaining of chest pains. When the doctor recommended he have tubes inserted to assist his breathing, survivalist David Sarti refused and was deemed suicidal, after which police were sent to his house to forcibly haul him to the emergency room. Later when he attempted to purchase a Glock 21 firearm, he found he had been flagged by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System and was denied the purchase.

Last year, we also learned the FBI was monitoring vistors to “prepper” website SurvivalBlog.com by means of a cookie that tracked their web activity.

In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook school tragedy, reports that suspected gunman Adam Lanza’s mother Marsha Lanza was a “prepper” began circulating, further adding fuel to the fire of prepper demonization.

Perhaps most disturbing, last October a National Guard member known as “Soldier X” spoke via phone with Infowars Nightly News Producer Rob Dew regarding a recent briefing his unit underwent on actions the military would take in the event that an Obama election loss sparked rioting in America’s streets.

He stated that soldiers had been told that if riots would have occurred, “Doomsday preppers will be treated as terrorists.”

“Citing not only recent widespread threats to riot if Mitt Romney were to become the next U.S. president, but threats to actually assassinate him should he win, Soldier X’s superiors dispensed plans of how the National Guard would be responsible for “taking over” and quelling such unrest,” reported Infowars’ Melissa Melton.

“’They have a list compiled of all these doomsday preppers that have gone public and they plan to go after them first,’ Soldier X said. He claimed those in charge are acting under the belief that preppers will be ‘the worst part’ of any potential civil unrest.”

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