US states are spying on political activists and classifying them as terrorists in order to stifle protest
[guardian.co.uk] There’s an old saying that
circulates in more politically radical circles: "Protest is
patriotism." In this post-September 11 world of paranoia and political
expediency, however, protest, an essence of democracy, has morphed into
something perfectly Orwellian: terrorism.
Two recent events
demonstrate how easy it is for the government to dilute words and their
meanings to close off opposition and dissent. Last week, the Maryland
state police disclosed that 53 nonviolent anti-war and anti-death penalty activists were tracked
for 14 months in 2005 and 2006 under the state’s terrorism surveillance
programme, and that their names had been added to the state’s and the
National Security Agency’s database. Who are these sinister
terrorists? Two of the activists caught in the Maryland dragnet are
Carol Gilbert and Ardeth Platte, Dominican nuns in the Roman Catholic
Church who did indeed break the law in acts of civil disobedience. On
October 2, 2002, in response to the first anniversary of the war in
Afghanistan, they broke into a missile silo in northeastern Colorado
and painted bloody crosses on it.
Understanding that acts of
civil disobedience carry grave consequences, Gilbert and Platte paid a
hefty price for their protest: they went to prison. Gilbert received 30
months in a federal penitentiary while Platte was sentenced to 41
months for injuring government property and obstructing national
defence. The nuns no doubt agree with Thoreau’s famous saying: "Under a
government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is
also a prison."
But being labelled terrorists is too much for
them. They say they protest in pursuit of peace and truth. "We’re
Dominicans. Our mission is ‚veritas‘, which is truth," Gilbert told the Washington Times.
They aren’t even sure how their names were included in the Maryland
state police’s database, since they say they weren’t involved with the
protests the state police say they monitored. The surveillance
programme has been shut down, and police superintendent Terrence
Sheridan admitted to the Maryland Senate last week that "The names
don’t belong in there. It’s as simple as that." The activists have been
notified that they can review their files before they are purged from
the databases.
Farther to the north, another state is experimenting with a far more audacious assault on democracy. In 2002, Minnesota liberalised the legal definition of terrorism,
according to the Associated Press, to include actions "intended to
interfere with the conduct of government or the right of lawful
assembly." Essentially, it’s Minnesota’s version of the US Patriot Act.
Ramsey county police used the statute to break up an anarchist
group called the RNC Welcoming Committee that planned to carry out
direct action protests, including roadblocks, to prevent delegates to
the Republican national convention from entering the Xcel Center in
Minneapolis. Eight leaders of the organisation were arrested before a
protest was even launched. They face seven and a half years in prison
if convicted.
No doubt these actions are crimes, but as Stephen
Vladeck, associate professor at American University Washington College
of Law, told the AP: "One of the biggest concerns among scholars who
debate the definition of terrorism is that an overbroad definition
would both dilute the real sense of terrorism and punish conduct that
has traditionally been a far more minor offence."
What’s
frightening about these recent incidents is twofold. First, the
Maryland police programme raises the question of how extensive this
devolution of surveillance from the federal government to individual
states has become. We already have the national security state.
Must Americans worry that state and municipal governments will also
increasingly monitor peaceful people who participate in political
activities?
Second, the terrorism charges brought against
activists like Gilbert and Platte and the members of the RNC Welcoming
Committee have, in effect, criminalised protest. This is all the more
serious because Minnesota had the audacity to not only revise the
terrorism statutes to hamper acts of civil disobedience but also to
bring such draconian charges against the group’s members before they
even committed a criminal act. Seven and a half years for planning to
block entrance to the Xcel Center, spray police and delegates with
urine and even spread marbles on the ground a la Animal House is
excessive and ridiculous.
Again, there’s no doubt that these
actions would get the protesters arrested, possibly even charged in
earlier times with a felony, but to suggest this is terrorism says much
about our society. Those in charge will not tolerate a vibrant culture
of dissent – a novel irony in such an overwhelmingly Christian country
whose saviour found himself on a cross for his civil disobedience in
the temple.
The group’s activists have no illusions about what
Ramsey county is up to. "Conspiracy charges serve a very particular
purpose – to criminalise dissent," the RNC Eight wrote to their supporters.
"They create a convenient method for incapacitating activists, with the
potential for diverting limited resources toward protracted legal
battles and terrorising entire communities into silence and inaction."
It’s
startling to think that in the US we even have the pretension to argue
about the merits of exporting democracy when such blatant
authoritarianism continues to run rampant here at home.
