Matthew
Harwood guardian.co.uk
October 15, 2008
US states are spying on political activists and classifying
them as terrorists in order to stifle protest...
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.
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