Protesters and the War on Terror
Gwen Shaffer writes in the August 2nd The New Republic that the difference between public protest and terrorism has become blurred in the minds of governmental authorities.
For the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) meeting in Miami, FL, Miami police received $8.5 million in federal funding from an Iraq appropriations bill, which they used to stock up on "less lethal" weapons such as rubber bullets, concussion grenades, Tasers, tear gas, beanbag projectiles, and water cannons with which to "shock and awe" protesters.
The article also discusses the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center (CATIC), which is funded by the state of California and staffed by people from the FBI, DIA, and other federal, state and local agencies. CATIC has taken to monitoring state political protests and sending terrorism warnings to police officials. Oakland police cracked down on an antiwar demonstration on the basis of a CATIC memo warning about planned terrorism at the event.
CATIC spokesman Mike Van Winkle told reporters that the agency didn't need direct evidence of terrorist activity to justify the memo. "You can make an easy kind of link that, if you have a protest group protesting the war where the cause that's being fought against is international terrorism, you might have terrorism at that [event]," Van Winkle said. "You can almost argue that a protest against that is a terrorist act." The state rewarded the Oakland Police Department for crushing the protest. In July 2003, the California Office of Homeland Security paid local police $424,243 "for reimbursement of overtime costs incurred ... during the hostilities with Iraq." (Emphasis added.)
The article also discusses the G8 Summit at Sea Island, Georgia, where, as you may recall, most journalists were not even allowed within 80 miles of the festivities. Despite protesters being kept far away, Gov. Sonny Perdue was more than prepared:
Before a single banner was unfurled, Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue declared a state of emergency. Under the designation, any assembly could be deemed unlawful and Perdue could proclaim martial law. To pay for the agents and equipment, Georgia received $25 million as part of the $87 billion Congress allocated for Iraq. The Pentagon chipped in another $10 million for the National Guard troops.
In the end, security forces outnumbered protesters 67 to one.
Some, such as NYPD's deputy commissioner for public information Paul Browne, justify the added protection in terms of large protests being attractive targets for terrorist attacks. But as Shaffer rightly notes, it is one thing to add precautions to protect protests from terrorist attacks, and another to use those added precautions to abuse protesters.
Oh well, at least we live in a country with a Bill of Rights that ensures our right to a Free Speech Zone.
[n.b. I was unable to find a link to Shaffer's TNR article on the Web. I recommend it.]
11:46:10 AM 
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