More evidence has surfaced that Bush was not sincere when he said that we must fight a war against terror and that the war can be won and must be won. Most of us know about the UAE port deal with a country whose royal family once sheltered Bin Laden from a CIA attack that would have killed him. But there is another piece of evidence that Bush is not sincere when talks about terrorists – he considers peace activists to be terrorists.
Most of us would think of terrorists as people like Bin Laden whose purpose is to kill innocent civilians at random for political purposes. But not Bush. He thinks that anybody who expresses their First-Amendment right to dissent from the President’s policies is a terrorist and must be tracked as much as possible. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer link provides a list of Washington-area peace groups who have been spied on by the Bush administration.
Among the activities being performed by the Bush administration include infiltrating meetings and maintaining a database on local peace groups. All of this is domestic spying and illegal under the Constitution, which forbids surveillance of private meeting without probable cause. The domestic spying occurred as a response to 9/11:
The old guidelines required that a crime had been committed or was being planned. The new guidelines create a category called “threat assessment,” and no crime has to be committed or planned to perform a threat assessment.
Under a threat assessment, a federal criminal justice source said, agents can attend public meetings without identifying themselves and conduct such simple surveillance as watching a protest march.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the FBI acknowledged that their agencies collect and disseminate information on U.S. political activists. But the agencies say that they only gather information on those who either break laws or plan to do so.
In other words, the FBI and the NCIS are using the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to infiltrate and montior the meetings of peace groups. This is another example of how the Bush administration is drunk with power and therefore sees fit to trample on the Fourth Amendment in any way that they see fit. They are not really concerned with stopping the terrorists – they are exploiting the tragic deaths of the World Trade Center bombing to grab power.
Another spying activity involves the Joint Enterprise Protection Network, a Pentagon-based counter-intelligence spying program. The Bush administration is so obsessed with spying on peace activists that the Pentagon is wasting taxpayer dollars maintaining a whole database on their activities.
One key Pentagon database was piloted here, the Joint Protection Enterprise Network. Its purpose is to share intelligence to safeguard military bases, including seven around Puget Sound. It’s controlled by the Pentagon’s secretive Counterintelligence Field Activity office. The Pentagon did not return numerous calls for an explanation about the database.
All of this is consistent with the ongoing pattern of behavior from the Bush administration. Among other activities targeting peace activists, they targeted 10 different peace marches as part of their illegal wiretapping program. And we also have Donald Rumsfeld and his hysterical litany of excuses blaming bloggers and peace activists for losing the War in Iraq.
From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer link, here are some of the peace groups in the Seattle area that Bush is targeting. Please consider visiting their websites, sending money, or writing them a letter of support:
A group of older women dedicated to peaceful protest. For some reason, all the listings of Seattle’s office are redirected to San Francisco’s instead. But here is their contact info:
halecarolyn@juno.com
The Raging Grannies of Seattle
4509 Interlake Ave. N., #128,
Seattle WA 98103
Spokespersons: Elisabeth Hebert, Elaine Birn, Carolyn Hale
The link contains a directory of all their chapters.
One of the chief groups protesting the war during the leadup in 2002 and 2003. The Seattle chapter’s contact info:
seattle@notinourname.net
Not in Our Name Seattle
4509 Interlake Avenue North, #190
Seattle, Washington 98103
Founded in 1977, this group nonviolently protests the Trident nuclear missile program.
info@gzcenter.org
Ground Zero Center
for Nonviolent Action
16159 Clear Creek Rd
Poulsbo, WA 98370
This group specializes in unconventional means of protest, including surrounding Coast Guard vessels with inflatable vessels.
mvp-seattle@comcast.net
MVP-Seattle
915 West Blaine St.
Seattle, WA 98119
An umbrella organization consisting of many local Progressive groups. Here is a directory of the groups they link to.
You may copy and paste the e-mail links here to save yourself time:
halecarolyn@juno.com; seattle@notinourname.net; info@gzcenter.org; mvp-seattle@comcast.net
Most of us may not agree with the aims and goals of all of the groups listed here. But this is all about their ability to express their First Amendment rights to protest against an administration that they see as wrong and not about whether we agree with all their aims. This is an issue that affects all of us. If the Bush administration continues their systematic crackdown on dissent in the name of stopping terrorism, then how much longer will it be before they start cracking down on us? The main question the Bush administration should have to answer and the main question you should ask your Republican friends is where does it all end? Are they saying that the Democratic Party must be abolished because they are insufficiently supportive of the so-called War on Terror?
Another question the Bush administration and their rapidly-dwindling band of apologists should have to answer is where is Bin Laden? Is George Bush so scared of Bin Laden that he would rather bully peace activists because they are such an easy scapegoat rather than go after Bin Laden? Does this explain his vacillation between saying that Osama is wanted “dead or alive” and his current total lack of concern about where he is?
Many of these groups commit civil disobedience by entering military bases, come too close to Coast Guard ships, and other such actions. But all of these actions are simple misdemeanors and are already covered under existing laws. I challenge the Bush administration, their apologists, and critics of civil disobedience even on this site to show me one instance where non-violent civil disobedience ever led to the loss of a human life. On the other hand, I can think of over 3,000 lives that were lost at the expense of Bin Laden. Are we going to have to have another 9/11 before the Bush administration quits targeting peace activists and devotes all their resources to the capture of Bin Laden and the breakup of Al Qaeda?
I talked to one of my friends about this as I was writing this piece. She put it perfectly – the Bush administration is obsessing over these people because they are making him look bad. This is totally like an administration that devotes none of its efforts to actually governing this country and all of its efforts to gimmicks, PR, paying off journalists, and spin.
There is a time and a place for civil disobedience. It was justified when we revolted against the British and refused to pay taxes because of their dictatorial behavior. It was justified when the abolitionists illegally conducted slaves to freedom in the face of death. One of my ancestors paid for it with her life and her family had to flee the Carolinas to Kansas. It was justified when labor unions came into being and demanded better working conditions for everybody. It is justified when people decide that they cannot conscientiously participate in a war that they do not believe in. It was justified during the great civil rights struggles in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Ali’s refusal to be inducted into the military was justifiable.
Every person has to decide these things for themselves and be prepared to face the legal consequences, including jail, fines, and the threat of constant surveillance by the Bush administration. This country was founded on civil disobedience and people who engage in it still share the values of this country. The Bush administration, which tramples on the Fourth Amendment to spy on these groups, does not.
We are losing the war in Iraq, and the Bush administration knows it. But given the fact that Rove admired Richard Nixon growing up, I suggest they are adopting the same tactic as the Nixon administration and their apologists and defenders did after the Vietnam War – use the peace activists as an excuse for why they lost the war. Excuses are for losers, and Rumsfeld’s hysterical behavior is no different than many other excuse-makers throughout history. Frankly, if these people had been candidates on The Apprentice, they would have been fired right off the bat for their whining, finger-pointing, and blaming others for their misfortunes.