CoIntelPro Redux

Please allow me to quote a couple of paragraphs from Steven Grant’s Master of the Obvious column for this week–as I’ve mentioned before, this nominally comic book column often does a great job of simply explaining some of Bush’s nasty moves. Well, this week it’s not so much Bush…

Jeez, do we have to fight everybody all the time? If it’s not the Office Of Homeland Security declaring masses of American Muslims potential terrorists because they attended a religious conference in Canada (remember, the Patriot Act gives “the President” the power to declare anyone a terrorist for any reason) it’s the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives voting overwhelmingly (and I mean six votes against; too bad Dennis Kucinich is so invisible as a presidential candidate because he votes in the right place) to pass The Violent Radicalization And Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act Of 2007. Anyone remember Cointelpro? That was a lovely little FBI scheme of the ‘60s and ‘70s – of course, for years the FBI denied that it ever existed, but you can go into pretty much any library and find thick books all about it – to “observe” “dangerous” organizations within American borders. Which pretty much meant anyone J. Edgar Hoover took a dislike to, which was pretty much everyone (except the Mob, which didn’t officially exist in Hoover’s world) who envisioned an America somewhat different from the turn of the century world Hoover grew up in. Student organizations, civil rights groups, religious groups, anti-war groups and peace organizations, political movements like the Black Panthers and the American Indian Movement, all were equally subject to “observation,” and in the FBI framework “observation” was often liberally interpreted to mean infiltration and set up, with agents frequently working their way to power positions then inciting group members to “violent resistance” or, if they weren’t biting, committing violence in the group name so that arrests could be made and the groups/movements broken up. Like I said, go to the library and read all about it. This activity was going on even after Cointelpro was officially acknowledged and pronounced long ended, but if similar programs haven’t been going on in the meantime, they can now, legally (Cointelpro wasn’t exactly legal at the time, though Hoover and other FBI officials took the position that if it was necessary it didn’t have to be legal), if the Senate follows suit, because there’s virtually no chance the Ghost would veto it should the bill arrive on his desk.

Pure and simple, the measure allows the government to freely spy on anyone whose politics whoever is in power at the moment doesn’t happen to like. On the basis that contrary politics potentially leads to violent resistance, in which they include potential violent resistance. Which is pretty long stretch in most cases, but pretty is the word for this bill: it creates pretty bureaucracies like “The National Commission On The Prevention Of Violent Radicalization And Ideologically Based Violence”Quoting from stealthbadger.net:

So experts in the fields of analyzing, predicting, and modifying human behavior so that it falls into a desired “social norm,” people who know stuff about brown people (especially those who pray five times a day), and those who know how to lock deviant people up and put them through the court system. Okay, so you want a HUAC for the 21st century. Congressional attack committees: they’re not just for Commies anymore.

and “The Center Of Excellence,” basically a think tank to study “violent radicalization.” Considering how broadly many police forces, and the current administration, have defined “violent resistance” – protest marches, for instance, and anti-logging sit-ins, and, in fact, anything that “interrupts” the flow of commerce – this is one scary measure. Of course, “ideologically based” doesn’t seem to recognize the dominant ideology as ideology – everyone always believes their own ideology is the baseline and ideologically neutral – and no one involved with the bill seems to realize that crap like this is exactly why people get violently radicalized. The House voted thumbs up on this nonsense in late October, the Senate has yet to consider it. Like many such bills of this nature, the terms uses are ridiculously vague, partly because many Congresspeople are terrified that any attempt to limit Draconian measures will be used during political campaigns to paint them as “soft” on crime and/or terrorism, and partly because people in power prefer the ability to broadly interpret. Hopefully the Senate will plunge a dagger through this vile little bit of un-American legislation, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Not that there haven’t been precedents, but it didn’t take Congress very long to turn the “war on terror” into open season on American citizens, did it? Of course, if you’re not guilty of anything you have nothing to fear, right? As long as no one thinks you’re guilty of anything, anyway. Or potentially guilty.

And this one we owe to the Democrats.

The links in there are my additions.