Records Released Concerning Maryland's Treatment of Protesters as Terrorists
The Chesapeake Climate Action Network doesn't sound much like a terrorist organization, does it? It does to the Maryland State Police. The executive director and three staff members were entered into the agency's terrorism database, apparently because the group held a nonviolent protest at a high school where Gov. Robert Ehrlich Jr. was speaking about the need to reduce pollution from coal-fired power plants. The Network didn't believe Ehrlich's proposals were adequate, so its members let him know. In less troubled times, this was known as petitioning the government to redress a grievance, or was recognized as the exercise of free speech, both protected rights under the First Amendment.
Newly released files reveal previously unreported details about the actions of the Maryland State Police, a topic discussed in earlier TalkLeft posts here and here. The decision to label the Network's Executive Director as a terrorist seems odd since he didn't attend the protest. [more ...]
"I believe this was political retribution," [Executive Director Mike] Tidwell said yesterday.
The group's deputy director, Josh Tulkin, attended the protest. Here's what happened:
[Tulkin] recalled that when he walked into the school, security guards grabbed his shoulder and wrist, led him into an empty classroom and questioned him.
Other leaders of organizations that exercised their right to protest in Maryland -- and were labeled terrorists -- include members of Code Pink and a host of other organizations.
Those groups included not only death penalty and Iraq war protesters who were spied on by undercover troopers in a 2005-06 surveillance operation exposed in July, but also those who opposed abortion, the manufacture of cluster munitions, globalization and the government's expansion of biodefense research at Fort Detrick.
And:
Files were also compiled on two Catholic nuns from Baltimore and a former Democratic candidate for Congress, Barry Kissin. Kissin, his wife and two colleagues have marched peacefully through downtown Frederick since the anthrax attacks in 2001 to argue that the government's planned expansion of biodefense research poses a health threat.
Terrorist nuns must be a bigger problem in Maryland than they are in the rest of the nation. In any event, police were quite methodical in their construction of the database:
The individuals are listed under headings for "terrorism" with such labels as "anti-war protestors," "threats," "environmental extremists" and "anarchists," although there is no explanation why any of the groups or individuals would be considered terror threats or extremist groups.
An extremist, as understood by the Maryland State Police, seems to be anyone who expresses open disagreement with state government about a political policy. Those of you who thought you were free to disagree with your government without having a police file opened might want to avoid residence in Maryland. Or better yet, move to Maryland and protest daily until the state police give up their paranoid overreaction to peaceful dissent.
| < Daschle at HHS | Wednesday Open Thread > |
