Call for Hercules

Some years ago I was stunned to discover that the police in some states had a rather, shall we say liberal?, definition of "terrorist". I wrote then:

"Enemies in our own backyard" include Greens

Now Ashcroft's DoJ wants to have police collect information (a phrase, as Lemony Snickett might say, that here means spy) on "the Green Movement", which they define as "environmental activism that is aimed at political and social reform with the explicit attempt to develop environmental-friendly policy, law and behavior."

and this:

American Friends Service Committee: Criminal Extremists

At least in Colorado, where police maintain extensive files and dossiers on thousands of people belonging to 208 organizations. Doubtless some of those organizations are radical, not that Colorado has actually managed to find any activities or even any tendencies to criminal behavior. But the Chiapas Coaliton? Amnesty International? The American Friends Service Committee? Who's next?

Basically this is the totally predictable result of letting law enforcement off the leash: the dynamic tension between keeping the peace and allowing freedom always goes to the "prove you're innocent" side when the cops are in charge. It can't go otherwise: that's their job. But it's not the American way.

From day one, Americans have believed in "prove he's guilty". We've been willing to accept the risk that comes with that. Let's not throw in the towel and become what we're afraid of just to buy that extra bit of illusive safety.

Well, Ashcroft is long gone. But the madness of his party continues. The Washington Post reports today that Maryland State Police kept anti-capital-punishment and anti-war activists on "terrorist lists":

The Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent activists as terrorists and entered their names and personal information into state and federal databases that track terrorism suspects, the state police chief acknowledged yesterday.

The surveillance took place over 14 months in 2005 and 2006, under the administration of former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R). The former state police superintendent who authorized the operation, Thomas E. Hutchins, defended the program in testimony yesterday. Hutchins said the program was a bulwark against potential violence and called the activists "fringe people."

Sheridan said protest groups were also entered as terrorist organizations in the databases, but his staff has not identified which ones.

Hutchins told the committee it was not accurate to describe the program as spying. "I doubt anyone who has used that term has ever met a spy," he told the committee.

"What John Walker did is spying," Hutchins said... His officers sought a "situational awareness" of the potential for disruption as death penalty opponents prepared to protest the executions of two men on death row, Hutchins said.

[However] undercover troopers used aliases to infiltrate organizational meetings, rallies and group e-mail lists. He called the spying a "deliberate infiltration to find out every piece of information necessary" on groups such as the Maryland Campaign to End the Death Penalty and the Baltimore Pledge of Resistance.

...

The police also entered the activists' names into the federal Washington-Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area database, which tracks suspected terrorists. One well-known antiwar activist from Baltimore, Max Obuszewski, was singled out in the intelligence logs released by the ACLU, which described a "primary crime" of "terrorism-anti-government" and a "secondary crime" of "terrorism-anti-war protesters."

Sheridan said that he did not think the names were circulated to other agencies in the federal system and that they are not on the federal government's terrorist watch list. Hutchins said some names might have been shared with the National Security Agency.

Simply fucking astonishing. If it could happen in Maryland, it could happen pretty much anywhere (except maybe a couple of New England states. Maybe.) When Obama wins, he's going to have such a mess to clean up, the Augean Stables would look like a picnic.