Criminalizing Dissent?
by Marianne Arbogast

On Sept. 11, shortly after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, political prisoners in a number of facilities across the country were placed in segregation, with little or no explanation from prison authorities. Those isolated included Leonard Peltier, Marilyn Buck and Philip Berrigan. Berrigan – who has consistently affirmed a commitment to nonviolence – remained in segregation for 12 days at FCI Elkton federal prison in Lisbon, Ohio, denied contact with family and friends as well as fellow inmates. In some cases, prisoners were refused contact with their lawyers, says Mike Yasutake, an Episcopal priest and director of the Interfaith Prisoners of Conscience Project. "Even in ‘normal’ times, the denial of basic rights is most severe for political prisoners," Yasutake says. "The word ‘terrorism’ is a very convenient term that has often been used against political prisoners."

If the freedom of a society can be measured by its tolerance for dissent, there are ominous signs on the post-Sept.-11th horizon. Perhaps most alarming is the passage, with little opposition, of the USA Patriot Act in October.

"What it seems to do is to give the executive branch an exorbitant amount of discretion in its ability to collect intelligence, to sidestep the warrant requirements of the Fourth Amendment," says David Walsh-Little, an attorney and member of Viva House Catholic Worker in Baltimore. "We are now going to spy on folks in the U.S. It can’t be good for civil liberties and it will probably have negative effects for the poor, for minorities and for political activists."

Walsh-Little calls the changes brought about by the Act "Orwellian."

"There’s a section that allows the feds to search your house repeatedly without telling you at the time. There are a number of provisions that open the door to documents the feds now can get access to – such as educational records – simply by asserting that they need it for their investigation. There was a pretty good federal law that protected access to your credit – this wipes that out. Historically, the Fourth Amendment requires a warrant, for the government to show probable cause of crime – the exception was for foreign intelligence. Now they can do intelligence-gathering on all U.S. citizens without getting a warrant. I would expect not only an increase in wiretaps of citizens, but that it stays secret – an extremely scary provision."

These changes are not limited to terrorist investigations, but are "changes to criminal law across the board," Walsh-Little explains. "They can be used in any criminal investigation that the FBI or any of its subsidiaries engages in."

The USA Patriot Act also creates a new crime – "domestic terrorism." According to an American Civil Liberties Union report, you can be charged with domestic terrorism if you engage in illegal activity within the U.S. that "involves acts dangerous to human life" which "appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping."

The ACLU "does not oppose the criminal prosecution of people who commit acts of civil disobedience if those acts result in property damage or place people in danger," their report explains. Their objection lies with an "over-broad definition" that "turns ordinary citizens into terrorists," and could "sweep in people who engage in acts of political protest as if those acts were dangerous to human life."

Would World Trade Organization protesters – or those who house them, since charges can be extended to those who offer assistance – be prosecuted as terrorists, they ask? Members of Greenpeace? Protesters who damage a naval base fence in Vieques, Puerto Rico?

Another provision of the Act – of particular concern to immigrant advocates – permits detention and deportation of non-citizens who assist even lawful activities of a group the government deems terrorist. This creates a "very serious risk that truly innocent individuals could be deported for truly innocent association with political groups that the government later chooses to regard as terrorist organizations," according to the ACLU. "Under the bill, people can be deported regardless of whether they knew of the designation and regardless of whether their assistance had anything to do with the group’s alleged terrorist activity." Critics of the Act point out that it was rushed through Congress with little chance for debate. "Almost everyone had to concede that it was impossible to comprehend or even read the bill," wrote Jesuit priest and former Democratic Congressman Robert Drinan in the National Catholic Reporter (10/26/01). "Even those most familiar with the challenges to our freedoms in wartime cannot yet fully appreciate the extent of the evils and errors in the hastily concocted measures alleged to be needed to control terrorism. The climate in which this bill was authored and enacted is a period of almost open hysteria with the administration and intelligence agencies literally demanding that Congress act immediately to give them what they have wanted for many years." In the name of combatting terrorism, "the entire criminal investigatory make-up has changed," Walsh-Little says. "If you think law enforcement should be limited in some way, those powers have been distorted. We’re doing what we criticize Afghanistan for doing."

Marianne Arbogast is Associate Editor of The Witness.