Dancing versus murder

To: Retort
From: The "nervous liberal has a good point" department

Who will watch the watchmen?
 Richard Stallman
October 2001

 Today the security forces want to be allowed to seize credit card
information from Internet sites without a court order; they want to be able
to record what URLs you look at without a court order, which can tell them
such information as what books you have bought. There will be no difficulty
getting a court to approve a search warrant when there is credible evidence
of a terrorist plot, so they can investigate terrorists without this change.
Whenever police ask to be allowed to bypass search warrants, we must be on
guard.

We depend on the FBI to investigate suspected terrorists, but who else will
it investigate? Probably any real political opposition, since the FBI has a
long history of investigating dissidents purely for their political views.
Martin Luther King Jr.'s phone was tapped; his life-long commitment to
non-violence apparently was not enough reason to consider him
non-threatening. More recently, John Gilmore, founder of the Electronic
Frontier Foundation, was investigated by the FBI as a criminal suspect based
on no evidence except his political views.

Terrorists often set up organizations to carry out their work or raise
funds, and it makes sense to pursue those organizations, and prohibit
contribution to them. But we must be very careful about how organizations
are designated as terrorist, because we know the FBI won't be reasonable
about it. The FBI has infiltrated and targeted many peaceful political
groups -- in the '80s, while the United States supported a regime in El
Salvador that killed tens of thousands of opposition activists, the FBI
burglarized the office of CISPES rather than ask for a search warrant to
investigate.

Will the FBI stick to reason in deciding what is a "terrorist group?" Not if
recent experience is any guide. On May 10, 2001, FBI director Louis Freeh
testifying to Congress on the "threat of terrorism to the United States"
listed Reclaim the Streets as a terrorist threat. Reclaim the Streets sets
up surprise street parties, where people play music and dance. It is
described in the book No Logo, by Naomi Klein, as one of the new forms of
protest against global brand-dominated culture. No person has ever been
killed or wounded by Reclaim the Streets. Can't the FBI distinguish between
dancing and murder?