On Wednesday, May 21, 2003, at 10:04 AM, Justin wrote:
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Tim May (2003-05-21 05:44Z) wrote:
I downloaded the PDF version of the bill, read it, and was both amused and aghast.
Amused, because it is precisely the act we have sought to help make things immeasurably worse and thus bring on the destruction of America the Damned.
Aghast because of the boldness of the suspension of the Constitution in Oregon.
What suspension of the Constitution are you talking about?
The only terrorism-related provision in the bill criminalizes willful [planning of] disruption of free assembly, commerce, transportation, education, and government. There's the usual requirement of 2 witnesses or open court confession.
I agree that the expansion of terrorism laws to cover activity not linked to the federal notion of "terrorism" is dangerous - those acts are already illegal - but I don't see how the bill ignores the Constitution. It simply adds a duplicate law with a harsher punishment.
The Oregon law makes a very broad class of forms of civil disobedience--including unscheduled gatherings which disrupt traffic, sit-ins in colleges, marches, etc.--the same as blowing up buildings or crashing airliners, and carries a mandatory, no parole, minimum of 25 years incarceration. After 25 years, the possibility of being a slave laborer (in effect) picking up trash and cutting brush for the state of Oregon. Had this law been in effect in America's past, very broad classes of public protest could have resulted (and _would_ have resulted, had the law been enforced uniformly) in life sentences (with possible parole as a brush cutter) for hundreds of thousands of those engaged in public acts of protest. It may not be desirable that a bridge, for example, gets shut down by marchers who pour into the streets, but it sometimes happens. The proper punishment is a fine for disorderly conduct, or a couple of nights in the local jail. Not placing them on the same footing as someone who crashes a plane into a building or releases Sarin in a subway. This proposed law gives the authorities the power to pick and choose whom they wish to "terrorize" with a mandatory life sentence with a minimum of 25 years of incarceration followed by the rest of their working life (as I read the language) as a forest laborer. When in 1970 I was at a Mobilization rally against the war, and when our numbers forced various shut downs of streets (not included in the "rally permit"), anyone who "knowingly participated in" this rally when "at least one of the participants" blocked a highway or street, I and 350,000 other participants would have faced a mandatory life sentence....had the law been applied uniformly as written. (The language in the PDF version, not included here because of the PDF/TIFF/JPEG-only options, does not say the law applies only to the ringleaders or main planners. It specifically includes "participation in" any event at which the described blockages or interruptions of transportation, education, etc. occur.) So, when in 1972 several thousand students at my campus briefly closed Highway 101 in Santa Barbara, under this law they could/would all face mandatory life sentences, under this kind of law. Or when students occupied classrooms at Columbia, Harvard, Berkeley, and a hundred other campuses, mandatory life sentences. Under this kind of law. When thousands of bicyclists take to the streets of San Francisco and "shut down Van Ness Avenue" as part of their Critical Mass (or Mess) activities, mandatory life sentences. As above, under this kind of law. When abortion protestors exercise their freedom of assembly and the result is that traffic congestion occurs and some roads are impassable, mandatory life sentences for all participants, as above. The purpose of this proposed law is clearly to intimidate nearly any form of public gathering which has any chance of "getting out of control." Perhaps they were attempting to make Portland a candidate for international trade meetings, such as the ones where anti-free trade protestors caused blockages of roads. Whatever. The effect is to terrorize people into avoiding any form of protest which _might_ get out of control, or where at least one protester may go too far. The purpose is to squelch speech. This is the point of saying the terrorism charges are applicable to all participants, not just the actual and most blatant offenders. And I expect the Supreme Court will agree with me that this terrorism law is grossly unconstitutional. (The Boston Tea Party presumably disrupted traffic in and around the port where it happened. King George would have loved a law which gave him the power to imprison for life all of the participants on "terrorism" charges. With some of them let out after 25 years to work his tobacco farms.) Those who pass laws like this ought to be taken out and hung. Even if the hanging party disrupts traffic. Heh. --Tim May