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Point of View with Barb
Sumner Burstyn October 13
2003
US Patriot Act looks like tentacles of
totalitarianism
Only in America?
It's a strange feeling to wake up one average, middle-class North
American morning and realise your beliefs could get you killed.
Not in a random, drive-by, developing-world, terrorist-bombing kind
of way. But in an officially sanctioned, totally legal, death by
lethal injection way.
At least, if President Bush's call on Congress on the eve of the
second anniversary of September 11 to extend the death penalty is
anything to go by.
It began in June when Attorney-General John Ashcroft told lawmakers
that the death penalty needed to be expanded to cover "material
supporters" of terrorist organisations. On the surface it seems
fair enough. If you give money to al Qaeda then you have to expect
a harsh penalty.
But there's a catch. They've changed the definition of terrorist.
In fact the Patriot II Act redefines terrorism so vaguely and
broadly it's not a great leap to envisage the definition including
political activists or just about anyone who belongs to an organisation
that disagrees with the Administration.
Greenpeace for example. It stands for non-violent, creative confrontation
to expose global environmental problems and their causes. While
Greenpeace is adamant it does not endorse sabotage it's really only
a matter of definition, especially since the organisation has simulated
sabotaging safety at nuclear facilities.
And given that Bush specifically stated that the death penalty
should be used in certain cases of sabotage against military and
nuclear facilities, it's not difficult to see how Greenpeace could
be ruled a terrorist organisation, transforming your membership
into material support.
A little extreme perhaps? Not if you consider the FBI arrest of
peaceful protesters exposing an illegal shipment of mahogany. Or
the dubbing of acts of vandalism by the Earth Liberation Front (they
spray-painted slogans such as "greed and sloth" on SUVs) as domestic
terrorism. Or the ability under Patriot II to conduct all manner
of surveillance without warrants; authorise secret arrests, detentions,
and grand jury subpoenas; create DNA databases of those suspected
of association with terrorism or terrorist groups; and to enable
the Government to remove citizenship from persons who belong to
or support disfavoured political groups.
But its not only your organisation membership that brings you
under the Patriot II umbrella. Hiding behind that new broad catch-all
phrase, domestic terrorism, the act is shaping up to become a crime-fighting
tool par excellence.
US Justice Dept official Mark Corallo was reported in the New
York Times as saying they have an obligation to do everything to
protect the lives and liberties of Americans from attack, whether
it's from terrorists or garden-variety criminals.
And there, right before your eyes, you see how far the ground
has shifted. Under Patriot II all other criminal legislation can
be short-circuited, the laws and standards of evidence lowered,
the usual legal checks and balances of a democratic society superseded.
And instead of a judiciary-led legal system you begin to understand
it's the FBI that is in charge, with a Government agenda.
Under imminent terrorist attack those shortcuts make perfect sense,
but when used against local drug dealers, car thieves, internet
fraudsters et al, they begin to look suspiciously like the early
tentacles of a totalitarian society.
Section 127 of Patriot II allows the Federal Government to supersede
all local statutes governing autopsies. So imagine yourself caught
up in an investigation following, say, your attendance at an anti-war
rally. Remember, under this act you can't call a lawyer or even
a family member. Essentially, once you've slipped into the wide
cracks of the over-broad definition of a terrorist, you have no
rights at all.
And if perhaps you died while under interrogation, the autopsy
results could show a suicide or some other finding favourable to
the Government.
Perhaps this all sounds far-fetched. Especially, if, like me,
you were bought up with the golden rule: if you've nothing to hide,
you've nothing to worry about. But when your Greenpeace bumper sticker,
or your church attendance or the size of your family become red
flags that can trigger the opening of an FBI file in your name,
you know things have changed.
And it's the little things that signal that change. Like the growing
sense that it's not wise to express your concerns openly. Or when
you pick up any suburban US newspaper and discover the two defining
characteristics: the dearth of international coverage and the voluminous
column space given to crime, all of it ugly, all of it adding to
the climate of fear that increasingly pervades the country. In that
masterfully created environment, US Justice Department official
Corallo's comments sound not only imminently sensible, they sound
like a lifesaver.
Unless of course you really do have something to hide; like your
Greenpeace membership, your internet browsing and perhaps that book
on activism you bought from Canada. That could just about be enough
to get you killed. Only in America. Oh, and North Korea and Communist
China and Stalinist Russia and Zimbabwe and Iraq, pre and post Saddam.
© Barbara Sumner Burstyn, 2003
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Barbara Sumner
Burstyn.
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