from cerebrate - "New Labour - putting the 'National' back into

[theweaselking]

Controversial new laws to tackle international terrorism could be used to put British National Party members and animal rights activists under house arrest without criminal trial, a government adviser said yesterday.

Speaking after the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, announced new laws to control the movements of terrorist suspects, Mr Clarke’s adviser, Stephen McCabe, told The Scotsman he saw this extending to other groups suspected of using violence to further their ends.

The Labour MP said: "We can envisage this applying to animal rights extremists and the far-Right, for example.

"These people are locked up because we believe they are a genuine danger based on what we think is pretty reliable evidence, even if it cannot be divulged in a court of law."

Mr Clarke announced new anti-terror measures which can be invoked on the basis of secret intelligence without a full open trial yesterday and made it clear that British suspects would be included.

Comments

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

According to the PATRIOT Act, non-violent protestors can be terrorists, since all that is required to be a terrorist is the appearance of trying to influence the government through force or threat of force.

[ex-cerebrate131.livejournal.com]

On that note, note than assault technically requires no violence.

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

The 4th Edition of the American Heritage Dictionary's first defintion (according to www.dictionary.com) is "[a] violent physical or verbal attack" (emphasis added). The problem with the second is that it really isn't objectively measurable in anyway what-so-ever; if somebody is hurt by somebody else's words, then those words are an attack, in some sense.

[ex-cerebrate131.livejournal.com]

The English common-law definition, which I meanr to refer to, is "threat of or use of force on another that reasonably makes that person fear bodily harm".

One could make a reasonable case, I think, that a mob is always threatening; but I'll go around the long way and claim that if said non-violent protesters are creating the appearance of the threat of force, then they are creating the actuality of the threat of force, because all that the threat of force is *is* an appearance.

If that is what is intended, even if everyone involved strictly eschews actual force in the form of violence, then all those protestoers *are*, per se, guilty of assault at the least and probably should be charged with something. (If that isn't what's attempted, then they need to seriously reconsider their tactics.)

As far as the terrorism is concerned, if we assume the former - that creating the appearance of/actualiyy of threat of force *is* what's intended - then one could certainly make the argument that assult intended to effect changes in governmental policy qualifies, even though at the mean and petty end of the terrorism spectrum.

(But then, I figure if I'm going to despise coercive tactics, I've pretty much got to despise all of them if I'm going to be morally consistent, belike.)

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

My problem with defining all protesting as terrorism is that it conflicts with the Constitutionally protected right to peaceably assemble and petition the Government over grievances. Maybe the best tactic would be for all the protestors to just sit and stare, maybe holding signs with non-emotionally charged messages, and refuse to move.

[ex-cerebrate131.livejournal.com]

Sure, works for me. At least as long as that "refuse to move" doesn't imply doing it somewhere specifically in order to prevent people from going about their legitimate business.

I have no problem with peaceable assembly (y'know, I've always read that as two rights), nor with petitioning the government for redress of grievances, nor with just getting the message out among the voting public. But once intimidation and coercion enter the picture, then we aren't talking peaceably, in my book.

On a personal note, I'd add that I esteem rational argument. Show me an opinion that differs from my own, I'll look into it. Debate it with me, and I'll have a polite argument about it. I may not come to agree with someone, and they might not come to agree with me, but everyone should come out of it knowing a little bit more than they started out.

The heavy-handed tactics, on the other hand, pretty much guarantee that the messenger poisons the message; I like *polite* arguments. Also, experience tells me that they're usually resorted to by people who either lost the rational argument, or who never had one in the first place - and even the exceptions pick up the taint. I really don't think I'm the only person out there like this, either.

[publius1.livejournal.com]

Why are any of you looking at an average dictionary to discuss legal terms? That's... not a good idea. (You or Cerebrate).

[ex-cerebrate131.livejournal.com]

I'm not. I'm picking up the big 'ol "English Law" (ISBN: 1-85941-558-X) book I keep on my bookshelf for occasions such as this, then paraphrasing the hell out of a 1.5 page definition.

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

Crap ... also, same source:
3. Law.
1. An unlawful threat or attempt to do bodily injury to another.
2. The act or an instance of unlawfully threatening or attempting to injure another.