Maryland Police and Their Weird War on 'Terror'

"The details are still dribbling out, but it appears that for at least three recent years, the state police antiterrorism unit spied upon, infiltrated and documented groups of Marylanders who had the nerve to disagree with the policies of their government. The police acknowledge that at least 53 individuals made their terrorist-watch list but the real number could be much higher.

The troopers zeroed in on Roman Catholic nuns, human rights activists and church groups. They monitored animal rights advocates and cyclists pushing for more bicycle lanes. They opened a dossier on Amnesty International. (That group's crime was listed as "human rights.")

For the most part, we are unknown to one another here on the board. There’s no doubt though, that despite our various backgrounds and views, and despite any belief that we participate anonymously, there’s one thing we all have in common as critics of society. Somewhere, we are known. Our personal information has been collected, stored and shared between various agencies, domestic and international.

Comments

Submitted by Slumberjack on January 12, 2009 - 10:02am.

Can someone fix the title, I can't seem to edit the OP. Tks

Submitted by Maysie on January 12, 2009 - 10:16am.

Quote:

"What does that mean?" he asked during an interview. "They've already put it into an interagency database. How many times has it been downloaded by various field agents and other agencies? How many times has it been re-indexed, reincorporated, merged into other databases, put on backup tapes that might be restored onto something else years from now?

"Information is never destroyed. And then someday, it's like you don't get on a plane. Am I being paranoid?"

Probably not. As Ottawa engineer Maher Arar can explain, your name can stay on lists down here even when you're cleared (as Arar was by the Canadian government). Guilt or innocence doesn't necessarily have anything to do with it.

Hm, ya think being a person of colour had anything to do with Arar?
Some people are illegal and "persons of interest" simply for being who they are.

Check out how many times a homeless person's rights are violated by the state.

And men and women of colour, and Aboriginal men and women?

It happens so often, I would even call it statistically normal.

But when groups of white folks, earnest lefty (for the most part) white folks, get put onto police lists, and then the lists are exposed, then that makes the news, is denounced as a waste of resources, people's "concerns" are noted.

Gaah.

I'll end with a chuckle-worthy quote:

Quote:

"Group advocacy and group dissent are part of the DNA of American democracy," he wrote. "Groups formed to express political and moral beliefs, and to seek changes in government policy, have long been viewed as guarantors of political and cultural diversity, as protectors of dissident ideas from suppression by the majority, and as agents of legal and social change.".

Are USians still allowed to say this shit with a straight face?

Submitted by Slumberjack on January 12, 2009 - 10:46am.

Thanks for the edit. All of what you say occurs daily, but that isn't why I posted it here Maysie, to highlight the fact that whites are being rounded up into databases, in order to give special significance to it apart from other demographics. The article mentioned human rights activits, Anmesty International, death penalty activists, etc. A rather broad swath.

But yes, if it didn't involve the nice 'folks' in Maryland, or any other place for that matter, it wouldn't be newsworthy. Which gives me the idea of signing up on that board and mentioning it to MacDonald. Where was his concern before they came for the white volk. Unless you want to that is.

Submitted by Maysie on January 12, 2009 - 11:26am.

Slumberjack, please go ahead and comment on the cbc website. Interesting that for this article the comments aren't as hideous as they usually are.

And someone in the comments has already made my point, sort of:

Quote:

Overseas Canadian: Land of the free is actually the Land of illusion. Americans have always persecuted subsets of their population (terrorists, communists, visible minorities). They just have very short memories of their many faults, but very long memories of their (also many) redeeming acts. I think it is this refusal to admit or even outright ignorance of their shortcomings that irk the rest of the world even in the face of other nations who have performed far more poorly but haven't had the audacity to proclaim their holier-than-thou attitudes.

Submitted by Stargazer on January 12, 2009 - 11:31am.

Someone may want to point Sven to this thread. I notice that he has absolutely nothing to say.

Submitted by Slumberjack on January 12, 2009 - 12:36pm.

It would have been far better written by someone with first hand exposure, but then why leave it to others. I'm surprised it made it past the censors.