More terrorist talk
Over at Alphecca’s, Sigivald takes me to task on my coverage of libertarians, constitutionalists, gays and gun nuts getting a second glance as potential terrorists:
SaysUncle is dead wrong about his, as he has been (oddly) about all of that series.
Wouldn’t be the first time. But:
Not “groups that make you a terrorist for being in them”, or “groups that have lots of terrorists in them and a few non-terrorists”, but “groups that could include terrorists”.
The most militant gay-rights groups may have a few fringe members who’re willing to use violent intimidation or destruction to influence policy (definitionally terrorism).
Sure. But so does any group. There are militant Democrats and militant Republicans and militant feminists and militant Christians. But those didn’t make the list. Among any group, there are potentially crazy militant factions who would engage in terrorism. No one is questioning that. But singling out particular groups (who historically have been mostly harmless) seems to be more politically based scaremongering than legitimate concern. He concludes with:
I don’t see any particular overreach or threat to civil liberties here; the actual websites, if you bother to read the text and think about what they say rather than applying a hysterical template (as I unfortunately think most of the comments on them have done) are neither particularly inaccurate nor dangerous to the Republic, freedom of association, or any other civil rights.
I don’t disagree. But I still like to know what sorts of people the .gov is keeping tabs on. And, frankly, I don’t like the .gov keeping lists. But then, I’m a bit jaded. You get that way when the federales come to your door and quote your website to you.
May 31st, 2007 at 10:35 am
Sh_t dude, you should spend a few hours with my dad and uncle.
Special Operations and Intelligence Services, US Army, circa 1960, respectively. They have personal experience with the .gov (before there was a .) keeping track of *lots* of “groups”.
I remember one story they’ve told repeatedly where there were agents attending a ‘barn meeting’ late one night. Few of the agents knew each other, but when the speaker / leader / organizer said something clearly illegal, one of the agents stepped up and announced that the speaker – and everyone else – was under arrest. _Every_ member of the group was an .gov agent except the speaker / leader / organizer. The number was around 20. They had inadvertently formed the body of an anti-government group just by investigating one guy with a big mouth.
They keep lists.
And they investigate lots of things.
And they don’t talk to each other.
May 31st, 2007 at 11:01 am
They are probably watching us all 😉 I figure, though, if they were worried about me, they’d give me a call and tell me they need to audit me for my C&R license. Hopefully the ATF has better things to do.