Over the past weekend, the FBI raided homes of various activist groups — serving “terrorism warrants” as an excuse to raid the homes, and detain individuals for questioning (interrogation).

Hundreds of protesters gathered outside FBI offices in Minneapolis and Chicago on Monday, bearing signs and shouting chants condemning the agency’s recent searches of homes and offices of anti-war activists in both cities.

About 150 people protested in Minneapolis, with signs reading: “Stop FBI harassment. Opposing war is not a crime.” Roughly 120 people marched in Chicago, chanting, “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! FBI raids have got to go!”

Accusations were leveled at the FBI of using police state tactics, and of government harassment aimed at groups who are questioning the status quo.

The FBI stated that they were focused on anti-war groups, and pointed to what they claim is a terror link for justification. And that’s where the media attention was directed at as well.

However, while the FBI said it searched eight homes in Minneapolis and Chicago as part of a terrorism investigation over the weekend, specifically targeting leaders of the anti-war movement; the FBI wasn’t only going after anti-war activists.

FBI spokesman Steve Warfield said over the weekend: “We are interviewing people in other places in the country.” He commented without specifying where, and who.

But a recent article at Catholic Review does mention other groups that were placed on “terror watch-lists” being investigated by the FBI and other government agencies. Environmentalists, animal-rights groups, and Catholic Worker groups were also among those being harassed by the FBI over the weekend.

A handful of Catholic Worker groups across the country were among the anti-war activists, environmentalists and animal-rights groups wrongly investigated by the FBI, according to a lengthy report released Sept. 20 by the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General.

According to Inspector General Glenn Fine, there was “little or no basis” for the investigations.

The groups included the anti-war Thomas Merton Center in Pittsburgh, the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), the Catholic Worker, Greenpeace, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and an individual Quaker peace activist.

Fine’s office reviewed 8,000 pages of FBI documents from 2001 to 2006 related to these groups in its 191-page document: “A Review of the FBI’s Investigations of Certain Domestic Advocacy Groups.”

The FBI’s investigation of nonviolent civil disobedience of some of these groups placed them under an “acts of terrorism” classification, which automatically put them under government watch lists.

According to the article, the FBI now classifies “peaceful trespass on a military facility” and acts of vandalism, including the spilling of purported human blood, as “potential acts of terrorism.”

Gosh, some Dominican nuns from my hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan once broke into a military facility and spray-painted something (I think it was a bible verse). Would they be held for “potential terrorism”?

As if allowing government powers to fight “terror” isn’t dicey enough — in part because government gets to define what terrorism is. Now they are exercising this power to fight “potential terrorism.”

Justification for use of force is getting more and more generalized all the time.

The events of last weekend came a little more than a week after news broke that Homeland Security was circulating lists of names and personal information of Philadelphia residents who were involved with peaceful anti-drilling activities.

The lists with personal information was included in regular “intelligence bulletins.” This was all done with the help of the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response on behalf of Homeland Security.

The intelligence bulletin that was made public includes notice of six public meetings that, according to Homeland Security, “have been singled out for attendance by anti-Marcellus Shale Formation natural gas drilling activists.”

They include: township ordinance and zoning meetings in Butler, Wayne and Allegheny counties; a Pittsburgh City Council meeting; a Pennsylvania Forestry Association meeting in Williamsport; and a screening of “Gasland” in Philadelphia.

The bulletin also includes information on anarchists, “black power radicals,” Ramadan, the “Jewish High Holiday season” and anti-war activists.

“What is next?” asked [activist Gene] Stilp. “An enemies-of-gas-drilling list compiled by the government so that police can keep an eye on them? Public surveillance for private companies is not the democratic way. It’s not the way Pennsylvania government is supposed to run.”

“We don’t track groups,” [State Homeland Security Director James] Powers said.

Which public meetings the anti-drilling folks were planning to attend was supplied by the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response, a Philadelphia firm contracted with the state Office of Homeland Security to provide information for the intelligence briefings.

When asked if ITRR was tracking groups — specifically, people opposed to drilling in the Marcellus Shale or attending showings of “Gasland” — Powers replied, “I don’t know, I haven’t asked them.”

Powers did indicate that someone — either ITRR or state employees, he wouldn’t specify which — was monitoring the “Web traffic” of anti-drilling groups.

Mike Perelman, codirector of ITRR, would not say if his firm was tracking anti-drilling activists.

What this all amounts to is that We The People are now guilty until proven innocent. The burden of prove is no longer on the State, but on the individual. And questioning the status quo makes you a terrorist, no matter how peaceful the activity is.

When the Federal State has power to fight terrorism:
1 – The State must always be able to point to a “terrorist threat” to keep that power.
2 – The State will define terror in a way that suits the State. And to the political class, an organized effort at questioning their power and legitimacy is terrifying.

This problem with rampant state-supremacism will be corrected one way or another, through renewal or revolution.