Nancy Changs book, Silencing Political Dissent, is a detailed analysis of
recent legislation, such as the USA PATRIOT Act, the detention of up to two
thousand immigrants without charges, and various Draconian executive orders
and policy changes. She also analyzes other instances when the U.S.
government has taken repressive measures in history. Parentis book, The
Terrorism Trap, steps back from the events of September 11th to look at the
historical and political-economic context in which they took place,
including a chapter on Afghanistans recent history. Howard Zinns book,
Terrorism and War, is based on a series of interviews conducted by Anthony
Arnove, a member of the International Socialist Organization (ISO). Despite
his affiliation with this authoritarian organization, Arnove asks
well-informed, interesting questions which help to create a well-rounded
presentation by Zinn. Of the three, Zinn has the best politics, being a
libertarian socialist or anarchist, Chang is a liberal who defends the
Constitution and the highest ideals of the United States, and Parenti is an
Old Left Marxist.
The Assault on Civil Liberties Nancy Chang works as a senior litigation
attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which is basically
a left-wing American Civil Liberties Union. Her work there focuses on
protecting the First Amendment rights of political activists and the
constitutional rights of immigrants, as well as fighting against racial
profiling.
A large part of Changs book examines the ideological nature of the USA
PATRIOT Act. This legislation (hastily drafted and spanning 342 pages) was
passed overwhelmingly by Congress just over a month after the September
11th attacks, in the near hysterical climate of the time. Chang summarizes
her critique succinctly: First, the Act places our First Amendment rights
to freedom of speech and political association in jeopardy by creating a
broad new crime of domestic terrorism and denying entry to noncitizens on
the basis of ideology. Second, the act reduces our already low expectations
of privacy by granting the government enhanced surveillance powers. Third,
the act erodes the due process rights of noncitizens by allowing the
government to place them in mandatory detentions and deport them from the
Untied States based on political activities that have been recast under the
act as terrorist activities.3
Just what constitutes terrorism and terrorist activities is defined
broadly enough to allow the inclusion of just about anyone who might
question unlimited state power or the right of the market to rule all
social life.4 The Act creates the crime of domestic terrorism, which
applies to acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the
criminal laws if they appear to be intended
to influence the policy of
a government by intimidation or coercion.5
The application of the term terrorist to people using extra-legal means to
influence governmentand corporatepolicy has a precedent in the case of
the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). The ELF uses illegal means such as arson
to cause economic damage to those they see as profiting from damaging the
ecosystem. They go out of their way to ensure no humans are endangered when
they carry out their acts of economic sabotage, primarily aimed at
multinational corporations, yet they are labeled terrorists by the
government and corporations, eco-terrorists, to be precise.
Of course history is propelled by illegality. The world we live in today
has been shaped by illegal actions, from the Boston Tea Party, to the
sit-down strikes in Flint, Michigan in the 1930s, to the Civil Rights
campaigns of the 1950s and 1960s. They all were illegal, and one could
argue that some of those actions would fit the new definition of terrorism.
In the current climate, political repression will go hand in hand with
racism and thus Muslims will be most vulnerable, but so will dissidents in
general. As Chang points out, the government will use this new crime to
target Muslim nationals of Arab and South Asian countries, political
activists, and dissident organizations for surveillance, infiltration, and
prosecution.6
In fact, the targeting of Muslims began immediately after the attacks, with
the detention of well over one thousand people, perhaps exceeding two
thousand.7 As Chang explains: With little concern for the rule of law, the
government has interrogated without suspicion, arrested without charge, and
detained without justification numerous individuals who are not involved in
terrorist activities but who match this religious and ethnic profile.8
This is racial profiling with a vengeance. Chang documents several examples
of how these two thousand people wound up behind bars: a Moroccan youth
was arrested and detained for four months as he sought to enroll in high
school when a guidance counselor reported to the police that his tourist
visa had expired. I
