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   Vol. 67/No. 20           June 16, 2003  
 
 
Letters
 
War protest, a ‘terrorist act’
In a major news article the May 18 Oakland Tribune reported that “days before firing wooden slugs at anti-war protesters, Oakland police were warned of potential violence at the Port of Oakland by California’s anti-terrorism intelligence center (CATIC), which admits blurring the line between terrorism and political dissent.” The CATIC, which gathers information on political activities in the state and monitors compliance with federal “terror” alerts, defended its April 2 bulletin issued to the Oakland cops. CATIC spokesman Mike Van Winkle explained that “…if you have a protest group protesting a war…being fought against international terrorism, you might have terrorism at that [protest]. You can almost argue that a protest against that is a terrorist act.”

The center, staffed with personnel from the FBI, Defense Intelligence Agency, and other police and spy units, prepared a report for Oakland police use on the April 7 protest organized by Direct Action to Stop the War in front of two shipping companies on the city’s docks. According to the Tribune, “…this information painted a monolithic portrait of violent activists. They could be armed with metal bolts, rocks, and Molotov cocktails. They were secretly in cahoots with the longshoremen’s union…and were bent on shutting down the nation’s fourth largest shipping port.”

Oakland police intelligence unit supervisor Derwin Longmire e-mailed his commanders web postings by leaders of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, suggesting that “ILWU leaders planned to use the protests to demand arbitration at the port gates and delay going to work.” CATIC spokesman Van Winkle defended the Oakland police riot on the waterfront, saying that “I’ve heard terrorism described as anything that is violent or has an economic impact. And shutting down a port certainly would have some economic impact. Terrorism isn’t just bombs going off and killing people.”

Faced with a flurry of criticism from civil liberties groups like the ACLU, state attorney general William Lockyer has backed away from CATIC’s provocative warnings, calling them “inappropriate”. He also disassociated himself from Van Winkle’s comments, and promised “to delineate with some rigor the line between peaceful assembly and criminal activity.” As the Tribune notes, “Lockyer [has] stopped shy of saying the California Department of Justice shouldn’t monitor protesters or issue warnings about their activities.”

Bill Kalman
Albany, California
 
 
Disagree on Scottish vote
Your piece on the Scottish elections (Vol. 67/18) is totally inadequate, ignoring as it does the importance of the growth of the SSP [Scottish Socialist party] with a pejorative “reformist” label.

Taken along with the Greens we are looking at a major growth in anti-capitalist forces in Scotland—you wouldn’t know that from reading Pete Williamson’s article.

I really don’t need to have the Militant sent from the States to read Peter Riddell’s (a right-wing pundit in a Murdoch paper) views.

You also need a bit deeper look at Farmers For Action—going on a demo doesn’t make you automatically left, and their Welsh rep is a Tory candidate.

I’d be happy to write you a rejoinder to Williamson—it might help your readers.

Ken Ferguson
by e-mail

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