Dissent is Patriotic

Here's some of the delightful shit the government has concerned itself with in the name of fighting terrorism over the past few months. In light of the fact that we are now being told to calm down, that this domestic spying thing was just about Al Qaeda, let's go through these and see what kind of credibility such a claim raises, shall we?

1. A college student in Massachusetts is visited by Homesland Security agents because he requested a copy of Mao tse-tung's "The Little Red Book" from the campus library. He was doing a research paper on, fittingly, fascism and totalitarianism, and the book was part of his research.

2. A high school student in California is visited by FBI agents because, two years ago, he doodled the phrase "PLO" on a book binder.

3. As I wrote about in May, the ACLU has obtained documents proving that the FBI and local law enforcement has been spying on groups like Greenpace, PETA, and Food Not Bombs, who provide vegetarian meals to the homeless.

Lipris argues that this whole thing is not about terrorism, it's about stopping dissent. Considering the track record, it's hard not to agree.

UPDATE: Digby sums it up, again better than I could:

There can be no doubt about where this is going. This administration has asserted a doctrine of unfettered executive power in "wartime" that will not confine itself to "suspected terrorists" as we understand them. Everything we know about human nature --- and particularly about the nature of this modern Republican party --- says that these powers will be used for domestic political purposes. That they felt they had to do this (even though they can monitor anyone they choose immediately as long as they make an application for a FISA review within 72 hours) can only raise suspicions that this is what they were doing. Coming on the heels of the pentagon spying story, you have to have overdosed on kool-aid not to wonder why they refuse to show the secret FISA court who they are monitoring.