How many people have been injured BY protestors? how
many protestors have been injured? Don't you like when
authorities belittle social movements (called critical
mass "little bike rides") while calling for urgent
means to stop them?
and if your looking for the connection to the Net,
this legislation and hearing use similar language as
that being created around DDOS attacks and other forms
of ECD.
best,
ryan

INSIDE THE CAPITOL

03/24/03
HARRY ESTEVE

SALEM – The harshest critics of the war protests in
downtown Portland angrily called the demonstrators
"terrorists" and wished aloud that the police and
courts would treat them as such.

This morning, that idea gets put to the test at the
Oregon Legislature, where a ranking senator has
introduced a bill to "create the crime of terrorism"
and apply it to people who intentionally cause injury
while disrupting commerce or traffic.

If convicted, they would face imprisonment for life.

Senate Bill 742 is the brainchild of Sen. John Minnis,
R-Wood Village, a Portland police detective who also
serves as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
It's scheduled for a hearing in his committee
beginning at 8 a.m.

The proposal already has come under heavy attack from
the American Civil Liberties Union, antiwar activists
and some of Minnis' colleagues in the Senate. But the
longtime lawmaker offers a laconic grin about
accusations that he's shredding the Constitution to
make a point about protesters.

"It's going to be a fascinating hearing," he says.

Minnis, on the defensive after the first draft of his
bill made it sound as if the average Critical Mass
cyclist would wind up spending life behind bars, says
it was written too hurriedly. Recently drafted
amendments narrow the bill so it isn't so draconian,
he says.

"People in their little bike rides don't apply," he
says. But if they do something intentionally to injure
or kill someone while they're demonstrating, they
could be tried as terrorists.

Minnis says he borrowed language from Oregon's treason
statutes, and meant the bill as an "umbrella" law
covering all types of terrorism, including
eco-sabotage. The bill certainly would apply to
someone caught spiking trees to prevent logging, he
says.

The bill is the most visceral legislative response to
the events of Sept. 11 and its aftermath. It comes at
a time when cities around the nation are dealing with
increasingly large and confrontational antiwar rallies
stemming from the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Other states are taking similar action in an effort to
crack down on what some fear may be a wave of
terrorist acts in response to the Iraq war. The
Washington House last week passed a bill creating six
new terrorism-related crimes, including possession of
weapons of mass destruction, making terrorist threats
and providing material support to terrorists.

But Minnis' bill stands out in that it appears to
target domestic protesters who go beyond marching in
the streets. It also includes language that would
require police to cooperate with federal antiterror
investigators and would allow indefinite
record-keeping on suspects.

Those are the aspects that caught the attention of the
ACLU. The initial bill was "ludicrous," said David
Fidanque, executive director of the ACLU of Oregon.
The amended version isn't much better, he says.

"We think this bill is a much graver threat to the
freedoms that all Oregonians hold dear than is created
by any terrorist," Fidanque says. "It will do nothing
to make us safer, and would do a lot to undermine our
constitutional rights."

Martin Gonzales, who helped organize one of the
Portland peace rallies last week, said Minnis'
proposal is a huge overreaction to a phantom problem.

"More and more, the notion in this country that any
act of protest, particularly in time of war, is seen
as unpatriotic," says Gonzales, who is with the
American Friends Service Committee, an activist
organization dedicated to peace. Demonstrators block
traffic and "disrupt commerce," Gonzales says to make
a basic point:

"We can't continue to have business as usual. How can
we go on about our lives, our business, when our
government is inflicting pain, inflicting death on
other people in the world?"

Minnis insists he supports the right of people to
protest peacefully. But if they get violent and
disruptive, "They don't get a pass from me." Harry
Esteve: 503-221-8234; harryesteve@news.oregonian.com

Copyright 2003 Oregon Live. All Rights Reserved.

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