Freedom of Speech Is Going Down the Drain in the US

From the same series as the infamous Patriot Act, authorities in the US seem to be turning the country into a police state more and more every day. This has been made especially clear recently, when a group of four animal rights activists have been arrested as “terrorists” in the Santa Cruz and Alameda counties, the Joint Terrorism Task Force of the FBI reported on Friday. Indeed, America has come to see a time when protesting against something immoral has become a crime against the people and the state.

Now, in the US of 2009, corporations and animal abusers have a new bill at their disposal, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, which allows them to label anti-animal cruelty groups as a threat to society. Here is an excerpt from the law:

“Whoever uses or causes to be used any facility of interstate commerce for the purpose of damaging or interfering with the operations of an animal enterprise, and in connection with such purpose intentionally places a person in reasonable fear of fear of death or serious bodily injury to that person or an immediate family member, or conspires or attempts to do so, by a course of conduct involving threats, acts of vandalism, property damage, criminal trespass, harassment or intimidation, shall be imprisoned for not more than five years.”

Basically, this is just a legal way of saying “Shut up,” and gives authorities a tool of silencing consent in much the same way that the Communist government of China does inside the Asian country. It's very frightening that in the nation that supposedly upholds democracy in the world, and which fights in the name of freedom in territories such as Afghanistan and Iraq, there is no public uproar at such abuses, and people continue to accept increasing control for the passing feeling of security, which they never really get to experience.

“The government is chipping away at fringe elements, silencing the speech of so-called radicals as 'terrorists.' But this is not the end, it is the beginning. Such an overt targeting of First Amendment activity puts every social movement, every activist, and every American at risk. Targeting free speech as 'animal enterprise terrorism' sets a precedent set for targeting the speech of other activists as 'defense enterprise terrorism,' 'timber enterprise terrorism,' and 'financial enterprise terrorism,'” Will Potter says in one of his recent articles.

“At issue here is not the validity or morality of animal research, nor is it the efficacy of controversial tactics. Differences of opinion on those issues no longer matter. What’s at issue is whether the War on Terrorism should be used to target protesters as terrorists,” he adds.

Indeed, the implications of such behavior on the part of authorities are far-reaching and have the potential to turn America into a fascist, police state that silences dissent just like any other tyrannic rule, and without any respect for democracy. In review, the right of privacy is no more, e-mail are read and phone calls taped, protest is silenced. And some still have the guts to call the US the most democratic place on Earth.

Protests and direct actions, even violent ones, should never be mistaken for terrorism, which is an act of premeditated violence on the civilian population, with the purpose of installing fear into the hearts of everyone. Protests such as the ones in which the four have been involved are about stopping cruel experimentation on animals.