Free Speech?
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."
oregonlive.com |
