The Shocking Move To Criminalize Nonviolent Protest (VIDEO)

Will Potter: The shocking move to criminalize nonviolent protest

In 2002, investigative journalist and TED Fellow Will Potter decided to take a break from his regular beat, writing about shootings and murders for the Chicago Tribune.

He went to help a local group campaigning against animal testing: “I thought it would be a safe way to do something positive,” he says.

Instead, he was arrested, and so began his ongoing journey into a world in which peaceful protest is branded as terrorism.

You can watch his interesting TED Talk, below, and as he notes at about 1 minute, 9 seconds:

In 2003, the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General audited the FBI and told the bureau to stop treating animal rights and environmental activists as terrorists. Instead, the Bureau should focus on violent threats. The FBI refused.

Meanwhile, research by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center has documented a 400-percent increase in right-wing violence since 1990. That’s about 190 injuries a year, and 30 deaths, that aren’t classified by the FBI as “terrorism.” For instance, in the three years after 9/11, the FBI says that every act of domestic terrorism except for one was the work of “eco-terrorists”; according to West Point, right-wing violence in that period resulted in 283 injuries and 71 deaths.

SOURCE: Henry Schuster, “Domestic Terror: Who’s Most Dangerous?,” CNN.com, August 24, 2005

You can go here to view the speakers footnotes and sources.

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