"If You Haven’t Done Anything Wrong..." - The DFHippies were right edition.

My old stomping grounds in Annapolis.

Balloon Juice » Blog Archive » If You Haven’t Done Anything Wrong:

"You might wind up on a terrorist watch list and under surveillance anyway:

The Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent activists as terrorists and entered their names and personal information into state and federal databases that track terrorism suspects, the state police chief acknowledged yesterday.

Police Superintendent Terrence B. Sheridan revealed at a legislative hearing that the surveillance operation, which targeted opponents of the death penalty and the Iraq war, was far more extensive than was known when its existence was disclosed in July.

The department started sending letters of notification Saturday to the activists, inviting them to review their files before they are purged from the databases, Sheridan said.
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But Sen. James Brochin (D-Baltimore County) noted that undercover troopers used aliases to infiltrate organizational meetings, rallies and group e-mail lists. He called the spying a “deliberate infiltration to find out every piece of information necessary” on groups such as the Maryland Campaign to End the Death Penalty and the Baltimore Pledge of Resistance...

Once again, what I eight years (hell- three to four) ago would have derided, mocked, and sneered as little more than the delusional fantasies and paranoid conspiracy theories of the dirty fucking hippies (DFH, for short), turns out to be true. Welcome to Dick Cheney’s America..."

More, via Reason Magazine:

"Appalling:

The Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent activists as terrorists and entered their names and personal information into state and federal databases that track terrorism suspects, the state police chief acknowledged yesterday...

"The names don't belong in there," he told the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. "It's as simple as that."

...Sheridan said protest groups were also entered as terrorist organizations in the databases, but his staff has not identified which ones.

Stunned senators pressed Sheridan to apologize to the activists for the spying, assailed in an independent review last week as "overreaching" by law enforcement officials who were oblivious to their violation of the activists' rights of free expression and association. The letter, obtained by The Washington Post, does not apologize but admits that the state police have "no evidence whatsoever of any involvement in violent crime" by those classified as terrorists.

That this joke could rise to the level of state police superintendent is a pretty damning indictment of the Maryland's State Police. Here's what he thinks of the First Amendment:

"I don't believe the First Amendment is any guarantee to those who wish to disrupt the government," he said.

"Disrupting the government" apparently now includes no more than expressing your disagreement with it."