Looting isn’t Terrorism
By: Dan Willson
Tags: Barr, Antifa, Attorney General, Terrorism, Demonstration

Looting isn’t Terrorism

Barr is using a bogus charge, and the might of the Justice Department to snoop on peaceful, anti-Trump protesters

After peaceful, angry protesters marched through Manhattan, fringe groups infiltrated the demonstrations. They lingered and held back. Then came the sound of shattered glass. This scenario repeated itself over and over at Aldo, Coach, Bergdorf Goodman and Macy’s flagship store in Hearld Square. Fires were lit. As the looting began, angry protesters yelled and berated them.

Back at the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr saw an opportunity to conflate looting and protesting. He called his sidekick in the White House and before long the two were bloviating about “DOMESTIC TERRORISM.”

Barr claimed the peaceful protesters had been “hijacked by violent radical elements.” He promised “to identify criminal organizers and instigators…using our existing network of 56 regional FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF).”

“The violence instigated and carried out by Antifa and other similar groups in connection with the rioting is domestic terrorism and will be treated accordingly,” Barr proclaimed.

While he cites Antifa–an ideological fashion label more than a group–as responsible for violence, one is left to wonder who the “other similar groups” are.

Later, one of Trump’s many former lawyers wrote a letter which contradicted live accounts of the infamous White House teargassing that took place near Black Lives Matter Plaza.

“The phony protesters near Lafayette were not peaceful and are not real…they are terrorists using hate filled students to burn and destroy,” John Dowd wrote. An FBI memo leaked to the Nation stated “no intelligence indicated Antifa involvment/presence” in the D.C. protests of May 31.

Trump has cheered on Barr and taken it farther by labeling protesters in the Seattle police-free zone as “terrorists.”

Did I miss the bombing, beheading or bloodbath?

This terrorism rhetoric deserves a closer look, especially since the Attorney General advocates executive supremacy.

Just how far will JTTF go in investigating those who participated in protests? How broad a dragnet will they use in this hunt? To “identify criminal organizers and instigators,” will Barr use the beefed-up antiterror investigating arm of the FBI to go after Trump opponents?

We shouldn’t have to pose these questions because protesters aren’t terrorists and neither were the “instigators” Barr lambasts.

The latest Barr-Trump Machiavellian maneuver is a barely-hidden effort to brand anti-Trump protesters as terrorists. JTTF is already intimidating peaceful protesters, showing up at their homes and places of employment to question their involvement with Antifa. Many have never heard of the group.

The Barr plan isn’t just evil, it’s illegal. The law that allows federal authorities to designate entities as terrorists only applies to foreign groups. And as the ACLU has warned, the ad hoc designation by Barr and company raises significant due process and First Amendment concerns.

The Justice Department also approved a request from the Drug Enforcement Administration to “conduct covert surveillance” on people participating in protests, which includes “conducting interviews [and] searches”.

What’s happening right now is both a fishing expedition and push for expanded, unlimited and unleashed executive power. Another leap toward authoritarianism.

Protesters certainly aren’t terrorists any more than those protesting Chinese leaders in Hong Kong. And neither are those involved in criminal acts of vandalism and looting.

Whatever you feel about the looters (I am with those berating them) they are not terrorists. They are not seeking to terrorize groups of people to make a political point.

Looting is immoral and often victimizes the same people targeted by racist cops. But it’s not an act of terror.

Although finding an agreed-upon definition of terrorism is hopeless, common sense should prevail here. The United Nations defines terrorism as “criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public.”

That definition fits right-wing militias and “boogaloo” nutjobs that are salivating for a second civil war and trying to provoke violence between demonstrators and cops. In recent days they’ve killed police officers and used fire and explosives in their attempts to get the civil war ball rolling.

Thankfully, we still have prosecutors at the Justice Department who will go after these true, domestic terrorists. Yet the drumbeat from the White House, the Attorney General and Fox News continues to be Antifa, Antifa, Antifa. Nothing like the attention to Antifa is directed toward the cop-killing white supremacists and shadowy, well-armed hate groups lurking around with explosives.

The public is not with Barr or Trump or Fox. In recent polls 64% of American adults were sympathetic to people who are out protesting, and 59% found the actions of police more troubling than protesters.

Attorney General Barr is eager to redefine terrorism to include protesters, so he can spy on them, even if no charges are filed. As for the looters, you can argue they’re bad people and should be prosecuted. But terrorists they are not.