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I Regret That I Have But One Name To Place On My Country’s List Of Suspicious Characters

Dec 7, 2008
By Patrick.
Politics & Current Events

If dissent is the highest form of patriotism, the national terror watchlist is full of Americans who love their country, courtesy of the Maryland State Police:

[A]n undercover Maryland State Police trooper between 2005 and 2007 infiltrated more than two dozen rallies and meetings of nonviolent groups.

Maryland officials now concede that, based on information gathered by “Lucy” and others, state police wrongly listed at least 53 Americans as terrorists in a criminal intelligence database — and shared some information about them with half a dozen state and federal agencies, including the National Security Agency.

Lucy makes no distinction among patriotic dissenters, left or right.  Among those whose names are now on the government’s blacklist, probably until the day they die, are pro-life demonstrators, anti-war protesters, religious pacifists, and two Catholic nuns.  None of whom, it should be added, behaved violently or advocated the overthrow of the United States government.  To the credit of the Maryland State Police, at least one is probably guilty of aggravated puppetry:

One suspect’s file warned that she was “involved in puppet making and allows anarchists to utilize her property for meetings.”

During the recent election, many complained vociferously about the activities of a certain voting registration group, some of whose employees apparently made up names of registrants, or picked names from lists at random in order to fill a quota.  Some even suggested RICO prosecutions against ACORN, whose activities, it was claimed, undermined public faith in elections and government.

In this case, “Lucy” (whom the Maryland State Police refuse to name) will probably go unprosecuted, and may even keep her job.  We just don’t know, because this is a matter of state security, and the state isn’t telling.  But Lucy wasn’t doing anything different from what the people at ACORN were doing.  She was filling a quota, making it up at random, pumping out a list of names without regard for the consequences.

Will those who railed at ACORN now demand that “Lucy” and her sort face prosecution for what they’ve done?  Some surely will, but I suspect the majority won’t.  They know that if they complain too loudly, they’re likely to wind up on some list.

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  1. Ken  •  Dec 7, 2008 @10:12 pm

    One suspect’s file warned that she was “involved in puppet making and allows anarchists to utilize her property for meetings.”

    Puppets! I was always suspicious of that fucking Geppetto.
    Here’s the thing. As you know, much of what the police do when they infiltrate and investigate citizen groups is not a constitutional violation. There’s a time when it may have violated regulations and a few statutes, but most such restrictions have fallen by the wayside post-9/11. Absent actual searches, wiretaps, or other intrusions, their infiltration of groups — accomplished through deceit, but still involving voluntary presence — does not breach the Bill of Rights.
    But as your post suggests, there are still plenty of reasons to be unhappy about it. Among them:

    1. Government classification of a person or group as terrorist can have both informal and formal legal ramifications down the road. Most judges will be more likely to give cops a search or arrest warrant if they are told that the suspect has been classified as a terrorist — even if that classification is entirely arbitrary and capricious. Plus, though confidential classification by the cops is not the same as open classification under statutory rules, it is a step in that direction. It is illegal to give material assistance to a group once the State Department has classified it as a terrorist group under 18 USC 2239B, for instance.

    2. Tolerance of this nonsense is tolerance of shameful waste of government resources. Sending snoops to sit around the local hemp collective while they talk about what color to paint the giant paper mache turtle costumes this year not only flushes my tax dollars down the shitter, it allows the government to posture as if it’s doing something about the real threat of terrorism when it is not. Granted, it’s not like “Lucy” is likely to be shutting down any Al-Qaida cells any time soon if she’s re-tasked, but Jesus, can’t we make her learn Arabic and go translate web sites or something?

    3. Tolerance of government investigation of peaceful and intractably harmless peaceniks and tree-huggers normalizes public tolerance of the invasion of people like Lucy and her pencil-pushing supervisors into every sort our business.

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