Here is an extremely insightful report by Glenn Greenwald detailing the federal government’s involvement in the ‘pre-emptive’ arrests in St. Paul and the detaining of hundreds of people, including journalists, without warrants and/or on the flimsiest and extreme of charges. One example of the absurd and capricious nature of these kinds of criminal charges include the ones being levied against two producers for “Democracy Now!” who were arrested on charges of “probable cause for riot”. Throw in the ‘pre-emptive’ detainment and confiscation of all the equipment from organizations such as I-Witness Video and you have the kind of absurd Orwellian thought-crime prosecution we are used to hearing about in China and Burma, not the United States. This is nothing short of the state being an instrument of political repression.

Deputies coordinated searches with the Minneapolis and St. Paul police departments and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

Today’s Star Tribune added that the raids were specifically “aided by informants planted in protest groups.”

COINTELPRO here we come.

We love to proclaim how much we cherish our “freedoms” in the abstract, but we despise those who actually exercise them. The Constitution, right in the very First Amendment, protects free speech and free assembly precisely because those liberties are central to a healthy republic — but we’ve decided that anyone who would actually express truly dissident views or do anything other than sit meekly and quietly in their homes are dirty trouble-makers up to no good, and it’s therefore probably for the best if our Government keeps them in check, spies on them, even gets a little rough with them.

After all, if you don’t want the FBI spying on you, or the Police surrounding and then invading your home with rifles and seizing your computers, there’s a very simple solution: don’t protest the Government. Just sit quietly in your house and mind your own business. That way, the Government will have no reason to monitor what you say and feel the need to intimidate you by invading your home. Anyone who decides to protest — especially with something as unruly and disrespectful as an unauthorized street march — gets what they deserve.

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During the Olympics just weeks ago, there was endless hand-wringing over the efforts by the Chinese Government to squelch dissent and incarcerate protesters. On August 2, The Post gravely warned :

Behind the gray walls and barbed wire of the prison here, eight Chinese farmers with a grievance against the government have been consigned to Olympic limbo.

Their indefinite detainment, relatives and neighbors said, is the price they are paying for stirring up trouble as China prepares to host the Beijing Games. Trouble, the Communist Party has made clear, will not be permitted .

Would The Washington Post ever use such dark and accusatory tones to describe what the U.S. Government does? Of course it wouldn’t. Yet how is our own Government’s behavior in Minnesota any different than what the Chinese did to its protesters during the Olympics (other than the fact that we actually have a Constitution that prohibits such behavior)? And where are all the self-righteous Freedom Crusaders in our nation’s establishment organs who were so flamboyantly criticizing the actions of a Government on the other side of the globe as our own Government engages in the same tyrannical, protest-squelching conduct with exactly the same motives?

Good question.

Read The Full Report (Includes Video)

A colleague of mine from the Alliance For Community Media recently commented on these goings ons as well, and posted some good informational websites regarding the situation.

The civil rights violations taking place in St Paul over the last 24 hours are quite shocking. Residences housing activists and independent media folks are being raided by Marshals with warrants that pretty much allow them to take everything in the place. You can read one of the warrants at the IMC site below (it’s hard to imagine that a court of law actually issued this - that’s how far this country has degenerated).

Updates at:
http://twincities.indymedia.org/

Fun video at:
http://twincities.indymedia.org/videos/2008/aug/rnc-emergency-dispatch

We live in the United States of America, not the so-called People’s Republic of China. Let’s start acting like it.