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[ethercat]

This explains a lot!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,526972,00.html

Pentagon Exam Calls Protests 'Low-Level Terrorism,' Angering Activists

Wednesday, June 17, 2009
By James Osborne

A written exam administered by the Pentagon labels "protests" as a form of “low-level terrorism” — enraging civil liberties advocates and activist groups who say it shows blatant disregard of the First Amendment.

The written exam, given as part of Department of Defense employees’ routine training, includes a multiple-choice question that asks:

“Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorism?”

— Attacking the Pentagon
— IEDs
— Hate crimes against racial groups
— Protests

The correct answer, according to the exam, is "Protests."

“Its part of a pattern of equating dissent and protest with terrorism," said Ann Brick, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, which obtained a copy of the question after a Defense Department employee who was taking the test printed the screen on his or her computer terminal.

"It undermines the core constitutional values the Department of Defense is supposed to be defending,” Brick said, referring to the First Amendment right to peaceably assemble.

She said the ACLU has asked the Defense Department to remove the question and send out a correction to all employees who took the exam.

“There were other employees who were unhappy with it and disturbed by it,” Brick said.

Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Les Melnyk said the Defense Department is looking into the matter and expects to provide more information later Wednesday.

“We need to determine if it’s something we’re currently doing,” Melnyk said. “A lot of the information in this exam is intended for people stationed abroad. We counsel those people to avoid demonstrations.”

Anti-war protesters, who say they have been targets of federal surveillance for years, were livid when they were told about the exam question.

“That’s illegal,” said George Martin, national co-chairman of United for Peace and Justice. “Protest in terms of legal dissent has to be recognized, especially by the authorities.

"It’s not terrorism or a lack of patriotism. We care enough to be active in our government.”

Bill Wilson, president of the Americans for Limited Government, which supported the Tea Party demonstrations earlier this year, agreed.

"Groups like Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, paramilitary orgainzations that are striking at out at something they oppose or hate, that's terrorism," Wilson said.

"To equate that in any degree with citizens being able to express themselves seems to me to be headed down a road where all dissent is suspect and questionable."

Ben Friedman, a research fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington, said the U.S. government has a long history of infringing upon citizens’ civil liberties in the name of domestic security.

“It’s the kind of thing that happens when you have large security bureaucracies, which is why they need to be kept in check,” Friedman said. “These things tend to occur in times of panic, like after Sept. 11.”

The ACLU, in a letter of complaint it sent to the Defense Department, catalogued a list of what it said were recent civil liberties violations by federal authorities, including the monitoring of anti-war protests and the FBI’s surveillance of potential protesters at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York.

Martin said getting information on the extent of the FBI and National Security Agency’s surveillance programs is nearly impossible.

“I have been arrested within 100 yards of George W. Bush and spoken out against the policies of our government in more than 100 countries," he said. "But they said they have no record on me. I don’t believe that.”

During Bush's presidency, the Defense Department was criticized for infringing on citizens’ civil rights through surveillance programs designed to protect the nation against terrorist attacks. Brick said she has seen no indication that there will be a change in policy under President Obama.

“We need to see what they do,” she said. “In a number of areas the Obama administration has not backed off and kept the Bush administration line.”

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,527181,00.html

Pentagon Pulls Question That Called Protests a Form of Terrorism

Thursday, June 18, 2009
By James Osborne

The Pentagon has removed a controversial question from its anti-terrorism training exam that labeled “protests” a form of “low-level terrorism,” calling the question “poorly worded.”

A Pentagon spokesman said the question failed to make clear the difference between illegal violent demonstrations and constitutionally protected peaceful protests.

Civil libertarians and activist groups, interviewed by FOXNews.com for a story that appeared on Wednesday, had objected strongly to the exam question, which a Department of Defense employee had printed and given to the American Civil Liberties Union.

The question asked:

“Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorism?”
— Attacking the Pentagon
— IEDs
— Hate crimes against racial groups
— Protests

The correct answer, according to the exam, was "Protests."

“They should have made it clearer there’s a clear difference between illegal violent demonstrations and peaceful, constitutionally protected protests,” Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Les Melnyk said on Thursday.

Asked when a protest becomes an “illegal, violent demonstration,” Melnyk said, “I’m not a lawyer. I couldn’t get into the specifics of when you cross the line.”

“If you’re doing physical damage to people or property, that could fall into that,” he said.

The ACLU had written a letter to the Pentagon last week asking it to remove the question from the exam, which is a part of defense employees' routine training.

The Pentagon will not try to identify the employee who printed out the question and gave it to the ACLU, Melnyk said.

“Sharing that with the ACLU wouldn’t be any sort of misconduct,” he said.

Of the Defense Department’s 3 million employees, 1,546 took the exam, Melnyk said. All will be sent e-mails “explaining the error and the distinction between lawful protests and unlawful violent protests,” he wrote in an e-mail.

He added that many Defense employees work in countries where violent demonstrations are regular occurrences.

“In those situations, that anti-Americanism might be taken out on an American in the crowd,” Melnyk said.

George Martin, national co-chairman of United for Peace and Justice, an anti-war group, said he was satisfied with the decision to remove the question.

"There is a distinction between legal, non-violent action and violent demonstrations. That’s where the mainstream peace movement comes from," Martin said.

"I'm glad to see that question was removed. How the government directs its employees to deal with its citizens is critical."

Ann Brick, an attorney with the ACLU, said "I'd like to talk to them about what steps they're going to take to make sure mistakes like this don’t happen in the future.

"There's a need for some education, not just for the people taking the course, but for the people designing these tests. They need some education in fundamental constitutional principles."

Earlier this week, Brick called the question “part of a pattern of equating dissent and protest with terrorism.”

"It undermines the core constitutional values the Department of Defense is supposed to be defending,” Brick said, referring to the First Amendment right to peaceably assemble.

The language of the question raised flags across the political spectrum, with both anti-war demonstrators and tea party participants interpreting it as an indication of the Pentagon’s indifference to citizens’ civil liberties.

“To equate that in any degree with citizens being able to express themselves seems to me to be headed down a road where all dissent is suspect and questionable,” Bill Wilson, president of the Americans for Limited Government, said on Wednesday.

Maybe the letters to the ACLU back in March 2008 when the protesters against scientology were arrested on trumped-up charges actually did some (delayed) good.

[Stutroup]

Things often do take time in the bureaucracy.

But it makes me wonder if the group 'Anonymous' has been taken off the list of potential terrorists; the protests are what put them on it.

[Lorelei]

Good question, Stu.

[Raven]

Sadly the government in all its wisdom is putting a blanket label on one thing when each group needs to be looked at on a case by case bases

[ethercat]

Good observation, Raven.  I, like Stu, wonder if it was protesting that got Anonymous on the list, or if it was something else.  At any rate, one shouldn't paint everyone with a broad brush: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_fallacy

[Stutroup]

Good observation, Raven.  I, like Stu, wonder if it was protesting that got Anonymous on the list, or if it was something else.  At any rate, one shouldn't paint everyone with a broad brush: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_fallacy

OK, I had misremembered.  I though I had read something about the propensity to take real-world action based from online collaboration.  It's still something like that, but even better:

the pdf:
http://www.infowars.com/media/vafusioncenterterrorassessment.pdf

from page 45 (bold text added to highlight points):

"A 'loose coalition of Internet denizens,' Anonymous consists largely of users from multiple internet sites such as 4chan, 711chan, 420chan, Something Awful, Fark, Encyclopedia Dramatica, Slashdot, IRC channels, and YouTube. Other social networking sites are also utilized to mobilize physical protests. ... Anonymous is of interest not only because of the sentiments expressed by affiliates and their potential for physical protest, but because they have innovated the use of e-protests and mobilization. Given the lack of a unifying creed, this movement has the potential to inspire lone wolf behavior in the cyber realms."