[Portside folk, please ignore this note to cc recipient. Michael P. -- I think you are on lbo-talk. If that is true, would you please forward this there?]
To Portside
I would like to send a belated response to the following item (truncated) From: portsideMod at netscape.net Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 03:23:39 -0500 Subject: Oregon - life imprisonment for protesting
"There is a clear and present danger to democracy in Oregon which could spread to other states. for more information: http://www.aclu-or.org [posted by Marta Russell to lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
Dear friends: If this bill, which is so dangerous to our basic freedoms, can pass in Oregon, it can also happen in California, New York, and the entire country. Wherever you live, I urge you to voice your opposition NOW to the Oregon senators listed later in this notice, and to forward this information to your network... --- Karil]
Thanks to Portside and others for spreading news of this important struggle. To be clear, however, this bill has not been passed in Oregon. What is disturbing is that it could even be considered seriously.
The first hearings were last Monday, March 24, i.e. two days before Portside posted its message. Due to mobilizations of which the underlying forwarded message formed a part, the committee hearing room for *initial* consideration of this draft bill was packed by 400 opponents, requiring three overflow rooms, according to a contact who was able to go down to Salem from Portland and was arranging carpools and otherwise mobilizing. Already after that first hearing, the draft bill has been substantially modified to make it less draconian. Score one for our side and fighting back. Kudos to the ACLU.
However, the revised bill remains entirely unacceptable. The portions of the bill that would exempt "terrorism" investigations from Oregon's laws forbidding police spying except in the investigation of actual crime (the aws with the 181 numbers mentioned in the original piece) remain in place. These laws have proved something of an obstacle to "Joint Terrorism Task Forces" that co-opt local police as federal agents in effect, as well as to local police cooperation in anti-Arab/Muslim federal sweeps under the so-called USA Patriot Act.
The somewhat softened definitions of "terrorism" remain ridiculous with respect to the real meaning of the word, Orwellian, and clearly aimed at legitimate protests, at illegal but non-violent civil disobedience, and in particular at environmentalist protests (regularly smeared as "ecoterrorism" in Oregon and Washington) and at trade union organizing, through potentially criminalizing strike action and other tactics with economic consequences.
(It is not coincidental that on March 26 an Oregon House committee was considering a bill that would "legalize" formation of agricultural trade unions but ban strikes during harvest season and economic boycotts. That bill is strongly opposed by PCUN, the most actively organizing farmworker union in Oregon.)
We should fight to keep the "terrorism" bill from getting out of committee, to defeat it if it goes to the legislature, to insist that Governor Kulongoski veto it should it somehow get that far, and to challenge it immediately under Oregon's constitution, which has superior civil liberties protections to the federal constitution.
Outside comment on the bill continues to be welcome and needed, to the addresses on the original Portside message for now, as it still is in committee. The point about bill having potential implications everywhere in the country certainly is true.
Chris Lowe Portland, OR