California official says protesting is terrorism
State monitored war protesters Intelligence agency does not distinguish between terrorism and peace activism By Ian Hoffman, Sean Holstege and Josh Richman, STAFF WRITERS
Days before firing wooden slugs at anti-war protesters, Oakland police were warned of potential violence at the Port of Oakland by California's anti-terrorism intelligence center, which admits blurring the line between terrorism and political dissent.
The April 2 bulletin from the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center (CATIC) arguably offered more innuendo than actual evidence of protesters' intent to "shut down" the port and possibly act violently.
CATIC spokesman Mike Van Winkle said such evidence wasn't needed to issue warnings on war protesters.
"You can make an easy kind of a link that, if you have a protest group protesting a war where the cause that's being fought against is international terrorism, you might have terrorism at that (protest)," said Van Winkle, of the state Justice Department. "You can almost argue that a protest against that is a terrorist act."
Full: http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,82%7E1865%7E1400012,00.html
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