What. The. Fuck.

Oregon Law Would Jail War Protesters as Terrorists

Senate Bill 742 identifies a “terrorist” as one who “plans or participates in an act that is intended, by at least one of its participants, to disrupt” business, transportation, schools, government, or free assembly."

What’s the justification for this? Apparently we need stronger laws to break down protests. By defining them as terrorists and giving them 25 to life.

Jesus, fucking “terrorists”!

Hopefully Oregon, the state that gave Ralph Nader more votes than any other, will not let this bill leave committee. But if it does: fuck you gummint.

I believe the bill is an attempt to keep protestors from getting rowdy and blocking access to roads, schools, office buildings, etc. I would assume if pro-war protestors got out of hand the bill would apply to them as well.

I’m hardly a Constitutional expert, but wouldn’t this be violating that particular piece of paper if they attempted to apply it to your average protestor?

Which ironically would make the police enforcing this proposed law terrorists (what with disrupting free assembly and all).

Particularly disturbing is the “by at least one of its participants” bit.

One bad apple spoils the bunch, you know…

It’s a paradox. You have the right to free assembly, but if you do you will be seen as a terrorist and abdicate your rights.

Talk about a Catch-22!!!

Hey, ivylass. News flash. THOSE THINGS ARE ALREADY ILLEGAL. All this bill does is sets up a mandatory 25 year jail sentence to get rid of those rowdy kids once and for all. Can you say “Orwellian”?

-C

So if you exercise your right to freedom of assembly, but disrupt someone else’s right to freedom of assembly, you get thrown in jail for 25 years?

You get less jail time for trafficking cocaine…

Some moron wants to get his name out there so he can be seen as patriotic by the simpletons of his district. Secretly he knows that the law wouldn’t stand up to even the slightest challenge. He also knows he has seen his name plastered on newspaper throughout his state and the nation. He will nurse this thing along until the reporters tire of it. Then he will come up with some other numb nutted scheme. Free publicity helps name recognition, which vastly increases the chances of reelection.

They won’t get tired of it when somebody realized it makes the anti-abortion protesters outside of a clinic terrorists. Or strikers. Or any number of people who protest various businesses.

There’s a GD thread on this topic as well, just so y’all know:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=174626

Read some of the comments posted on the Yahoo story… holy fucking christ I love this board…

Gutsy legislation. I live on the East coast.

Hmm. Well there goes the Veteran’s Day parades, 4th of July parades etc etc. :rolleyes: