THE WAR ON DISSENT PART ONE
The Land of the Free
Reading the case of Laura Sennett, a freelance photojournalist pursued by the FBI is to glimpse a snapshot of the ongoing struggle against dissent in the US, at the mind-set of the FBI, an organisation no longer able to distinguish between protest and dissent and terrorism.[1]
Sennett’s ‘offence’ was to photograph an anarchist
group causing minor criminal damage to a hotel lobby, as a consequence of which
‘…Around two-dozen agents “yanked my
19-year-old son out of bed at gunpoint”, she said, before quizzing her about
political books on her shelf and asking what “kind of an American” she was.[2]
Displaying the kind of mastery of the US constitution
and the concept of freedom to dissent one might expect from a member of the Ku
Klux Clan the officer tasked with the investigation of the case Detective
Vincent Antignano opined:-
“Everyone
on that video is a suspect, so that’s the way I look at it,” he said, adding
that he assumed she had similar views to the protesters captured in the video
“who despise their government”…that while he did not know Sennett’s dietary
preference, “she could also be a vegan like … [people] who are against animal
protests [sic] or animal research or won’t eat meat and stuff like that.”
Such nuance and sophistication accompanied by
Antignano’s broad notion of what behaviour constituted terrorism ought to give
even the most fervent anti liberal Republican pause for thought. “If you get assaulted and you believe you’ve
been terrorised, then maybe that is terrorism.”
Sennett’s case far from being isolated is but one
example of an ongoing onslaught against dissent right across what we used to
call the ‘free world.’[3]
In this country agent provocateurs and police spies
have been acting against political dissent for decades, only now being exposed,
whilst the full implications for civil liberties and privacy created by
legislation passed during the Blair years is still not fully penetrating into
the mind of the general public.[4]
Snowden’s revelations may have created alarm in America
and deep concern across Europe and Australasia, but here in Britain the general
public remains unperturbed. Orwell’s ‘deep
sleep of the English’ continues undisturbed.
Meanwhile the war on dissent has moved onto the
historical battleground of protest, the university campus. Across the western
world students, having awoken to the increasing privatisation and
commodification of education and a collapse in their employment prospects, have
fought back; only to be faced with police infiltration, legal injunctions, police
batons and pepper spray.[5]
The internet too has now become a central arena in the
ongoing struggle, as governments across the world, experiencing the internet's potential
as a platform for dissent and as a tool of resistance, seek to restrict access
and censor content.[6]
Whilst even in countries with relatively free access there is a constant battle
to keep restrictive measures at bay.[7]
2008 saw the greatest crisis of capitalism since the
Wall Street crash of 1929. Ever since governments have been trying to rebuild the
damaged capitalist monolith by introducing draconian austerity measures,
holding down wages, dismantling employment protection rights and directly
assaulting the power of organised labour. These moves have obviously carried
with them the possibility of serious political unrest, consequently across the
capitalist world there has been a concerted move against dissent - under the
cover of the ‘war on terror’ and the threat of Islamism.
Ruling elites everywhere are anxious to hold onto their
power and wealth and will use every means at their disposal to do so. When
elites become afraid so too should we, though for very different reasons.
[2]
ibid
These incidences are only more alarming coming as it
does from the land of the first amendment, though first amendment protection
has had a patchy record in the era of the Orwellian ‘Patriot Act.’
[4]
Of particular concern is RIPA, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act,
which provides the authorities from the central state to local government
sweeping powers to spy on citizens.
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