April 04, 2003
The Undead Body of SB 742 Marches On
Over at Rantavision, it is pointed out (note: permalink not working yet) that the dreaded SB 742 managed to appear in a Reuters story this week. It would seem (as Rantavision points out) that this is in no small part because local conservative bonehead Lars Larson has been out pimping the bill:
The bill's few public supporters say police need stronger laws to break up protests that have created havoc in cities like Portland, where thousands of people have marched and demonstrated against war in Iraq since last fall.
"We need some additional tools to control protests that shut down the city," said Lars Larson, a conservative radio talk show host who has aggressively stumped for the bill.
Larson said protesters should be protected by free speech laws, but not given free reign to hold up ambulances or frighten people out of their daily routines, adding that police and the court system could be trusted to see the difference.
"Right now a group of people can get together and go downtown and block a freeway," Larson said. "You need a tool to deal with that."
Of course, we do have tools for situations such as these. It's not as if the state's criminal code doesn't already make such actions illegal and actionable. But even the mighty mind of Lars Larson fails to offer any compelling reasons why this should be considered terrorism.
Meanwhile, according to Reuters, legislators don't seem to believe that the bill stands a chance of actually passing. And even if it did, a recent article in the Newport News-Times revealed the governor's stance on the matter:
Governor Ted Kulongoski finds Senate Bill 742 to be "troubling" because of its impacts on civil liberties, according to his chief spokesperson, Mary Ellen Glynn.
Glynn said Thursday that the governor thinks the legislation, which is presently before the Senate Judiciary Committee, "would broadly define terrorism and stifle dissent. And the last thing that we want to do is to stifle peaceful protest."
Of course, Glynn also asserts that "violent protest" is another thing altogether. While this may or may not be true, even violent protest is not terrorism.
As I've argued before, however, the real threat right now is that people like Lars Larson are trying to take advantage of their media stature to export this "protest as terrorism" idea to the rest of the country.