’Treating protest as terrorism’: US plans crackdown on Keystone XL ...
▻https://diasp.eu/p/7747879
’Treating protest as terrorism’: US plans crackdown on Keystone XL activists
“Treating protest as terrorism is highly problematic,” said German, noting that the US government has long labeled activism as “terrorism”, once claiming that filing public records requests was an “extremist” tactic. “It’s an effective way of suppressing protest activity and creating an enormous burden for people who want to go out and express their concerns.”
The “terrorist” and “extremist” labels can be used to justify brutality and a militarized operation, said Andrea Carter, an attorney with the Water Protector Legal Collective, a group that has represented Standing Rock defendants
“It’s a really egregious tactic,” she said, noting that the labels also lay the groundwork for prosecutors to turn low-level (...)