This week has seen Julian Assange released on bail — a horrendous sum of $310,000 for a minor charge that only the Swedes could have invented.  Moreover, the likelihood of two such offenses over 48 hours strains the imagination.  If clandestine services are involved in a "honey trap" as has been alleged, the only hope is we are not.  From renditions to secret prisons to the horrors of Abu Ghraib and Bagram …  the world sneers at the U.S. Government as hypocrites.

At home, the record is a steady diminution of liberty.  The heavy-handed, intrusive Patriot Act supposed to protect the country from terrorism is busily being employed for other purposes.  Thus the number of delayed-notice search warrants granted last year under this act in connection with drug offenses was 844; the number related to terrorism, 6.  Two centuries ago, Benjamin Franklin warned about trading liberties for security and ending up with neither.

The Patriot Act also broadens "material support" for terrorism to include "expert advice or assistance" — bear in mind the Israeli Prime Minister's Likud party was home to individuals considered terrorists by British authorities for activities such as the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.  In a suit brought by the Humanitarian Law Project seeking to aid Tamil tsunami victims in Sri Lanka, the then Solicitor General (now Supreme Court Justice) Elena Kagan defended the Act on behalf of the government.  Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, rejected the suit and also held that the law criminalizes speech "under the direction of, or in coordination with foreign groups."

But if the activist's views are similar to the foreign group's, is that considered to be 'in coordination'?  When President Obama  was active protesting South African apartheid while an undergraduate, he espoused views not dissimilar to the African National Congress, labeled a terrorist organization at the time?  The law imposes a penalty of 15 years.  Had this law been in effect then, who knows where he would be now — certainly not in political office.

All of this comes to mind because scores of FBI agents recently raided the homes of antiwar activists, serving grand jury subpoenas to 14 people.  (For the detailed story see the January, 2011 issue of In These Times).  The common thread seems to have been participation in a Minnesota Anti-War Committee rally outside the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota.  One is reminded of the old quip about any prosecutor worth the name can get a grand jury to indict a turnip.  Hence, they are not cooperating citing the Fifth Amendment.

Here we are busily and lustily eviscerating the Bill of Rights all in the name of security.  Was it this bad during the commie-under-your-bed period?

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