[grey-area]

It's hard to know what to make of this as without the [DELETED] portions, as there's no evidence of government agencies being involved. I'm not sure why Occupy were not informed of such a plot though? Perhaps the FBI didn't think it was credible?

The part that worries me even more than the death threats was the classification of the Occupy movement as 'terrorist activity'. This opens them up to a whole catalogue of surveillance methods and methods of detention, and is a good illustration of terrorism powers being extended and misused for domestic dissent.

This misuse of the label 'terrorist' highlights the danger of employing extra-legal means to attack your enemies in other countries, it undermines the rule of law everywhere, and weakens the accountability of all law enforcement agencies. Assassination, torture, rendition, and detention without trial are all normalised now in the US for terrorists. The definition of an enemy for the state always includes some of its citizens, so you end up with scope creep where formerly completely illegal and unthinkable acts are considered normal, just because the word terrorism has been used in conjunction with a person or organisation.

[zanny]

Terrorist is todays communist, or yesteryears fascist, eugenicist, jap, negro, etc. Blanket arbitrary term to apply to dissenters you want to control and treat inhumanely, and society doesn't judge you for it because they are the "enemy" or "other". It incites an emotional response in people that let those holding the pen get away with way more than they should.

[davidjohnstone]

Slightly tangential, but I'm pretty sure eugenicists were never thought of in the same way as communists et al. In the US, eugenics was an important idea in the Progressive Era of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century, and while it wasn't universally liked (the Catholic church being a notable opponent), it did have broad social approval and at least a few countries practiced eugenics in some form. This all changed with Hitler and World War II, and now eugenics is another idea sidelined to the dustbin of history. (For now?)

As Wikipedia says: "At its peak of popularity, eugenics was supported by a wide variety of prominent people, including Winston Churchill, Margaret Sanger, Marie Stopes, H. G. Wells, Norman Haire, Havelock Ellis, Theodore Roosevelt, George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keynes, John Harvey Kellogg, Linus Pauling and Sidney Webb. Its most infamous proponent and practitioner was, however, Adolf Hitler who praised and incorporated eugenic ideas in Mein Kampf and emulated Eugenic legislation for the sterilization of "defectives" that had been pioneered in the United States." — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#Supporters_and_critic...

[samscully]

Abortion of a foetus with an identifiable disability is considered acceptable today by many people, which is similar in spirit if not in practice to eugenics.

[moomin]

I'm sorry, but no. There's no equivalence in spirit between a crying mother deciding that it's in the best interests of her family to terminate a pregnancy and a bunch of scary-eyed fanatics trying to make humanity "better".

I'm assuming you've never known anyone go through that. It's a personal tragedy, not an intellectual issue.

[marianov]

"terminate a pregnancy"? Is there a name for the practice of using more convoluted words so as no to make people focus on the real meaning of the sentence? You could have used "terminate the carrying developing offspring within the body, by terminating said offspring's capacity for metabolism, growth or reaction to stimuli". OTOH, you mention "a crying mother", which IMHO should be compared to the other tragedy: "an innocent baby being torn apart, aspirated, poisoned or killed in some other way"

And there goes my karma down in 3,2,1,...

[moomin]

Believe me, I'm not trying to avoid the full meaning of the words. I'm merely pointing out that, contrary to what some people seem to wish to believe, the people making these decisions aren't avoiding them either.

The problem is: there's no good words to use, because they've been co-opted by political positions and value judgements. "Baby" indicates you're anti-abortion, "foetus" indicates you're pro-abortion. I went for pregnancy, because that implies the "potential to be a baby".

"Terminate" has the same problem. What are the alternatives? "Abort" is pretty much taken by the pro-lifers. It's such an emotive issue that in the UK, where there is no broad based political movement that wishes to outlaw it, medical professionals don't even have a word for it. They have words for specific procedures like EPRC, and as far as I can tell they change those terms every couple of years. And of course, the terminology is the same whether the pregnancy is still ongoing or not.

[SilasX]

"You ever noticed how there are no abortion doctors, only 'reproductive health physicians'?" -> no comedian's routine

[cristianpascu]

Hang in there, brother! :) You still have like 5 points of karma.

[SilasX]

Argument from emotion.

[antiterra]

Swooping down to declare a fallacy then immediately swishing your cape and dashing away is highly unlikely to gain much social traction or admiration.

Also, when arguing if something is in a particular spirit, it's appropriate to discuss emotions and principles.

[coldtea]

Yes. Because we are humans, not Vulcans.

Someone saying: "Don't hit me, please" is also an argument from emotion.

[moomin]

I claim that any argument about "in spirit" is necessarily about emotion. The original statement struck me as veering pretty close to Godwin's law.

[deadairspace]

Argument from fallacy.

[samscully]

I apologise, my comment was far too cold towards people who have been presented with that very distressing choice, I should have thought more carefully about it before posting.

[a-priori]

I'd say the reverse: that selective abortions are (maybe, in some cases) similar in practice, but not in spirit to eugenics. The difference is that eugenics had an imperative to it. They wanted to 'improve the human race' through selective breeding of humans. They were concerned about the population genetics as a whole, not an individual.

And yes, it was very much an accepted area of thought and research in academia from the late 1800s to the end of the second world war. It wasn't until it became associated with Nazi Germany that the idea became taboo.

[cristianpascu]

Or abortion of foetus if she's a girl. Or of a foetus of whatever gender if "we're too many", and one more would mean less confort for the others, less education, less whatever.

[smsm42]

There's a pretty big gap between dissent and blowing people up on the streets. So let's not engage in false equivalency.

[malandrew]

Considering that many people in these services apply the term terrorist to a lot more people and groups than Al Quaida, I really don't think it's a false equivalency.

The "War on Terror" is absurd because it's stateless and doesn't describe any one single group of people. It's a war on a very loose set of behaviors.

The average person thinks "War on Terror" and they support it because they have the people who brought down the Twin Towers in mind. Whereas people in the NSA, CIA, FBI, police stations across the country, etc, are thinking Occupy Wall Street, PETA, etc.

[Sharlin]

The grandparent didn't do that. His/her point was that governments do.

[anigbrowl]

But Governments are neither homogenous nor monolithic. Saying 'Governments do X' is like saying 'corporations are at the root of all our problems.' Reason along those lines, and pretty soon the only rational choice is to become a hermit and avoid society entirely. After all, society is made up of people, and people are well-known to engage in murder, rape, robbery, etc. etc. Therefore, people are the problem.

[grwkmewrlemw]

If someone is engaging in murder, rape or robbery, it would make sense to call attention to this fact, and then perhaps do something about it, wouldn't it? Parts of the US government are CURRENTLY misusing the word "terrorist" as a very broad label. This is very dangerous for the reasons discussed above. It's important to call attention to this problem if we have any hope of halting it.

[anigbrowl]

Yes - you call attention to the specific person engaging in those acts. When you overlook that requirement of specificity, you end up accusing people based on their membership in a class, eg 'all gypsies are thieves, X is a gypsy, therefore X is a thief.'

So saying 'the US government is doing X, and I think it's acting illegally because Y' - fine. But 'the US government is doing X and this will end badly because governments always oppress citizens' (an argument that has appeared here a lot lately) isn't fine, because it rests on a false premise.

[calibraxis]

It's clearly useful to describe a structure independently from its consitutent atoms. Anyone who doesn't do so is virtually unable to communicate.

Social structures do things, and are amenable to institutional analysis. This allows us to act without omniscience. Institutional analysis allows one to analyze institutions independently of individuals; replace all the people, and you may nevertheless expect similar outcomes. Thus we can perform institutional analysis on governments, corporations, mafias, economies, consumers, managers, startups, etc.

If this weren't the case, humans wouldn't form institutions in the first place.

[anigbrowl]

I wholly agree, but surely you've noticed that many people take the observation that 'some governments sometimes do things' to mean that 'all governments inevitably do those things,' which is plainly untrue.

[smsm42]

Governments can lie. But terrorist is not an arbitrary term to stifle dissent - it is a specific and identifiable tactic used to achieve certain goals. If somebody says black is white, it doesn't mean black and white are arbitrary labels that can be applied to anything. That's the false dichotomy that is offered to us.

[alan_cx]

Terrorist is an arbitrary term used to stifle dissent and demonide an opposition. One could use the term "freedom fighter" in it place and suddenly it has a whole new moral meaning.

We Brits know this well, as we referred to the IRA terrorists, while many Americans and Irish called them freedom fighters, while funding them.

Perhaps consider this when Nelson Mandela dies. A man who for years was considered a terrorist, but is now almost universally considered a freedom fighter.

Note: I have mode no moral judgement about either the IRA or Nelson Mandela.

The falseness is this is in the application of morality labels. "Terrorist" implies something wrong and evil. Freedom Fighter implies nobility. Both are people using violence to achieve political aims. Much like the US does. Which means many world wide have every right to consider the US a terrorist state, since that terror is by a democratically elected government.

[malandrew]

Exactly. This country was founded by terrorists.

    "The first recorded incident in America occurred in 1766: 
    Captain William Smith was tarred, feathered, and dumped 
    into the harbor of Norfolk, Virginia, by a mob that 
    included the town's Mayor."[0]

Claims of US perpetrated terrorism aren't even limited to the founding of the country. Take the downing of Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 and the Contras in Nicaragua for example[5]

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarring_and_feathering

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sons_of_Liberty

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaspée_Affair

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Marion

[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubana_de_Aviación_Flight_455

[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contras

[eitland]

Terrorism implies the use of terror, -choosing targets and tactics not to inflict the biggest/smallest damage but to scare.

Typically this results in attacks on civilians instead of attacking enemy soldiers (who have been trained to handle fear). Other typical traits: using weapons that creates visible damage, injures etc

The sets of freedom fighters and terrorists might intercept but neither is a subset of the other.

[PavlovsCat]

I think the main problem the US has with sticking to a clear definition of terrorism is that it usually would apply to itself as well, so that's no good..

But yes, terrorism does mean something; just the way the word is used a lot, kinda doesn't... but this doesn't change what is terrorism and what is not. Even if someone where to argue that the ends justify the means, it would not change what those means are.

[anigbrowl]

The most likely candidate to me seems some fringe right-wing types flapping their mouths in an internet forum. I've heard plenty of people at that end of the spectrum averring that the Occupy movement was some sort of Marxist 5th column under orders from Obama, or variants on that theme. Right-wing fringe thinkers like to fantasize about putting their guns to patriotic use in much the same way that leftist fringe thinkers like to fantasize about general strikes and establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat.

My guess is that the FBI was monitoring the person(s) floating these ideas but didn't consider them a credible threat.

[mtgx]

But they were calling the Occupy people potential terrorists...not the right-wingers who might've wanted to assassinate their leaders. Strange, isn't it?

[anigbrowl]

No. You have a second-hand, uncorroborated report that someone within the FBI and/or DHS referred to the Occupy movement as terrorists, with no context whatsoever.

First, without context or a link to the source the report is meaningless. The documents that are cited in this report make no such characterization. Second, these two organizations are huge. It's entirely possible that someon in the FBI wrote a report describing the Occupy folks as potential terrorists - I can easily believe that occurred. That's not the same as the entire organization or even its leadership holding that position.

Context matters a lot, and so do primary sources. This sort of political free-association that you seem to enjoy quickly ends up in conspiracy-theory territory because it's not falsifiable. This is why it's so hard to talk to people who buy into UFO conspiracies; possibility is continually treated as probability, and eventually it starts to look to them like everything revolves around an attempt to conceal Aliens Among Us. You can't talk them out of it, because that's just sort of thing a PsyOps operative would do, right?

Do you remember the shitstorm in 2009 when DHS came up with a report on 'rightwing extremism'? That was a fairly dry and dispassionate overview of one type of possible domestic terrorism (http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/rightwing.pdf), but to look at the reaction in the blogosphere you'd think the Obama administration was about to carry out the bloodiest purge since Stalin. Forgive me if I don't give random extrapolations based on a single word a great deal of weight.

[fnordfnordfnord]

>No. You have a second-hand, uncorroborated report that someone within the FBI and/or DHS referred to the Occupy movement as terrorists, with no context whatsoever.

Here is the ~~100 page document obtained from the FBI through FOIA request detailing activities conducted by the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/549516-fbi-spy-files...

Most items in the documents indicate that people associated the Occupy movement are the primary focus of investigations. Ironically, at lease one of the incidents named "terrorism" by FBI agents is a report of pretty minor violence directed at Occupy protesters (a Drano bomb). It doesn't give the appearance that field agents spam the word terrorism as much as their press spokesperson counterparts. I suspect many field agents are just as tired of the word as I am.

So here is your context. There is a large group of groups within State and local law enforcement agencies named "Joint Terrorism Task Force" (JTTF), which has money, and other resources; and a broad mandate and expanded authority, which spends its time spying on and policing what are obviously peaceful groups of citizens protesting social and political issues. It stores its reports in a database under a heading named "counterterrorism".

The whole thing smells too much like a better organized and better funded version of the COINTELPRO program under Hoover's FBI, which I would expect was begun in a similar manner and spirit.

[anigbrowl]

So here is your context. There is a large group of groups within State and local law enforcement agencies named "Joint Terrorism Task Force" (JTTF), which has money, and other resources; and a broad mandate and expanded authority, which spends its time spying on and policing what are obviously peaceful groups of citizens protesting social and political issues. It stores its reports in a database under a heading named "counterterrorism".

/Facepalm

Most of the documents in here consist of observations that OWS events were peaceful and harmless, or that where there was violence it was the exception and was rejected by most protestors.You're complaining about a JTTF coming to the conclusion that this or that OWS event is a false positive, because the JTTF has 'terrorism' in its name.

This is like arguing that doctors consider everyone to be sick because they are trained to be on the lookout for disease. I can't have a serious conversation with you if you think this way.

[grey-area]

Though I'm not sure I agree that a counter terrorism task force should be in any way connected to investigating Occupy protests without credible and specific threats of real terrorism, here's an even better example of the misuse of powers against terrorists:

When defending the liberty of unsavory characters, I usually write of my native England. Not this week, alas. In the state of Texas, a 19-year-old man named Justin Carter sits in prison, ruthlessly stripped of his freedom for making an offensive joke. After a Facebook friend with whom he played video games described him as “crazy” and “messed up in the head,” Carter replied — sarcastically, one imagines — “Oh yeah, I’m real messed up in the head, I’m going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts.” He added “lol” and “jk” for good measure. For this he was arrested by Austin police, charged with making a “terroristic threat,” and thrown into prison. He may languish there until the start of the next decade. http://www.nationalreview.com/article/352432/free-justin-car...

I imagine half the male population of the US could be jailed for making similar remarks at some stage in their life.

If you give police special powers against terrorists, gradually all suspects will be considered a terrorist, because it's just easier that way. Recently a 19 year old boy has been jailed for years for one sarcastic comment, in the name of fighting terror.

[grey-area]

It's entirely possible that someon in the FBI wrote a report describing the Occupy folks as potential terrorists - I can easily believe that occurred. That's not the same as the entire organization or even its leadership holding that position.

I agree that this is not something to be outraged about, but it is something to be watchful of and to be called out - government agencies should not refer to peaceful or even violent protesters as terrorists, and our laws should not distinguish between terrorists and other suspects in terms of the rights we give them. In this particular case I agree we need more evidence to say anything meaningful, but there are plenty of examples of misuse of powers given to our states to deal with terrorists for other purposes.

Context matters a lot, and so do primary sources. This sort of political free-association that you seem to enjoy quickly ends up in conspiracy-theory territory because it's not falsifiable.

That is mostly my objection to the use of the label terrorist - the meaning of the term has been stretched to encompass so many acts (from giving money, to riots, to bombing a market), and the judgement calls required to choose between freedom-fighter and terrorist are so subjective, that use of the term limits the horizons of any debate to a narrow exchange of slogans. It is similar to the epithet traitor when applied to Edward Snowden. It's simply a way to shut down debate without further thought, and classify others as in a group you could never parley with or understand.

What's interesting about both the Snowden case and terrorism when it comes to the US is that in both cases the government sees some acts as good, and others as bad a priori, when in character they are exactly the same. This administration leaks classified secrets all the time, but those are good leaks, whereas Snowden's leaks to journalists are bad leaks. Obama stood in the former jail cell of a terrorist at the weekend and contemplated freedom and the terrorist's struggle to end Apartheid.

These issues are complex and shouldn't be reduced to sound-bites or slogans, and the label of terrorist is particularly dangerous in the west at present as it has been used to justify ignoring our laws on human rights, privacy, and justice for whole swathes of people. As soon as you are associated (even a few degrees removed) from activity deemed terrorist, your rights no longer exist. That's extremely dangerous.

[jasonlotito]

> government agencies should not refer to peaceful or even violent protesters as terrorists

You mean "potential terrorists."

And, I for one am fine with people in government speculating and planning. There is a vast difference in research and study, speculation and planning. After all, all it would take is a few OWS people to go blow up a bank or something to escalate the entire matter. Sure, it's just a few members, a splinter group, but then what do you do. Ignore the entire movement? Did the cover of OWS help them achieve some other goal, or did OWS unwittingly help them escalate the matter further.

None of this is to lay blame to OWS, but maybe something like this should have been considered, so when bad things do happen, we are more prepared.

And it's all speculation. But the minute you start holding to account speculation at the same level you hold official policy, you start serious restricting our ability to plan.

I'd hope that our government has plans on how to invade Canada should the need arise. I hope that need never arises, but I'd rather have the plan and not need it then need it and not have it.

There is a vast difference in planning something, and intending to follow through (which is always why the conspiracy laws are not just applied for planning, otherwise thriller writers the world over would be in jail).

> and the judgement calls required to choose between freedom-fighter and terrorist are so subjective

People are fond of reminding us that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom-fighter. They forget that for that statement to be true, that freedom-fighter must also be a terrorist.

[jackbravo]

Wait what? Hope that the government has plans to invade Canada? Maybe you meant defend from Canada, Prevent war with Canada, nullify Canada Army. But invade? I sure hope they don't have plans for that.

[tptacek]

The US military has a plan to invade Canada:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12...

Somehow, Canada seems to manage not to hyperventilate about it.

[jcromartie]

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/12/fbi-treated-...

[smsm42]

One does not preclude the other. People who planned to shoot Occupy leaders might be terrorists - or not, depending on what they wanted to achieve by this shooting - terrorism is a tactic, relying on fear and intimidation for a political goal, so depending on if they wanted to intimidate Occupy protestors for a political goal or not they may or may not be terrorists.

Some Occupy people could be potential terrorists too - if they wanted to use violence against peaceful citizens to achieve their political goals. Reports from Occupy protests show that at least some in the movement are not reluctant to use violence - throwing rocks, bottles, improvised incendiary and explosive devices, etc. If they ever employed such tactics against a civilian target for a political goal, it would be an act of terrorism.

[jcromartie]

I see two potential explanations for why they didn't intervene:

1. The FBI does not see public assassination of Occupy participants itself as terrorism

2. The FBI does not see public assassination of Occupy participants by whoever was planning it as terrorism

[Kylekramer]

I propose a third: they didn't see threats of public assassination of Occupy participants as credible. Considering the assassinations didn't happen it wouldn't be the worst course of action.

[smsm42]

3. The FBI did not consider these plans to be serious enough to lead to any actual action.

4. The FBI was watching whoever made these plans but since he did nothing it came to nothing.

etc. etc.

[jcromartie]

But the FBI busts people for (Islamic, left-wing, etc.) terrorism when the plans aren't serious, or the FBI themselves will help the would-be terrorists come up with plans, money, supplies, etc..

[throwit1979]

Right-wing fringe thinkers like to fantasize about putting their guns to patriotic use in much the same way that leftist fringe thinkers like to fantasize about general strikes and establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat.

And yet, the "establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat" in the history of communism's spread, without a single exception, has been accomplished at the barrel of a gun, with extraordinarily bloody results.

And then there's the starvation purges of entire regions of huge populations of people.

Oh, those wily leftist fringe thinkers and their peaceful ideas!

[anigbrowl]

You mistake my meaning. I don't consider the leftist fringe particularly peaceful. There are militant ideologues at both ends of the political spectrum, and I despise them all.

[drunkenmasta]

Interesting that a story like this should come out when groups are planning to protest over the NSA. Coincidence?