Patriot Act Used To Charge Domestic 'Terrorism'

update on: View From the Streets Outside the RNC
***
first of two stories concerning the self professed 'RNC welcoming committee':

Activist claims unmarked police vans abducted protesters: rawstory

"Police kicked down doors with guns drawn on families with their children at dinnertime," Gillis charged. "Reporters and the media at large have been repeatedly targeted for repression. Activists have been abducted off the street in unmarked vans and political prisoners held without access to medical attention."

A half-dozen representatives of the so-called Republican National Convention Welcoming Committee met with the media in a St. Paul, MN press conference on Thursday to condemn the widescale police raids and arrests that have targeted protesters in that city this week.

The allegation about police use of unmarked vans was apparently first made on August 31 by RAW STORY contributor Lindsay Beyerstein, who was reporting on the convention for FireDogLake.
***********
Second: this related story concerning the "RNC welcoming comittee": RNC 8 Charged with “Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism”

"In what appears to be the first use of criminal charges under the 2002 Minnesota version of the Federal Patriot Act, Ramsey County Prosecutors have formally charged 8 alleged leaders of the RNC Welcoming Committee with Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism."

They allege that members of the group sought to kidnap delegates to the RNC, assault police officers with firebombs and explosives, and sabotage airports in St. Paul. Evidence released to date does not corroborate these allegations with physical evidence or provide any other evidence for these allegations than the claims of the informants. Based on past abuses of such informants by law enforcement, the National Lawyers Guild is concerned that such police informants have incentives to lie and exaggerate threats of violence and to also act as provacateurs in raising and urging support for acts of violence.

"These charges are an effort to equate publicly stated plans to blockade traffic and disrupt the RNC as being the same as acts of terrorism. This both trivializes real violence and attempts to place the stated political views of the Defendants on trial," said Bruce Nestor, President of the Minnesota Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. "The charges represent an abuse of the criminal justice system and seek to intimidate any person organizing large scale public demonstrations potentially involving civil disobedience, he said."
---------------------------------------
re: RNC welcoming committee

Many unknowns surrounding this entire episode concerning the so-called 'RNC welcoming committee' and the events of this past week's RNC. What is known is that the Minnesota version of the Federal Patriot Act will be used for the very first time to press 'domestic terrorist' charges against American citizens...and with no evidence apparently other than the testimony of certain "informants".

Seems to be a very convenient set of circumstances providing the backdrop for a case which may possibly be used to set a very significant and dangerous precedent, which would be something along the lines of political dissent and 'terrorism' being one and the same thing. Could the whole thing be a well coordinated psy-op? Who can say, but whatever it is, it seems to be sending a timely 'police state' message. fyi

see: New Buzzword: 'Domestic Terrorists'

also: Justice Dept. To Create 'Homeland' Gestapo?