9. ACTIVISM AND THE
LAW
(Note: This chapter is strongly critical of the police, which some readers may
find objectionable. To such readers I must emphasize that the police, in many
nations around the world, are a state sanctioned armed gang of criminals. In
society after society the police rape, rob and murder with impunity. Good police
officers are among the most admirable of people; these type of police, and there
are a multitude of them, are the most despicable.)
I have already described how certain activist movements, such as the civil rights
movement, required civil disobedience to achieve success. More generally, there
is a risk of arrest with any form of direct action (and even simple protest).
This chapter will explore the role of the law and the police in a society, including
how they both inevitably become inflexible and intolerant, and the consequences
this has for activists seeking positive social change.
The surface reason why you will be subject to arrest when pursuing direct action
tactics is that you will almost certainly contravene some local law, such as
one against trespassing. But, more deeply, and far more importantly, you will
be arrested because in any society, either modern or traditional, the police
serve only those who are in power. You are against institutions that abuse their
power, but the police do not care about that. They are for the institutions
they function as private security guards for them and against
you. They do not enforce the laws, rather, they enforce the social order.
Indeed, an extreme tendency of the process of social conditioning to which we
all are subjected is that in certain societies, including totalitarian and police
states, the established order, the controlling institutions, are completely
above criticism. You must be highly sensitive and alert to anything that you
cannot criticize, on punishment of the law, since this is an assault on your
last defense, the foundation of activism, which is your right of self-expression.
(A common message of social conditioning is that we are taught to accept authority
without question, if not revere it for example, in China. This predisposes
us not to be critical, particularly of the sources of authority that are meant
to be uncriticizable, such as the President, or police or religion.)
Even in a democracy, the evolution of the legal system is never accomplished
with ease. In general this process the creation of a just set of laws,
and also the impartial enforcement thereof occurs as follows:
- The people elect representatives, to form the government.
- That government passes laws.
- The people choose whether or not to follow the laws, i.e., they decide if
the government truly has represented their interests.
- In cases where people disagree strongly with the laws, they break them.
- If enough people do this (or support those who do), the laws, and the judicial
system, are not democratic. They do not represent the will of the people. In
an intelligent and tolerant society, the representatives change the laws. In
repressive and intolerant societies, they use the laws to control the public,
particularly dissident and nonconformist individuals.
Governments, including supposedly democratic governments, regularly refuse to
abide by the majoritys interests (there are a few circumstances where
such behavior is appropriate, i.e., when the majoritys wishes are unethical).
For instance, the United States government will not:
- end the exploitation and destruction of the nations remaining natural
environments,
- require the labeling of genetically modified food and other products,
- and legalize the use of marijuana,
even though a majority of the public supports such moves. The reasons for this
obstinacy include: the protection of government power; government collusion
with other institutions; and the preservation of a means of legal repression.
In addition, in many countries popularly elected officials attempt to transform
themselves into dictators, by ignoring the publics wishes, and their own
election promises, and by working to destroy their nations democratic
institutions.
When activists oppose such behavior, this inevitably brings them into conflict
with the police, and the police, in general, respond with either (or both) selective
or overly enthusiastic application of the law. The law is regularly used to
quell dissent, and a variety of provisions are typically brought to bear. In
the U.S. these include the ordinances on the payment of income tax and the ownership
of guns. If the government wants to get you, it will audit your taxes and find
something wrong, or, as with the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, it will use
your possession of firearms as the excuse.
As an activist, you can also expect a lot of questions from the police. And
lying to them, as they are well aware, is a crime. Because of this, they will
interrogate you intensively, not to gather information, but to get you to commit
in such a way that they can later say that you lied. Therefore, you should refuse
to talk to the police. (In most cases you are only required to provide your
name and address, and many activists, particularly following mass arrests at
large protests, even refuse to give this.)
Probably the most common means of police repression, though, involves the selective
enforcement of laws against illicit drugs. Furthermore, this practice serves
a dual function since it is also used to create a common enemy (which all autocratic
states require, as a means to misdirect the general public from its own repression).
The following outline describes the practice:
Oppression 101
1. Set legal standards, such as for the use of mind-altering substances, that
young people, particularly young men, by their very nature ignorance,
tendency towards experimentation and risk-taking, and high susceptibility to
peer pressure will break in large numbers.
2. Target enforcement of the laws at selected groups, such as minorities. Also,
premeditatively ignore other groups, notably the sons and daughters of the wealthy.
3. Arrest, convict and incarcerate many young men from the former groups. Under
common social standards, such incarceration, however brief, constitutes lifelong
punishment. Such individuals are expelled from normal society most importantly
from normal employment opportunities. (Individuals who are convicted
of felonies also lose the right to vote.)
4. As more young men are caught, and as a significant number of them continue
to engage in the same, and related, activities since, among other reasons, they
now have no other employment options, use this cycle to justify larger and larger
spending on the police and on penal systems.
5. Use the former to catch more criminals. It is important to understand
that the police need criminals. Its their job. If there are not enough
around, their tendency will always be to create them by, with their political
allies, enacting laws over things that people regularly do. Indeed, when the
police (and the courts) falsely or wrongfully imprison so many people, they
know they are creating not only a criminal class, but also an enemy class.
And, they want this, since it justifies their continued existence: to control
what they themselves have created.
(Note: Everyones a criminal now. There are so many laws that everyone,
if only unwittingly, is guilty of something. Furthermore, no matter how small
the infraction, the police can use it to invade, and destroy, your life.)
6. When crime becomes widespread, blame it on the minorities and wonder why
more money is spent on law enforcement than education and what can be done about
it.
7. Answer: legalize drugs, and use education about their ills to reduce the
experimentation, and education about social influences to assist young people
in their defense against peer pressure.
The existence of this complex and arcane form is the reason why it is impossible,
in the United States today, to have a serious discussion about drugs and their
effects on individuals and society. However, we will never solve the problem
of rampant drug abuse, and the derivative problems that this causes, until we
do.
Also, I want to make it clear that this is not an apology for criminal
behavior. As we have seen, fighting form and expressing will is possible, and
essential. I am not making an argument for modern determinists, who think that
such young men are victims, and further that crime is acceptable: that it is
an acceptable form of rebellion for the disadvantaged and the underprivileged.
Real rebels do not engage in criminal activities, the types of criminal activities
that injure other people. (Civil disobedience and noncompliance with unjust
laws, though, particularly in authoritarian environments, is another matter.)
As Oppression 101 demonstrates, society is not above using a little force to
repress its critics and malcontents, and will even engage in crime, break its
own rules, if necessary. (It is important to recognize that laws are written
and enforced largely for the benefit of the upper classes, particularly for
the owners of property.)
I would further say that in a society that is rigidly conformist, there will
always be a counter-culture. And in a society that oppresses, there will always
be rebels. And some members of these groups will use drugs and they will commit
crimes. But, although such individuals share the blame, because of the responsibility
that derives from their will, the fundamental problem is not with them. The
core problem is the structure of the society, particularly its direction by
and for the elite, and its inflexibility and intolerance.
To return to activists, police are taught to think of unarmed, non-violent
protesters as enemies of the state, on whom violence on their part is fully
justified.
Incorrectly labeling people as communists, terrorists and fascists
justifies a different response to that of a mere protester. They can be deemed
a threat to national security, where protesters can not. It can also vindicate
violence, harassment and surveillance of them by the state as has happened with
the anti-nuclear movement.
- excerpt from Green Backlash, Andrew Rowell, as reviewed in the Earth
First! Journal, June-July 1999, page 32
Police in a society are granted the greatest power of all: the license to kill
members of that society. This is arguably the most profound relationship of
trust that a society creates, and it exists for good reason. Police officers
must enforce the law against the most unethical of people. They test their intelligence
and exhibit great courage to the point of risking their life to
do so. One of our most fundamental ethics is: if you can do something to help,
you should. Good police officers do help, and to the greatest extent possible.
In many societies, though, this trust is completely misplaced. Indeed, as noted
above, in dozens of nations, if not the majority, the police are a state sanctioned
armed gang.
There is a very thin line between an officer in blue and a Nazi brownshirt
or stormtrooper. The police in modern societies must continually guard against
exhibiting the behavior of the police in such places as Burma and China. For
example, U.S. police have been trained, along with the military, to suppress
a popular uprising. This is effectively planning for a military coup.
The police response to activism varies by country. In Burma and China, it is
harsh to the point of summarily executing dissidents. In the United Kingdom,
though, it is relatively tolerant. Indeed, the vast majority of the police there
are unarmed. It is interesting that in the U.K. some activists argue that media
publicity of actions should not be courted. They refuse to play the medias
game. Instead, they act, and the media are forced to come to them. In the United
States, though, publicity is almost always sought, not only to air the activists
concerns but as a defense against police repression. The tactics that U.S. police
use have more in common with their counterparts in Burma and China than with
the police in the U.K. and Western Europe.
A key characteristic of a police state is that the police punish without
judicial process as a means to instill fear through intimidation.
- letter to the editor, Michael Van Brockhoven, Earth First! Journal,
December-January 2000, page 26
Under this definition, the United States, regarding its treatment of activists,
is a police state.
U.S. activists must actually confront two sets of police: the local authorities,
and the FBI. Local police compile dossiers on activists, and use intimidation
at actions to the point of assault, including applying pepper spray and gel
to the eyes of non-violent protesters, and torturing them with pain holds. (This
was on view to the world in the response of the Seattle police to the non-violent
activists at the 1999 WTO meeting.) Further, they prosecute misdemeanors (and
concocted felonies) against activists, while ignoring the felonies of the activist
targets, and also the crimes perpetrated against the activists themselves. For
instance, the local sheriff in Humboldt County, California, refused to prosecute
the logger, Arlington Ammons, who killed Gypsy Chain, even though he had earlier
threatened the group of activists of which Chain was a member. (This threat
was taped, and could easily have been introduced as evidence.) Needless to say,
he also did not prosecute Charles Hurwitz, Ammons employer. These individuals
got away with murder. Instead, the sheriff tried to bring manslaughter charges
against Chains fellow activists. (As background, the group was protesting
illegal logging practices, and the timber companys license was revoked
for these violations shortly after Chains death.)
The tactics of the FBI build on this and, of course, they work with the local
police as well. In its suppression of activism the FBI makes great use of counterintelligence
programs, or COINTELPRO. These programs were developed to counter foreign threats,
and then were applied to domestic groups as well. In the 1960s and early 70s,
they were applied to groups which engaged in armed resistance, but also to groups
which simply disagreed with government policy (e.g., the Vietnam War). And this
redirection of COINTELPRO meant that any group that opposed the government,
via any tactic including only the use of freedom of speech, was perforce the
enemy.
There was a reaction to this, particularly in light of such events as the killings
at Kent State University, and COINTELPRO against internal dissidents was scaled
back. But such efforts are now being revived, for example, against environmentalists,
who are branded as eco-terrorists. Government anti-terrorism budgets
are high, and they have to be spent. (If they are not, the funding may be lost
in the next budget.) If there are not enough real enemies around, the tendency
will always exist to create them.
FBI tactics which are applied against activists include the use of infiltrators
and agent provocateurs; disinformation campaigns and psychological warfare,
including forged correspondence and pamphlets, threatening phone calls, etc.;
and harassment through the legal system. For the last, the FBI makes extensive
use of grand jury subpoenas, which in a number of cases have been issued on
spurious or fabricated evidence. When an activist faces a grand jury, he or
she cannot have a lawyer present, or refuse to answer questions. The Fifth Amendment
does not apply in a grand jury hearing. Failure to answer any question can lead
to a charge of contempt and eighteen months imprisonment. (For guidance on how
to respond to police inquiries and harassment, see Know Your Rights and
Your Right to Protest from the National Lawyers Guild www.nlg.org,
and then click on Resources.)
The power and sophistication of the police effort that is directed at activists
greatly complicates the task of social reform, and it also raises significant
internal security issues for activist movements. To be effective we must not
only document and protest social and environmental wrongs; we also must defend
against surveillance, harassment, assault, grand jury subpoenas and false arrest.
Fortunately, we have right on our side, and this is sufficient, if not to counter
all oppression, at least to preserve ones motivation.
What all of this makes clear is that we can never forget that as a social objective
there should be as few police as possible. Our goal is to create a harmonious
society, such that only a small number of police are required.
Obviously, we are not going to get rid of the police overnight. It may take
many decades, even a century or more. And, the biggest hurdle in reducing their
numbers is going to be ourselves, but not our criminal elements. Society
is addicted to having police. They make it easy for us to ignore our underlying
problems. As a first step, though, we must take away their power to intimidate.
We must reject their unethical means to a supposedly ethical end. Police should
not have qualified immunity, whereby they cannot be sued, personally,
for their abuse. Also, another idea that should be considered is that any police
officer found guilty of criminal behavior, any criminal behavior, should automatically
be subjected to double the normal penalty for the crime.
In addition, the question remains, if there were no police tomorrow, what would
happen? It might be terrible, a disintegration into anarchy, but what would
come out of it? Many societies, even today, function without police (e.g., rural
areas in lesser-developed countries, which generally have only a minimal police
presence). This isnt to say that they dont have crime, or justice.
The question is, under which system is there less, and more?
My basic point, though, in this entire argument, is that every time we take
a step away from our goals, (1) we should recognize it; (2) we should ask if
it is really necessary we should demand a well-supported explanation
for the move, including why there are no better options and how and when it
will be reversed; and (3) we should then, at most, take only half a step.
For instance, the following trend is also evident in the evolution of most democracies:
- An entrenched dictatorship is defeated, and a new democracy is established.
- New laws are drafted, to make things better!
- The laws are then enforced, which requires the creation of a new internal
security apparatus and the hiring of many new police.
- Over time the laws are enforced more rigidly. The democracy becomes bureaucratic.
It is impersonal and inflexible; there is no room for compromise.
- For some laws, their rational tenor expires. But the laws never, or very rarely,
do. They are not repealed. And, the security apparatus, including the number
of police, is never cut back. Instead, it is redirected to where it is not
needed.
The moral of this story is as follows: society should be very selective in the
laws that it enacts, and it should be very, very careful about enabling armed
security forces.
© Roland O. Watson 2005