This list consists of every type of organization Charlie and his boys at
Public Safety consider potential terrorists. This list consists of every
type of advocacy and community organization in America.

The "anti-tobacco" organization, considered a Level 3 terroristic threat,
was specifically noted as an example for local law enforcement to consider
as a kind of group against which "Domestic Security" public grants could be
used to quash political activity.

THREAT FACTORS
(Groups/Organizations)
P   = Political
R   = Religious
E   = Environmental
Ra = Racial
S   = Special Interest

The dismissive posture and attitude indicated below are precisely those with
which German citizens approached the warnings of fellow countrymen and women
responded to the selection of of Hitler as Chancellor in 1933, then the
formation of the National Socialist Party (NAZI), then the uniformed youth
patrols, then the rumors of mass murdering of Jews.

Then Poland. Then Austria. Then Czechoslovakia. And on. Then the Vichy
sympathizers in France.

All hysteria!, they said. What's the matter with profiling?, they said.
Eventually most came to believe that Jews were the scourge of the Aryan
nation, then pretended not to have known how their dismissive and racist
beliefs led to the ethnic cleansing of 6 million "scourges".

And so it has gone in every century and every country where dissent and/or
notions of "threats" have been raised to control the people, to keep them
thinking one way, behaving one way.

We're all "potential" threats - but threats to whom? The State? A polluting
industry? Racist institutions? The police? The republic? Your personal peace
of mind? What? Threats to whom?

Is a Unitarian-Universalist Sunday seminar on protesting the war in Iraq a
terroristic threat? Are anti-tobacco activists really dangerous to our
freedoms? Is the Sierra Club or our anti-Gopher State Ethanol citizens group
(The CASE) treasonously subverting the US economy or the government?

This is the very real hazard - the very notion that in our Constitutional
democracy there is EVER a justification for singling out advocacy and
activism as terrorist threats - when in reality it is far more dangerous
that this is a real policy and merely a bad excuse for quelling any dissent
whatsoever.

Andy Driscoll
Saint Paul
 --------
What does it matter to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless whether the
mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy
name of liberty or democracy?  � Mahatma Ghandi

> From: "genoman45 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>"
> Subject: Re: MPD: Anti-tobacco organizations as potential terrorists
> 
> Even if true - it is just a profile - it ranks groups as to POTENTIAL
> risk - it only just provides a guideline - People are really too
> sensitive - I think we should insist that everyone take insensitivity
> training. There is absolutely nothing to be offended about -
> nothing. Who is more of a terrorist threat, a baby, a young woman, a
> young man, or an older woman?  Gee, the baby ranks a 1, the young
> woman a 4, a young man a 6 and the older woman a 2.  Now everyone can
> be offended as they all ranked on a profile?  The guidelines only
> provide some structure to guide people of the ranking of a possible
> potential danger. We all rank somewhere on some profiles. Our
> groups, sex, religion, etc. all define us and to someone our
> potential security risk. We all have a potential - someone just
> tried to rank it.  Those lists are as old as the Republic.

> Gene Kasper
> Annandale
>  
> 
> 

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