Thread by @EricLondonSEP

@WSWS_Updates statement from August 2019 on Trump's threat to declare #antifa a #domesticterrorist organization and the danger of martial law. #GeorgeFloyd #GeorgeFloydProtests #dcblackout #protests2020 #protests2020

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wsws.org/en/articles/20…

"Democratic Chairman of the House Intel Cmte Adam Schiff recently introduced the “Confronting the Threat of Domestic Terrorism Act.” This bill, which has a high chance of passage, would allow the Attorney General to prosecute people or groups as “domestic terrorists”

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"... if they engage in or conspire to engage in activity that seeks to “influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion” if that activity impacts “interstate or foreign commerce,” which by nature any workers’ strike would do."

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"Former DOJ attorney Robert Chesney explains, a domestic terror statute would allow the gvmt to compile “a list of proscribed organization to which it becomes a crime to provide, knowingly, any form of support (including becoming a person subject to the group’s orders).”

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"If “domestic terrorism” is made a legal category, then sec 1021 and 1022 of the Natl Def Authorization Act gives the exec branch the power to arrest & indefinitely detain without charge or trial anyone labeled a “suspected terrorist” based on “extreme” political views."

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"Congress has granted the DOJ requests for funds to update secret executive directives called Presidential Emergency Action Documents (PEADS) used to plan “continuity of government” operations in case of national emergencies including social unrest, strikes & protests."

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"Brennan Center co-director Elizabeth Goitein wrote in the Atlantic in February that the military-intelligence agencies now interpret a section of the 1934 Communications Act as granting the executive branch the power to “seize control of US internet traffic..."

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"...impeding access to certain websites” as well as to shut down the internet, block the delivery of email and manipulate smart speakers like Amazon Alexa upon the president’s proclamation “that there exists a state or threat of war involving the United States.”"

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"Goitein notes that such PEAD plans are far from dormant:

"A 2007 DHS report lists ‘martial law’ and ‘curfew declarations’ as ‘critical tasks’ that local, state, and federal government should be able to perform in emergencies. In 2008, gvm't sources...

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...told a reporter for Radar magazine that a version of the Security Index [the mass arrest list of the mid 20th century] still existed under the code name Main Core, allowing for the apprehension and detention of Americans tagged as security threats.”"

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