Coleen Rowley: The Royal Wedding's Pre-Crime Arrests

[marmar]

from Consortium News:




The Royal Wedding's Pre-Crime Arrests

By Coleen Rowley
May 1, 2011


Editor’s Note: The Tom Cruise movie, “Minority Report,” depicted a future world that relied on oracles to future murders so police could intervene and lock away the predicted killers.

Increasingly, governments have opted for similar approaches in face of expected political disruptions, moving against protesters before they get to protest, a tactic used prior to the British royal wedding, as former FBI agent Coleen Rowley notes in this guest essay:


Pre-emptive wars and pre-emptive policing have been instituted as a result of the fear planted (and deliberately hyped) in the "war on terror."

What would old FDR say about the dangers of fear? Is this how the "terrorists" win, by getting people so fearful and stupid that we terrorize ourselves? That's more or less what FDR worried about.

One hundred or so activists were arrested before last week’s British royal wedding on "PRE-crime" charges. Street-theatre actors and critics of the royal family were rounded up ahead of time because they said they wanted to use the occasion to demonstrate their disapproval of the monarchy.

Notice the double standard going on when the U.S. Supreme Court says it’s alright for nut fundamentalists to yell at (commoners’) military funerals but police are allowed to round up commoner activists in advance of national special security events or royal weddings. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2011/050111a.html