Letters to the Editor
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Expanding Definitions of Terrorism
The vast "anti-terrorism" apparatus will be needing more targets to justify its existence and expenditures... The model of the "military-industrial complex" is tried and true in America.
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Criminalizing Ideological Motives
Aside from reiterating the first poster's comment that it's the legal system, not the law that needs reform, I'd like to address the discomfort that some other posters have with the law itself by way of a tangent.
Individuals who (rightly) point out the sentencing discrepancies between someone who engages in arson for terroristic reasons vs. ones like insurance fraud are discovering what's been a source of frustration for many individuals on the right: sentencing not the act itself, but the motive underlying it. Conservatives take issue with this act when it pops up in the form of hate crime legislation; they argue that it has a chilling effect on free speech and that murder, assault, or any other crime is equally reprehensible simply because it happened, regardless of whether the reason for it is racism or gay-bashing--an argument that I suspect not many people who are reading this have a sympathetic ear for.
So if you're concerned that burning a building is punished differently when it's done by ELF to protest environmental policies, ask yourself if you'd be equally uncomfortable were a hate crime sentencing enhancer applied to someone who vandalizes or commits arson on a Temple or predominantly minority church.
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Thanks to AlecsMom, I'm willing to buy it now
"There's a question of whether burning property is really the equivalent of flying a plane into a building and killing humans."
If prostitution equals slavery, then it's absolutely clear that burning property equals terrorism.
If this is the way we're going to live, then this is the way we're going to live.
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Uncivil Libertarians
"There's a question of whether burning property is really the equivalent of flying a plane into a building and killing humans."
Whaaaaat????? Lets make it real simple...it's wrong and anyone who supports it is a criminal not an "activist"!
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Terrorism is VIOLENCE (not just killing) to achieve a political goal
You don't have to kill someone to be a terrorist. You just have to be willing to use violence and the fear of violence to pursue your political ends. Being from a "good" background or having noble motives doesn't change that.
Is anyone claiming that targeting someone's property for arson is a non-violent act? That deliberately burning universities or houses doesn't make people afraid of being similarly targeted?
There is a HUGE moral and practical difference between activism and terrorism. Certainly there is a lot of room for abuse in the current laws on terrorism (which do need to be changed), but if Briana Waters was involved in arson for her cause, she's no activist.
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Definitions
The United States government has defined itself as a terrorist organization: "But the USA Patriot Act created a new category of domestic terrorism, which is defined as an offense ... or "to intimidate or coerce a civilian population."" To deter crime is to intimidate or coerce a civilian population (for political and ideological purposes, too).
I haven't been involved with the ELF or ALF but I have been detained by the FBI and by foreign intelligence agencies given false tips by the FBI. As an organization, it isn't above framing people on suspicion of involvement with legal environmental groups - let alone illegal ones.
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"Is anyone claiming that targeting someone's property for arson is a non-violent act?"
Yes. It is. Since it is not violence, it is non-violent.
Violence is defined by harming the person, not his/her possessions, let alone his/her claims. Shooting someone in self-defense is violence but it is not aggression. Conversely, destroying someone's home is aggression, but it is not violence.
I'm not convinced whether the arson in question was aggression or not, but it was not violence.
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The law does not equal morality; punishment does not equal justice.
Is there anyone at all who can truthfully attest that they have NEVER broken some sort of law, somewhere? Is there anyone who has never felt righteous indignation at one of the many atrocities perpetrated globally, upon the environment and other humans, by governments, corporations, and individuals with too much power and too little conscience? Can you not see that a person may take action upon the dictates of conscience, and that conscience may not always dovetail with the law, and that fact is one of the most unique and precious virtues of humanity? Without conscience we would all be mindless automatons.
Why are you all so focused on punishment? What are you hiding from in yourselves, that you need to viciously excoriate another, on precious little evidence of genuine wrongdoing?
It seems from the evidence presented here that it has not been proven that Briana Waters committed any crime at all, certainly not arson. She was belatedly and vaguely accused by two people who had a vested interest in shifting blame away from themselves. She is obviously not a danger to society. What purpose does it serve to lock her up for 20 years? Vengeance? For what? Will that bring the 'property' back?
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Some letters seriously miss the point
Those of you arguing that she should go to prison because arson can be terrorism are completely missing the point. You're being fooled by an argument frequently used against wrongly accused people: the crime was terrible, therefore the defendant must be guilty. Whether this is terrorism or not is beside the point. The point is this appears to have been a political prosecution, and any of here could have been convicted in the same circumstances. After all the politicization of the Justice Department and all the political prosecutions at the hands of the US Attorneys who didn't get fired, why are you so quick to presume the trial was fair and Waters is guilty? You could much more safely assume the opposite. You could assume they were locking up every leftist dissident they could, and false criminal charges are just a tool for doing that.
No, I don't know for sure she's innocent, but from this article which is what all of us are going on, you sure can't be sure she's guilty. And don't tell me we have to believe the jury. Even in the Georgia Thompson case, the jury was fooled.
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No distinction IMO
Frankly, assuming she did participate in the alleged acts, I see no reason why Ms Waters should not be labelled a terrorist.
As I recall, some separatist organisations such as ETA and the IRA (pre-Good Friday agreement) had no qualms about laying down explosive devices in urban areas, call in to the residents of those areas telling them there is a bomb so there is time to evacuate, before detonating. Their objectives? To cause property damage while avoiding a bodycount, which they astutely realised may lead to a counterproductive backlash. Why? To spread TERROR. Hence the word, TERRORist. Hence why no one disputes that these organisations are (or were) terrorist organisations.
Let us be quite clear. What EF did in burning those offices was not merely to damage scientific resources. It was clearly looking to INTIMIDATE the scientific community into capitulating to its demands.
If Ms Waters did participate in EF's acts that night, then she is a terrorist. Maybe not on the scale of Osama, but still a terrorist.