Letters to the Editor
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Salon readers imply: Hummer dealership good, abortion clinic bad
Be very careful when you parse which acts of 'violence' you're willing to tolerate.
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For our fascist government, "Terrorism" is a plaything.
In the past we would have called the ELF vandals, or arsonists, and they would have been charged under common, though still weighty, criminal and civil laws. Now, of course, we have a fascist government which uses its unconstitutional powers to attack its enemies, real or perceived.
The only way to get our country back is to elect a Democratic President and Congress in 2008.
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Terrorist
If you're the lookout for people who burn down buildings to cause terror, you're a terrorist. It doesn't matter if you agree or disagree with the politics that prompt these actions.
What is the aim of burning down a building? To spread terror.
The evidence may have been flimsy, but that is no different than any other person who gets the shaft in our legal system, and no more or less unjust.
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I'm a huge tree hugger, but
destruction of property is destruction of property. Risking people's lives is risking people's lives. Trespassing is Trespassing. It doesn't matter if you're a sweet pretty woman with a baby or a scary dark skinned terrorist, the actions are voilent, controlling, antidemocratic and ILLEGAL. Be sure that terrorist feels just as rightous as the eco lady.
Right is Right and Wrong is Wrong. And burning down someone else's property, trespassing, controlling other's freedom, risking firefighters' lifes is WRONG, wrong, wrong. Anyone who does that, regardless of their claim of rightousness, should be punished as severelay as a terrorist who does the same thing.
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"There's a question of whether burning property is really the equivalent of flying a plane into a building and killing humans."
Yes, because both are a deliberate attempt to control MY American rights. Both are attempts to eliminate my democratic freedom and control me, force me to follow their rigid beliefs. Equally terroristic and AntiAmerican.
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Um...
..."She could spend as much as two decades behind bars for allegedly holding a walkie-talkie."
And helping burn down an office building that took firefighters two hours to put out.
And besides - she wasn't even there, right?
-- XY
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Chilling effect
Slate has an article today by Erich Lichtbau about the NYTimes decision to delay (and almost not publish) the article on the government's secret domestic spying program. What's striking is that Lichtbau says the Times was worried about harming US anti-terrorism efforts, and characterizes criticism of the delay in publication as leftist. What he doesn't say is whether the Times had any qualms about the negative effects the government program might have on legitimate protest domestically, and whether that might be a reason to publish.
I mention that here because within weeks of 9/11 the government saw an opportunity to expand "terrorism" to include environmental protest. Bush even used vaguer language at times to say that any activities that might destabilize the economy might be terrorism. I suspect very strongly that there was a range of dirty tricks that may eventually come to light, including the use of domestic spying to monitor activist groups under the cover of preventing terrorism.
The convictions that the feds have gotten may or may not be legitimate. They may have gotten the actual arsonists or not. But there has definitely been a feeling of federal creepiness and monitoring even among those who would never destroy property or take lives, but who do have concerns about the environment. Not only have nonviolent people been harassed by the feds and other law enforcement agencies, it has become harder to get information on facilities that pollute or may pose environmental risks. And, unlike the situation in the sixties, if you are wrongfully thrown in jail today you are looking at a long hard time with limited appeals.
Where are our leaders? Where is the media?
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It's all about the details
And evidence that she was dumb enough to lend her boyfriend a rental car is not evidence that she knew of, or participated in, a crime. Even if she did lend him a car, could he have lied to her about why he wanted it? Oh, I don't know - men never lie to their girlfriends, do they?? None of this comes close to eliminating "reasonable doubt." It just doesn't.
No, but getting her cousin to rent a car for her and then giving him $200 cash for his trouble and then putting mileage on the car and lending it to her boyfriend are all suggestive of a pattern of secretive behavior. I don't see any alternative explanation of why she rented the car. Was her own in the shop? Is there evidence of this?
The issue of the 8:00 p.m. meeting may not be crucial to the case. If she arrived at 8:15 or 8:20 that would not have stopped her from being present at the bombing which took place several hours later. It does not seem to me that not being in Seattle at exactly 8:00 p.m. is fatal to the government case. It certainly does not constitute evidence that she was out of state at the time, or that it was physically impossible for her to be at the boming.
And again, why does the Salon article not state the nature, amount, and location of the purchase? This must have been discussed in court.
I don't think that people who have not served as jurors quite understand that these kind of points are hashed out in court ad nauseam.
In the case in which I recently served as a juror a woman swerved her car, her breath smelled of alcohol, there were empty wine cooler bottles in the car and cold ones on the seat, she failed the roadside sobriety test, and she refused to give a breath or blood test.
However the trial lasted all day and into the evening, as the defense attorney picked apart the female cop's testimony and paperwork and argued every minutia in an attempt to distract the jury from the basic facts of the case. The defendant also took the witness stand.
This is what defense attorneys are supposed to do, but at the end of the day the jury has to look at the totality of the evidence and make a decision. This includes evaluating the testimony of witnesses after one has seen them testify under direct and cross, had an opportunity to assess their reliability, body language, inconsistencies in testimony, and so on and JUDGING WHO IS LYING when there are two mutually inconsistent testimonies.
In my case we the jury had no difficulty in determining that the cop, although in many respects not a polished witness, was 100% truthful--she admitted to several mistakes--and the defendant lying--there were inconsistencies in her testimony. For example she said she had flown into town to cover a sports event at A that actually took place at B, on cable network C that was actually on cable network D, and she could not remember whether her first drink of the day was a Bloody Mary at 8:30 a.m. in the airport or on the plane!
What we also noticed was what the defense attorney omitted as well as what was included.
For example the defense attorney accepted without any question at all the cop's testimony that his client seemed nervous, but challenged ad nauseam her contention that she was swaying. Why did he not ask more questions about how the cop determined the client was nervous?
In the Waters case, clearly the jury decided that the two prosecution witnesses were telling the truth and that Waters was lying. That is the bottom line.
It is also worth noting that the jury was unable to reach a verdict on some of the stronger charges, implying that some of the jurors felt the government had overreached.
The sad fact is that since 9/11, our federal government has repeatedly overlooked the requirement for actual evidence before conviction or incarceration, not once but in hundreds of cases: that minor little detail that used to be a cornerstone of our legal system.
As above. I am sorry, but testimony of two witnesses is considered to be evidence, and you can be assured that the jury will have known that the witnesses were testifying for their own good.
Articles that summarize a case don't include all the details, and the author of the article may not have been present in court. As I said in a previous letter, this article sounds like a final argument for the defense.
Why this stuff about how she does not look like a terrorist and how her hair was tied back with a rubber band? Defense propaganda.
Even the most naive juror would realize that when a defendant comes to court, she will change her green hair, take the rings out of her nose, and try to hide her "fuck the police" tattoos.
In the interest of balance, I would also want to hear the case for the prosecution.