Composters, Quakers, Vegans -- Why Do They Hate America???

An interesting short article in Sierra by Dashka Slater, who reports that in November, the FBI "agreed to pay $100,000 [your tax dollars at work!] and issue a letter of regret to 27-year-old Josh Connole, who was mistakenly arrested at gunpoint two years ago and held for four days on suspicion of setting fire to four Southern California Hummer dealerships, spray-painting slogans like 'SUV=Terrorism' . . . ."

Slater explains that, "The 'evidence' that led the FBI to finger the wrong man reads like the resume of many a lanky, goateed vegetarian. At the time of his arrest, [the] solar-panel installer was living at an ecological co-op called Regan V that engages in such subversive activities as composting, graywater reclaiming, and solar electricity generating. Tipped off by a neighbor about 'suspicious' activities, government gumshoes put the house, and its members' online activities, under surveillance and sniffed out other incriminating evidence: use of electric vehicles, opposition to whaling, and criticism of fossil-fuel reliance.

Alarmed to discover that he was being followed by shadowy figures in unmarked cars, Connole called 911 and was promptly arrested. Fifty [yes, that's correct, FIFTY, as in 50!] FBI agents then descended on Regan V to ransack it and make off with residents' computers.

Connole's arrest provoked the real arsonist, William Cottrell, to write a letter to the Los Angeles Times claiming responsibility for the vandalism."

Now, you know, I wish I had a dollar for every time I've read an apologist for Bush's domestic spying claim that, "If you are not doing anything wrong, you've got nothing to fear," from having the government snoop into your business. Well Josh Connole wasn't doing anything wrong. But he had his life disrupted, his computer (and those of his housemates -- also people who'd done nothing wrong) seized, and spent 4 days in jail. The article in Sierra doesn't say, but I'm guessing he shelled out money he didn't have for a lawyer and went through a bit of emotional turmoil as well.

Now, it appears that, in this case, the FBI got a warrant, etc. So if this kind of this can happen when the government must get a warrant, and when they throw you into jail rather than GITMO, you can just imagine what can happen without the protection of a warrant or the other civil rights that disappear when you get thrown into GITMO. So the domestic spying apologists need to start qualifying what they say; it should go something like, "If you are not doing anything wrong, and you don't live near a suspicious neighbor, and the FBI is staffed by geniuses who never make a mistake, and you can afford to have your computer seized and spend four days in jail, then you have nothing to fear." Or, they should just shut the fuck up and spend about six seconds realizing that the REASON we have restrictions on what the government can do is the fact that our founding fathers realized that even innocent people sometimes wind up accused of things they didn't do.

And, WTF? FIFTY FBI agents? We can't catch Osama bin Laden or the person who mailed anthrax to US Senators, but we've got FIFTY FBI agents to run around and try to arrest some slob who burned a Hummer dealership?????