Editorial: Labeling protests as terrorism bill threatens to chill free speech
It’s not surprising that the heightened political rhetoric of the presidential campaign and White House transition would spill over into state politics. Disappointing, but not surprising.
Claiming he sought to take a stand against “illegal protests” and “economic terrorism,” state Sen. Doug Ericksen, R-Ferndale, announced this week that he planned to introduce legislation during the session beginning in January that would allow felony prosecution of protesters who block transportation and commerce, vandalize property, threaten jobs and put public safety at risk.
His bill would create the new crime of economic terrorism, classifying it as a Class C felony, punishable by a sentence of five years in prison, a $10,000 fine, or both. For comparison’s sake, third-degree assault of a child is a Class C felony. The legislation would also go after those who financially sponsor such protests.
Ericksen, who was President-elect Donald Trump’s deputy campaign director in the state, said the legislation is related more to protests during the past year that sought to block oil and coal trains than to anti-Trump protests that have followed Trump’s election. But recent protests that blocked traffic might easily fall under Ericksen’s “economic terrorism” definition.
And that broad and incendiary language is the problem with Ericksen’s bill.
In an Associated Press report Wednesday, Doug Honig, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, said Ericksen’s loose terminology appears “to be targeting civil disobedience as ‘terrorism.’ ”
http://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/editorial-labeling-protests-as-terrorism-bill-threatens-to-chill-free-speech/
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