![]() ![]() ‘Domestic violent extremism’ is just classic American red-baiting rebranded.” “Post-9/11, local law enforcement has seized upon these same tools to cast peaceful dissent as terrorism. “Federal agencies have long deployed the rhetoric and apparatus of national security to marginalize progressive movements as threats to the state,” Shapiro said. ![]() The agency’s use of such language and related aggressive policing and prosecution aimed at protesters was nothing new, said Ryan Shapiro, co-founder of Property of the People, a non-profit organization that has released thousands of FBI and CIA documents. This appears to have led Atlanta police to state that DHS classifies the protesters as such in dozens of arrest warrants based on sworn affidavits seen by the Guardian – even though the agency told the Guardian in January it “does not classify or designate any groups”. The federal agency has used “domestic violent extremist” and similar terms in multiple bulletins to refer broadly to Cop City protesters, most recently in May. Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, used social media after the bail fund arrests to call the three – charged with financial fraud – “criminals who facilitated and encouraged domestic terrorism”. The attorney cited the 31 May arrests of three people working with a non-profit bail fund and the recent recusal of the DeKalb county district attorney, Sherry Boston, over differences with the state in prosecutorial approaches to the arrests as events that heightened a sense of urgency. The letter comes as the “civil rights community is increasingly concerned about Cop City arrests”, said Aamra Ahmad, staff attorney at the ACLU National Security Project. The DHS did not respond to a request for comment. The problem, the letter states, is that such language “contribut to a false narrative that individuals engaged in lawful protest are a national security threat, thus risking heightened aggressive policing of protesters”. The ACLU, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Brennan Center for Justice and Center for Constitutional Rights signed the letter to the DHS, which underlines the “dangers of … vague, overbroad, and stigmatizing terms like ‘domestic violent extremist’ and ‘militant’ to describe individuals who may be engaged in protected First Amendment activity”. Others have been arrested on separate charges. Police raids on the forest began last year, resulting in arrests of 42 people on state domestic terrorism charges – another first. ![]() Paez Terán was one of dozens of “forest defenders” who had been camping on public park land near where the training center is planned in protest against the project. A special prosecutor is evaluating the case. The state says Paez Terán shot first, but video footage from police nearby raises the possibility that one officer wounded another in the raid. The movement came to global attention after police shot dead Manuel Paez Terán, an environmental protester, in a January raid on the forest – the first incident of its kind in US history. The letter stated that “ecent events in Atlanta make clear that lax DHS standards and intelligence practices have contributed to concerning arrests and prosecution of individuals associated with … movement” against Cop City. ![]()
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