Protests and The Emotions of 9-11

By Justin Rogers-Cooper

The martial law prism that defines the life of American protest points to outstanding issues of trust and mistrust related to 9-1l. After the attacks, the seemingly necessary rise of Homeland Security made Americans vulnerable to a militarized police culture. Intense expressions of patriotism took the place of meaningful critique, particularly among the right-wing but also among the political center. Many ordinary people were rightly traumatized by the events. It spread an unbearable amount of negative emotions across the country and across the world. As Naomi Klein has argued in The Shock Doctrine, the immediate horror of the event transformed the populace into hysteria. In the wake of that sadness, nothing seemed too dear to reassess, including the constitution.

Among those that still defend the actions of the government at all costs, especially in terms of the war on terror, there is a profound sense that they are making emotional arguments. Patriotism and nationalism are feelings. One identifies with imagined communities and symbols: flags, guns, jets, but also skyscrapers. Even more urgently, one invests people with feeling. The adolescent investment of desire into the Jonas Brothers or Miley Cyrus is not that far removed from the liberal one in Barack Obama. One invests pride into objects that represent unimpeachable values. One projects one’s boundaries into these objects. To break from those objects and the values they represent requires one to examine one’s beliefs. And yet these beliefs hold feelings too vital to dump.

The partisan myopia of the current Republican Party doesn’t just reflect the rump of its base, but also a significant proportion of Americans that fanatically declare strength to mask their fears. Their enduring commitment is ferocious. Everyone clings religiously to myths. Myths package our emotions into narratives. These narratives help channel our fears away from states of confusion into states of resolution. But the story of the war on terror is a story that will continue forever. Therefore we must always feel scared at the cliff-hanger that ends each installment, each attack, each alert. And to cover that fear, we must produce an everlasting strength. This strength takes the form of pride.

Even liberal Democrats are afraid, and need pride. They consume the same media as their conservative neighbors. In the realm of corporate media, the myths of 9-11 produce new life forever. There, too, the bodies of enemy combatants are necessarily enhanced through interrogation. There is a soft speculation in popular culture that torture is necessary, and our new era demands it. This appeared first in shows like 24 and Lost, but it has found expression in any number of genres that tolerate and promote violence as entertainment. It’s not that any one program or video game turns someone into a problem. The culture is violent because of a violence distilled into every facet of its entertainment, and because it blossoms through any stream of channels. It’s visible on the news, in the movies, in sports, and in hardcore pornography. It leaks into fields of the national consciousness. It’s a viral fascism.

It doesn’t necessarily desensitize people to real violence, however. The problem is that people identify with the aggressor. They identify with the agent of power. They learn to feel superior, powerful, and immune to reason. This gives them a sense of pride. The quickest route to self-esteem isn't accomplishment, but by projecting oneself into screens where other bodies perform that power. In television, film, and video games, characters solve problems with violence, but more importantly they solve conflicts by achieving superiority. There isn't any sense that these narratives and institutions play or reverse these tensions. They enforce them.

Video game technology during the past two decades could have gone anywhere, as an example. The recent success of the Nintendo Wi depended in part on the fact that it tapped a demographic that wasn’t interested in hallucinatory identifications with heroic masculine brutality. In many senses, porn works the same way. Several tens of millions of men pay for just that privilege. They do so because their own feelings of insecurity are mass-produced and sold to them through other products, through other ads, through other channels.

If these violent narratives and institutions were part of a field of options that included peaceful resolutions, people might place less privilege on violent stories of pride. Censorship isn’t viable or desirable, of course: but there must be a way to make non-violence more thrilling and more affecting. Violence is popular in part, after all, because it’s so thrilling to watch. For hardcore heteronormative communities of men in particular, it seems impossible to disassociate normative institutions of masculine power from post 9-11 obsessions with pride and patriotism. Military engagement, athletic heroism, and private porn consumption each develops tropes of dominance and hostility to "others," particularly women, non-whites, and non-heterosexuals. It's not a coincidence that these men become the police at protests.

People don't support protest because they suspect the protesters are weak. They don't support protest because they identify, perhaps automatically, with the police. They do this because they identify with power. They identify with power because they're insecure and afraid. They don't want to get dirty: they don't want to be on the bottom. As James Baldwin would say, they don't want the stink of protest near their pride.

The insecurity that produces aggressive pride is profitable. People will pay to feel pride, or simply to feel powerful. It’s not a stretch to connect that insecurity with a political and economic system that produces insecurity through judicial elections and devastating recessions. And it’s not much more of a stretch to connect that profitable insecurity to the department of Homeland Security itself, which is profitable if it is anything. It’s not unreasonable to link a culture of violence to this toleration for Homeland Security. It's otherwise unclear why one isolated attack, though devastating, should result in a war without end. And why should one attack redefine the constitution? Why should one attack criminalize protest forever?

People believe that they’re being protected from enemies. The creation of an entire federal division to multiply the powers of the local police, state Defense Forces, National Guard, FBI, CIA, and National Security Agency, among others, somehow doesn’t appear extraordinary. The fact that this protection has been directed at dissenting Americans in New York and Pittsburgh and elsewhere suggests some rather odd American attitudes are at work.

Americans must want this protection because they’re scared. They don’t seem to mind that this protection has been used to survey them – and possibly to train them for future catastrophes. Since any war on terror is both endless and bound to fail, to even use the logic of Homeland Security’s justifications requires us to expect another attack. Wouldn’t one be inevitable? And what department will be necessary then? What emergency powers will they request?

Bush has left office, but his decisions have left behind an infrastructure. He has left behind a state of mind. This is the state of mind that fears to protest and fears protest itself. It fears dissent. It is this fear of dissent that speaks heaviest about the truths of the war on terror. To criticize Homeland Security and its agents is to necessarily question its existence. It’s existence originates mostly in 9-11. Thus to find fault with one is to come near the sacred political narrative of the era.

To touch that story is to finger the dead, and for many it is to automatically betray their memory. To go close to the towers – to give the bodies an autopsy, as it were – is to place one’s hand on a corpse. There is naturally much fear there, and also dread. To believe that 9-11 has been abused or worse is simply too far beyond the mental fences that people have raised to make them feel safe.

There is simply no popular vocabulary that will do justice to the actual terror one feels climbing that fence, and peering over it, and even entertaining the notion that they have been living in a prison yard. It is perhaps worse to feel it is one that they have helped to build, and even feel safer inside. And yet the more one resists seeing over the fence, the less chance one has to find real safety. This real safety is the heart of real liberty. Real liberty comes from the security of cooperation, not the security of protection.

Who built this fence and who keeps it there? Them or us?

And why? Because of fear or because of pride?

Twitter versus "SSI Knowledge Center"?

by Jody Ballew

Well, the protesters have their Twittering technology and the 911 dispathchers have theirs.  A system called "SSI Knowledge Center produces a Web-based emergency management tool for large-scale emergencies to help record information, manage resources and manage incidents" is often used by Emergency management centers like your local 911 dispatch.  The tool was used during the Pittsburgh G20 after being directly marketed for that purpose and is gaining broader application through FEMA. 

The parallels are eerie.  Happy Halloween!

COINTELPRO: Systematic Supression of Dissent

by Jody Ballew

Much of the media and new stories accumulated on this blog suggest that the suppression of dissent at Pittsburgh was complex and systematic.  The FBI, the National Guard, the Pittsburgh Police (supported by 1,000 officers from outside Pittsburgh hired for the G20) and other government agencies clearly cooperated to respond to protesters and activists in a preemptive strike that escalated on September, 24th and 25th. 

For evidence supporting this preemption theory, see these two videos detailing the harassment of a group seeking to provide support to protesters by radically feeding them.  Further support of this idea is demonstrated in earlier posts on this blog.  When considered as a whole, it becomes clear that the response to the protest was overwhelming in its scale and organization. 

Another trend on this blog has been to relate these current events to a historical trajectory of the systematic government suppression of dissent and criminalization of protest. 

We see yet another real historical precedent to this expectation by looking at an FBI organization called COINTELPRO which was active in its explicitly stated purpose of "protecting national security, preventing violence, and maintaining the existing social and political order" from 1956 to 1971.  COINTELPRO used a range of covert and often illegal tactics to systematically infiltrate and disrupt a long list of political organizations deemed subversive by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI.  The documented details of COINTELPRO's efforts were released to the public amidst politically motivated theft of FBI documents and a series of Senate investigations.  The Senate Select Committee finally issued this remark,

Many of the techniques used would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity, but COINTELPRO went far beyond that...the Bureau conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association, on the theory that preventing the growth of dangerous groups and the propagation of dangerous ideas would protect the national security and deter violence.

Locating this kind of effort on the part of our federal government in the past is alarming, but I am learning that in my lifetime there have been sweeping responses to organized protest.  In Seattle in 1999 the "no-protest" zone was first established.  In Pittsburgh free-speech zones were not even up for grabs as the deployment of 1,500 National Guard troops made the situation a de facto martial law.  In New York in 2004 a record 1800 protesters and bystanders were arrested at the RNC.

I see a pattern of suppressing dissent with overwhelming force and organization.  Pittsburgh 2009 is in this continuum.  In light of the organized, overwhelming and preemptive corralling of protesters this September, it is dismissive and erroneous to suggest that what happened in Pittsburgh was somehow the protesters' fault.  Historical examples somewhat distant like COINTELPRO show a governmental capacity to trap dissidents in a covert and subversive government scheme.  Precedents like COINTELPRO and more recent examples like Seattle and New York should frame our understanding of Pittsburgh. 

This understanding is a new and shocking part of my civic education.  It simultaneously drives me to learn more, to understand why these things are important, and to do something anything about it.  I hope those who read this blog also share those experiences.

The Federal Anti-Riot Law

by Jody Ballew

This links to an online source of the code (18 USC 2101 - Sec. 2101. Riots) used to justify Madison's arrest for twittering. 

Here is an excerpt of that code:

(a) Whoever travels in interstate or foreign commerce or uses any facility of interstate or foreign commerce, including, but not limited to, the mail, telegraph, telephone, radio, or television, with intent - (1) to incite a riot; or (2) to organize, promote, encourage, participate in, or carry on a riot; or (3) to commit any act of violence in furtherance of a riot; or (4) to aid or abet any person in inciting or participating in or carrying on a riot or committing any act of violence in furtherance of a riot; and who either during the course of any such travel or use or thereafter performs or attempts to perform any other overt act for any purpose specified in subparagraph (A), (B), (C), or (D) of this paragraph - (!1) Shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. (b) In any prosecution under this section, proof that a defendant engaged or attempted to engage in one or more of the overt acts described in subparagraph (A), (B), (C), or (D) of paragraph (1) of subsection (a) (!2) and (1) has traveled in interstate or foreign commerce, or (2) has use of or used any facility of interstate or foreign commerce, including but not limited to, mail, telegraph, telephone, radio, or television, to communicate with or broadcast to any person or group of persons prior to such overt acts, such travel or use shall be admissible proof to establish that such defendant traveled in or used such facility of interstate or foreign commerce.

Federal Riot Law used against Protesters: 1968 - 2009

by Jody Ballew

What is a riot?  Elliot Madison from Jackson Heights, NY was arrested for Twittering police transmissions to protesters on the streets in Pittsburgh.  His apartment was searched and a lengthy catalog of his belongings were seized by the FBI.  Why?  Because the FBI is searching for proof that Madison caused a riot in Pittsburgh. 

Elliot's arrest and the subsequent search and seizure is being challenged by his attorney Martin Stolar of the NY National Lawyers Guild.  Mr. Madison's arrest and the seizure of his possessions is particularly alarming when considered in the light of the laws the FBI Anti-Terror unit used to justify his arrest: Federal Anti-Riot Laws. 

Many see this development as supportive of larger arguments that America is a growing police state:

"It's purely political," his lawyer, Martin R. Stolar, said. "The government is trying to say that anarchists are the equivalents of terrorists, just like it is trying to say that protesters are the equivalents of terrorists."

These laws are not new.  While their application has become more explicit under the horrid history of Operation Garden Plot, COINTELPRO, and The Department of Homeland Security;  the constitutionality of these statutes, first passed in the Anti-Riot Act of 1968, was first challenged when they were used against the Chicago Seven. 

In fact, the Anti-Riot laws are in the Civil Rights Act of 1968.  So, buried in a progressive document that forbids discrimination across lines of race, color, religion or  national origin in the categories of housing and more broadly commerce, we find a repressive effort against the very civil rights leaders who organized, struggled, and protested to bring about these changes. 

Isn't the very existence of such laws a point of legal crisis for government and citizens?  How can the Constitutionally established First Amendment and The Federal Anti-Riot Acts of 1968 co-exist?

As far back as 1969 concerned political activists argued that these laws were the foundation for a police state.  They were vocal in their opposition to these laws. 

Where is our generation's outrage?!  I think it is brewing. 

Why doesn't the press cover these stories?!  Shouldn't such obvious challenges to - destruction of civil liberties be front and center in the public's eye?

On Monday, Elliot Madison faced a U.S. District Court Judge who was to decide if his lawyer's order (that all items seized be returned to him sealed) should be granted.  Also at issue: if the use of the the Anti-Riot Laws was unconstitutional.  This argument is almost identical to those made after the arrests around the 1968 Democratic National Convention.  In that sense, we are in 2009 exactly where we were 40 years ago in the U.S.A.: activists, protesters, and organizers face a set of Federal mandates that undermine their Constitutional Civil Liberties at every turn.  In other words, politically active citizens who have an ethic in which dissent becomes necessary are forcefully met with the illegality of the expression of that ethic. 

To bolster our resolve in light of a civil crisis, we should turn to William Kunster, the attorney who successfully defended the Chicago Seven, for the thinking that we need to keep fighting, an expression essential to any who would defend civil disobedience: 

"That's the terrible myth of organized society, that everything that's done through the established sytem is legal, and that word has a powerful psychological effect."

Protests and Liberalism

By Justin Rogers-Cooper

In order to understand what happened during the G-20 Pittsburgh protests last month, one must frame the clashes between police and protesters through the lens of martial law. This martial law framework lies outside the typical liberal political lens, which necessarily sees public demonstration as ineffective and the police response as excessive. For the liberal, both are written off as marginal breaks with the normal social sphere. For the liberal, neither the protests nor the police reveal themselves as symbolic of larger social conflicts, but rather as side-shows where the extremes clash. The Pittsburgh Protests don't concern his paycheck.

Let us take the proverbial window-smashing protester. The liberal will criticize protests that break glass windows in order to justify the police response in the context of protecting personal and corporate property, as if smashing windows were intended literally and not symbolically. By definition, the liberal can’t support anything but the meekest forms of dissent. This attracts people to liberalism, and to the Democratic Party. It’s safe and it pays off, though taxes go to the wars and to environmental regulation. The liberal bargains by shaking his head at the former, and clutching at the latter to help him fall asleep at night. For the conservative, the reverse is true.

This is where liberalism quietly rests with its conservative neighbor: they are both secretly allied with the police, and perhaps even the police state, because the liberal way of life depends upon the current economic system as much as his conservative frenemy. They are united in their belief that capitalism is inevitable and therefore can only be reformed through bureaucratic oversight and good faith. Like the conservative, the liberal basically believes that human beings can’t cooperate in order to produce life on our current scales of production.

For the liberal, this degree of infrastructure, commodity exchange, capital flows, traffic regulation, employment market, violent crime, private philanthropy, and technological innovation can only exist through a political system that tolerates force on either end. On the top, he subsidizes authoritarian corporate institutions that understand themselves as legal human beings. On the bottom, he ignores the “stop and frisk” police tactics in black urban neighborhoods, which are based on the constitutionally suspect “broken windows” theory. This theory is essentially a police tactic that legitimizes random police searches in the name of preventive crime. This tactic is itself a localized precedent for martial law, and is only the latest in a long trajectory of constitutional abuses against African-Americans. But the liberal tolerates broken windows because, as the name implies, it keeps his windows uncracked. It works.

The liberal today frets because he can't remember an alternative. What’s disappeared from the so-called western world since 1989 is any form of alternative messianic belief in another end to western history, though to say it was there since the 1970s might be a stretch, too. Messianic movements still exist among the religious because they are arguably more organized and more coherent than political parties. At least their followers are passionate in daily cycles, rather than in election cycles. Not long ago there were secular religious movements here in the United States; there was black nationalism, feminism, and democratic socialism. Poets like Allen Ginsberg and Ed Sanders wrote odes that directly pointed to political problems. The Black Power movement and the Black Arts Movement funneled forms of expression that exploded a decade later into hip-hop and rap.

Movements have vanished because people no longer passionately believe in collective identities. The liberal is passionate about mostly and only himself. He styles himself in the vague codes of rebellion and laughs at The Daily Show - no offense to John Stewart intended here, really. He cares about shoes more than the fact that martial law occurred last month. There was no constitution. That's crazy, man.

There is barely an alternative left for him to chase as fashion. Forget flannel: the commercialization of counter-culture is an old story, but perhaps what’s unprecedented about the current era is the stunning lack of counter-culture left to colonize. Socialism can't catch on as a libertarian and conservative attack word because liberals have forgotten what it means. They're deaf to ideas outside the umbrella of capitalism, and thus can't really produce a coherent alternative counter-culture. Whatever "going green" means, it's liberal: so far no green spokesman besides those in The 11th Hour have proposed anything except smart consumption: hybrids, energy independence, recycling, organic food, whatever. Clothing and car ads have to continually channel earlier figures and music. Bono once argued about debt to the IMF. Pearl Jam once challenged Ticketmaster. Now they have a distribution deal with Target.

The end of the Vietnam War must have exhausted a generation of protesters. Since then, neither white middle-class college students nor the black working class has been able to organize anything near the power of the national movements at work in the 1960s. In ways that are totally unlike their parents, they’re on drugs and drinking: not to free their minds, but to numb them. They post videos on Youtube and write blogs in the hopes that they get an agent or a book deal. Deep down, the liberal mostly wants to reproduce himself and get paid for it.

While it’s worth debating the reasons why this happened, it appears evident that in the wake of ‘movement withdrawal’ the neo-liberal era created a new form of voting liberal: complacent, patient, and, until last year, relatively profligate in his use of credit. The G-20 protests can’t stir him because he fears the protesters as much as the police. He will rally against the war, but not against the system that lent him money for college. Where the liberal and conservative disagree most is in tone. The liberal believes that the working class needs its charity, and that the ruling class sometimes needs it, too. This is why the Obama administration continued to bailout the corporations and attempt health care reform. The liberal can’t decide what he believes, since he most of all believes in his being happy. The neo-liberal era made him happy. He worries for the future.

By contrast, the passionate protester sometimes smashes objects because she desires a break with the past; she smashes property in order to protest an economic system that leaves half of the population without it. The protester dares to believe in another order of things. Whether efficacious or not, the protester believes she must address an urgent conflict with a loud voice. The protester believes that the human voice possesses some singular power that can amplify that urgency in real time, in real space. The protester believes in the logic of the strike: that if bodies in the streets can stop a flow, then their message becomes invested with power. This power is a way to center attention on messages that exist outside the stratosphere of corporate advertising and media. This is in part why digital modes of liberal engagement – like forwarding petitions – are simultaneously attractive and ineffective. On the one hand, they're easy. They flow. On the other hand, the petition doesn’t threaten anything because it doesn’t stop anything. The protest and the strike dare to stop things.

At its most basic level, the right to assembly is a cheap way to effect real power because one can force someone’s attention, if they’ll only look. One cannot effectively send an online petition for things “to stop” at the G-20 Summit. The meetings will go on anyway, sure, and without any opposing points of view in the room. The protester believes she can be heard if only she can get near the spaces where power resides – in this case, Pittsburgh. Protesters have always believed this. It’s a way to ‘get in the room’ with powerful people who would never otherwise meet with you.

This is what the liberal resents about protesting, and what confuses him. He hates the interruption to his routine only slightly more then the interruption to his paradigm. He hates being late for work. He fears his windows getting smashed. He’s concerned about the noise. He feels superior to the protester because he believes himself to be more rational. It is the emotions of the protester he finds so annoying. He finds her passion melodramatic. He believes that compromise and conversation through electoral participation work, or should work, or will work, if only the system functioned. He refuses to believe that the dysfunctional system is working the way it's designed: that is, chaotically, with regular, profitable catastrophes.

Perhaps what he fears most is the sacrifice now involved in protest: to give up one’s body to the police, to dare to assemble, to be “taken away” to jail, to be “charged,” to be infected with the sludge of crime. The liberal doesn’t see himself as a criminal under any circumstances, even if the law that criminalizes protest is unjust. The liberal refuses to sacrifice his body for the cause.

And herein lies the contradiction of liberalism and protest: the liberal can’t justify civil disobedience if it means becoming a criminal. The liberal believes there must be a better way. Or perhaps he most of all fears losing the charms of his everyday life, or fears the humiliation of appearing in court, or fears what his parents will say. The liberal fears what this will do to his self-esteem, to his narrative of success, to his vague sense that he is “good” and those arrested are “bad.”

And so the liberal tolerates all, including martial law, including the militarization of the Homeland, and will tolerate it all until he loses everything, and only then will he protest -- and only then because his sacrifice will be necessary.

Protest Study Project Event at Graduate Center

An informal network of students, faculty, and activists tentatively working under the banner of "The Protest Study Project" have proposed a weekend conference in New York on March 20-21, 2010 (we are awaiting final approval to hold this event at the City University of New York Graduate Center). The goals of this conference are to provide a forum for academic and activist discussions about the urgent legal, practical, and theoretical issues that emerged from the Pittsburgh G-20 summit protests, and to place these discussions in larger transnational and historical contexts. The conference urges presentations, panels, roundtable discussions, and workshops on any number of perspectives and reactions to multiple issues.

Despite the lack of national conversation about it, the Pittsburgh protests during the G20 summit on September 24th and 25th last month became a bewildering spectacle of police action against crowds of protesters, University of Pittsburgh students, and even bystanders. This escalating "criminalization" of protest dates back at least to the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York, and requires the attention of both scholars and activists in particular. There are pressing issues at stake: among the most obvious is the arrest of Eliott Madison for “twittering” the location of the police to protesters from a hotel room during the protest. Days after his arrest, his apartment in Queens, New York was raided by an FBI counter-terrorism unit. The evidence the FBI confiscated included books, including Marx and Lenin.

Moreover, there is a persistent belief among citizens and intellectuals that the nature of protest crowds has definitively changed since the late 1960s, perhaps as a "result of the proliferation and ever-increasing prevalence of virtual or media-based forms of assembly," or because of "long-terms trends promoting economic decentralization, suburban sprawl, increased mobility, and political disengagement," as Jeffery Schnapp and Matthew Tiews argue in their book "Crowds."

These are the types of claims this conference hopes to in part address. More generally, this conference will be an opportunity to link together scholars and activists interested in these questions, and to raise questions about subjects including (but not limited to):

* the lack of national conversation about the Pittsburgh Protests and other recent public demonstrations;

* protest literature, protest fiction, activist fiction, dissident literature, strategic literature, and civil disobedience literature;

* the efficacy of crowd formation and public demonstration;

* the notion of constitutionally recognized power of free assembly;

* the notion of citing "constitutional" infringement itself in the context of "free speech zones";

* new law enforcement techniques and technology, including the LRAD sonic gun, used on American citizens for the first time in Pittsburgh;

*the new use of digital media and social-networking technologies by protesters, such as Twitter;

* the recent history of recent protest and dissident movements in the US (other summit protests, convention protests, anti-war protests);

* comparative approaches placing these events in transnational contexts (other summit protests, convention protests, anti-war protests, post-election protests, media censorship);

* analysis of specific events, texts, or objects associated with these conflicts and issues, including reflections on the representation of protests and the aesthetics of assembly;

* personal or organizational experiences with these events and trends;

* reflections on Homeland Security, state "Defense Forces" and National Guard mobilizations, and cooperation among local and national authorities;

* crowds, crowd-behavior, and crowd control;

* presentations on connections to academic freedom, tenure review, and adjunct unionization;

* presentations on the legal issues and constitutional issues associated with this these events;

* interdisciplinary approaches to understanding these issues.

As local, state, national, and transnational security forces develop new logistical and legal techniques of crowd control, it's more important than ever for activists, scholars, lawyers, social workers, and community organizers to share and reflect on the evolving landscape of protest strategies. A new era of uncertainty around these conflicts is upon us. It's essential that the network of groups organizing within this new landscape understand the issues at stake, and that this communication takes place across disciplines and beyond campus walls.

In addition to presenting videos, pictures, presentations, stories, papers, and strategies, the goal of this conference will also try to actively form functioning networks for the purpose of coordinating information and ideas for future, on-going discussions on the nexus of issues to be explored here.

Please send 300-word abstracts that propose ideas for papers, panels, group presentations, or roundtable discussions to proteststudyproject AT gmail.com. The deadline for abstracts is January 2, 2010.

Pittsburgh in Context: A Selected History of Martial Law in America

By Justin Rogers-Cooper

For anyone that paid attention, the Pittsburgh Protests during the G20 summit on September 24th and 25th last month became a bewildering spectacle of police action against crowds of protesters, University of Pittsburgh students, and even bystanders. The spectacle of the riot police took on dystopian cinematic dimensions: military troops and para-military forces acted in concert with local SWAT-like units, as well as nearly every land-branch of the Homeland Security. The coordination between these groups was arguably unprecedented. Dozens of videos and blogs that have appeared on the internet show aggressive exchanges between the police and the protesters.

Indeed, much of the violence appears disproportionate to the protest itself. This disproportionate response raises questions about the efficacy of protesting, but also about the actual motives of the police forces in Pittsburgh. It’s entirely plausible that the police response was intentionally disproportionate to the events because the protests offered police an opportunity to test different elements of martial law. Besides shutting down roads and enforcing limited free speech zones, the police used new technology and tactics to disperse non-violent crowds assembling to protest, including the LRAD sonic gun, which had previously only been used against crowds in Iraq. Many links to these blogs and videos can be found on this website, and there is growing evidence that many protesters and students were arrested for crimes that apparently violate basic constitutional guarantees for rights such as assembly, speech, and freedom from seizure. It’s likely that these constitutional violations were intended to test both logistical and strategic tactics. This seems evident as well in the aftermath of the confrontations, since the police have coordinated with the FBI to justify their logistical innovations with an analogous legal assault on protest organizing and logistics. The most obvious example of this is the arrest of Eliott Madison for “twittering” the location of the police to protesters from a hotel room during the protest. Days after his arrest, his apartment in Queens, New York was raided by an FBI counter-terrorism unit.

The legal questions surrounding the arrest, detention, and charges against the protesters raise several crucial and urgent questions about civil liberties. They also inevitably raise concerns about the role of technology for the police and protesters alike, as both the LRAD gun and Twitter played crucial roles in the US for the first time. Both of these technologies have already been used with various degrees of success by the US military in Iraq and by Iranian dissidents following the disputed election there earlier this summer. Framing the US persecution of the Pittsburgh protesters within the larger transnational context of democracy movements is instructive because of this, and not just because the protesters were directing their actions against the Group of 20 nations responsible for implementing agreements conducive to world trade.

In many confrontations, the police forces clearly overwhelmed the protesters in sheer numbers, and this use of force to disperse non-violent crowds of mostly young people recalls an escalating strategic manipulation of tactics that goes back to the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York, when Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s New York City Police made multiple arrests on August 30th, 2004, using “divide and arrest” tactics. More ominously, the next day the NYPD made mass arrests of 900-1200 people and took them to the Hudson Pier Depot, where some spent more than 24 hours in legal isolation and detained without charges. The events at Pittsburgh continue along this strategic line: in hindsight, it’s possible to see these violations of civil liberties as purposeful experiments in selected martial law, where local civilian authorities cede tactical and legal responsibility to the police and police agents. The temporary suspension of constitutional rights during these protests seems to break any implicit “contract” between the police and the protesters that free speech can be exercised in good faith. In other words, it is precisely when one is actively asserting one’s constitutional rights to physically protest and speak against activities associated with civilian authority that those authorities declare emergency powers against the exercise of just that assertion.

Martial law, of course, is when the military assumes control of the administration of justice, and often refers to an occupation of territory where constitutional rights of due process no longer apply. Martial law was openly used in the American south during the Reconstruction era after the Civil War, for instance, for the ironic purpose of guaranteeing constitutional recognition for newly won rights of black persons. It’s important to remember here that the deposed regime of slavery was more than simply a lack of economic contract between labor and capital – between master and slave, as it were. It was a federally sanctioned political strategy targeted against huge numbers of Americans that explicitly denied them constitutional protection. The fact of their “slave” status – and also as 'Negroes' – does little to justify the legal authority that forbade them access to constitutional protection.

The racial status of slaves was fluid, and changed in relation to ever harsher forms of forced labor and forced servitude. The fluid legal status of the slave did not, in fact, reveal a transcendental, metaphysical belief in racial inferiority. The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act and 1857 Dred Scott decision appeared in the Supreme Court because the metaphysical reality of slavery was inept. Slavery required legal protection in order to work, and also because the abolition movement’s campaign against its status as ‘normal reality’ was so successful. The 1896 Plesssy v. Ferguson decision again reinforced a legal standard for segregation after Reconstruction, only this time within the logic of its “separate but equal” clause. This cynical division of territory into white and black zones should again remind us that an apartheid logic has operated in the United States for long stretches of time previous to the temporary emergency zones operating during protest events. During these stretches, constitutional rights were regularly denied to millions of Americans. To understand these violations solely within the logic of racism is a mistake, however, because race was primarily a concept used to classify bodies zoned for permissible violations. Emergency powers were implicitly and sometimes explicitly legal against those bodies, and to the extent that extra-judicial violence against African-Americans was rarely prosecuted, it’s certain that lynchings by vigilante groups organizing terrorist activities were in part justified because those groups understood that federal constitutional protection did not apply to certain zoned bodies.

The recent de jure and de facto invocation of martial law emergency powers by police forces is the proper frame for understanding the Pittsburgh Protests and the RNC protests that preceded it; this has been argued already by bloggers like Kevin Gozstola. In effect, those protesting the actions of civilian political authorities implicitly waive their constitutional rights by appearing in the protest “zones” demarcated by the police. In these zones, it’s apparently taken for granted that police may declare emergency powers and institute small-scale zones of martial law.

These zones have precedents not only in the history of American aggression against constitutional protection for African-Americans, but also in the revision of constitutional commitments after the events of September 11 and the United States “war on terror.” In particular, the on-going confusion about the legal status and extra-judicial military prosecutions against the Guantanamo Bay detainees raises more hard questions about how much the emergency powers of executive authority in Cuba have bled into making extra-judicial arrests more common against United States citizens who themselves are, in part, protesting those very same policies. Moreover, the purposely vague Military Commissions Act of 2006 authorized military trails for “violations for the law of war, and other purposes” (italics mine). There is widespread controversy over whether or not this law applies to United States citizens. Both Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter and Oregon Representative David Wu have commented that it potentially violates the constitution. Persons subject to arrest under the Act do not have recourse to prove their identity as citizens because if they’re charged as an enemy combatant the Act explicitly denies them recourse to regular courts. Furthermore, the Act defines enemy combatant as anyone “engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States.” According to this reading, the declaration of emergency powers by police forces in Pittsburgh might be justified if the police forces understood the protesters to be “engaged in hostilities” against the United States. Much depends upon the politics, perspective, motivation, and inclination of the person defining “hostilities.” Much also depends upon how much these legal confusions give indirect license to police powers to act as though emergency powers are somehow more legitimate in the climate of a "war on terror."

Currently, the only person officially charged with enemy combatant status is Ali Saleh Kahlah Al Marri. The recent events at Pittsburgh, however, should remind readers that his precedent may lead to further mass detentions and arrests of US citizens in the shadow of police powers that operate with martial law powers. The precedent for indefinite definition after declaring emergency powers was in fact used against protesters in New York City in 2004, and, furthermore, equipment first tested outside the US on Iraqis was used on American citizens in Pittsburgh. These are troubling developments, and they seem to suggest that a new era of compromised civil liberties is upon us.

Just as constitutional protections were first denied African-Americans and then expanded against other enemies of the state in the Palmer Raids and during the McCarthy era, the legal powers granted to federal authorities against one group seem to follow against other organizations that actively refrain from supporting civilian authorities during times of war. The Obama and Bush administrations both seem to support these police policies. Obama has so far only promised to shut down CIA rendition prisons (“black sites”) and Guantanamo Bay, but not alter the laws granting security agencies new emergency powers. In short, the entire notion of “enemy combatant” erodes reverence for the constitution, and creates an atmosphere where violations are more likely to occur. Indeed, Pittsburgh seems the proof of this.

In future blogs, I’ll further explore the history of federal and local relationships to martial law. I’ll also re-examine it in the context of the response to Hurricane Katrina and what’s come to be called “disaster management” by the organizations affiliated with Homeland Security, which now has the legal authority to allow military intervention into “civil disturbances” following “man-made” and natural disasters. (Hint: one of the disasters that Homeland Security intends to activate the military for includes flu pandemics.)

Linking Pittsburgh to Other Recent Protests

How do these other examples of recent protest and police brutality relate to the events in Pittsburgh?

G20 International Summit, London - April, 2009:

Video of police assault on Ian Tomlinson, who died at the London G20 protest
G20 protests in London

G20 Protest London - Riot Police Move in - G20 Protest London - Riot Police Move in - G20 London


WTO, New Delhi - March, 2009: Protest against WTO

World Economic Forum, Davos - January, 2009: Protest in Davos

G8, Tokyo - June, 2008: Anti-G8 Demo 7.6.2008 in Tokyo 

G8, Sapporo - May, 2008: Anti-G8 Demonstration in Sapporo 2008

These clips demonstrate that the protest against organizations like the WTO, the G8 now G20, and the World Economic Forum are a truly global phenomenon. 

Why do people in such a diverse set of locations choose to protest these gatherings?

Media Representations of the Pittsburgh Protests

It is important to consider how different media portrayals effect our understanding of the events surrounding the G-20 Summit.

Below are several different videos, articles, and images that detail the events of protest and violent police reactions.

As you watch, consider the difference between the "indy-media" and the mainstream that came out of Pittsburgh. 

- Are there notable differences in language, content, perspective, and quality? 
- How do these differences shape your views of the events in Pittsburgh? 
- Does the mainstream coverage seem as thorough as it should be?
- What links can you add in the comments that contribute to this perspective?

G-20 / University of Pittsburgh Protest Recap 9/24/09

Raw Video: An Up-Close View of the G20 Protests (Associated Press)

G-20 Protesters Clash With Police (Associated Press)

Obama: G-20 Summit Good Time to Assess Economy
      -  President Obama speaks of the G-20 as part of an effort to "prevent market meltdowns" in the future. 

Arrest at G20 Demonstrations Pittsburgh September 24 2009

CNN Reporter Hit With Chemicals At G-20 Protests In Pittsburgh
     -  CNN

Protesters Dispersed After G-20 Meeting (New York Times)

Editorial: A chance to come together (The Pitt News)
     - This editorial states, "It’s too early to say that police were either right or wrong in their strategy — after all, there was a string of vandalism here the night before — but one thing is clear: The situation was unfair to students."
     -  Were the police right or wrong in their strategy?
     -  Was the situation unfair to students?  How or how not?

Friday Sept 25th - The day the news said nothing happened. (Pittsburgh G-Infinity Media Project)
     -  The loudspeaker warns those assembled, "This has been delcared an illegal gathering.  No matter what your purpose, you must leave." 

Caution LOUD!!Sound Weapons used on Pittsburgh G20 Protests

Democracy 101: Pittsburgh G20 Protests and the Police Occupation of Pitt University
   - Styled as a documentary of the G-20 protests, this 29 minute video shows a plurality of perspectives. 
   - How does the modern accessibility to video/picture phones and independent media sources determine the availability of information representing events like Pittsburgh?

Criminalization of Social Networking Technology - Twitter, G20 Pittsburgh, & Iran
     -  Arrests made in Jackson Heights, NY lead to the criminalization of Twitter as used to help organize protestors against police.  How does the use of Twitter change the dynamics of protest organization?

COMMENTS are enabled on the blog.  Let's start the discussion now!

What happened at U Pitt?

Hello QC students,

On September 25, 2009, the G-20 Summit convened in Pittsburgh, PA amidst organized protests. These protests covered a broad range of issues from climate change, to world hunger, to global trade, and finance.

Of greatest interests to us as students were the events specifically occurring in and around the University of Pittsburgh campus. As the protests escalated on Friday, U Pitt students, some not directly involved in the protests, found themselves "swept up into" the police efforts to contain the protests. To date, over 100 arrests have been made: many of them were college students.

Since the time of the protests and the subsequent police actions, a flurry of videos on YouTube offer a nearly panoramic view of the students' experiences. One student states, "we weren't rioting...we were just sitting there" in response to the tear gas that reached him in his study area. Countless other videos, images, and new stories confirm these details.

It would be of vital interest to this student body to consider:

1. What happened in Pittsburgh involved college students. This makes it important for the students of Queens College to discuss and understand these events.
2. Weapons were tested on American citizens for the first time.
3. The National Guard was present.

A vigorous and civil discussion of these points can lead us to many questions begging to be answered. Among those questions could be:

1. Were these students' rights to free speech and assembly violated?
2. Are there connections between these recent events and other protests throughout the last decade? the last century?
3. Has the aggressive use of force against peaceful demonstration escalated both in terms of military equipment and police organization?
4. What role did technology, specifically Twitter, play in the organization of the protests?

If you would like to discuss these issues and potentially take meaningful action to pass a resolution through the Academic Senate, please join in the conversation here on the blog.

Stay tuned for updates!