Talked to Shaun Waterman, the homeland and national security editor at United Press International, last night. Here’s an excerpt from his article on the SHAC 7 and the looming Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, on the wires today:
But some civil liberties advocates have slated the bill’s provisions as overbroad and unnecessary, charging that legitimate protests that damage a company’s bottom line would be criminalized by the new law.
“Disrupting business and hurting profits isn’t terrorism,” said Will Potter, a freelance reporter and animal rights sympathizer who has testified before Congress about the civil liberties impact of the proposed law. “It’s effective activism. Businesses exist to make money, and if activists want to change a business practice, they must make that practice unprofitable.”
He added that was the principle that guided the lunch-counter campaigns of civil rights activists and the divestment campaigns of anti-apartheid groups. “The tactics of Martin Luther King and Gandhi are now terrorism,” he concluded.