{"id":91,"date":"2026-05-23T06:08:34","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T06:08:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/summitrelocationtimess.com\/?p=91"},"modified":"2026-05-23T06:08:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T06:08:34","slug":"the-war-on-protest-is-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/summitrelocationtimess.com\/?p=91","title":{"rendered":"The War on Protest Is Here"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Amin Chaoui had been in Atlanta less than 24<\/span>\u00a0hours when things took an unexpected turn. Chaoui, then 31<\/span>, drove down from Richmond, Va., to attend a\u00a0March 2023<\/span> music festival organized by activists trying to stop the construction of the police training facility known as Cop City. The sprawling compound in one of Atlanta\u2019s largest urban parks would require clearing at least 85<\/span>\u00a0acres of partly forested land that abuts a\u00a0predominantly Black neighborhood in DeKalb County. It faced growing opposition from racial and environmental justice advocates, including an occupation of the forest that began in November\u00a02021<\/span>.<\/p>

Read more Eviction By ICE?<\/a><\/p>\n

Chaoui was loosely familiar with Cop City\u2009\u2014\u2009he\u2019d seen flyers around Richmond\u2009\u2014\u2009but hadn\u2019t been involved in the campaign. He\u2019d also never been to Atlanta, and was especially drawn to the music. There was also an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at the festival that appealed to Chaoui, who had started a\u00a0recovery program five months prior. \u200b\u201c<\/span>I honestly just thought I\u00a0was going to spend a\u00a0few days in the forest and then go home,\u201d Chaoui\u00a0said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But before the hour-long AA meeting ended his first night there, Chaoui noticed heavily armed police officers encircling the venue. About a\u00a0half-mile away, a\u00a0group of protesters had staged an impromptu march through the development site, setting fire to some of the construction equipment. As the sun began to set, plumes of smoke rose above the forest, providing the only pretext law enforcement needed to round up anyone in attendance. As Chaoui tried to leave, he and about 50<\/span> other people were corralled and handcuffed in a\u00a0parking lot. By the end of the night, 23<\/span> of them were thrown in the DeKalb County\u00a0jail.<\/p>\n

When Chaoui was released 18<\/span>\u00a0days later, he faced a\u00a0very different future: He\u2019d been charged with domestic terrorism, which, in Georgia, is punishable by up to 35<\/span>\u00a0years in\u00a0prison.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Several months later, in August, Chaoui and 60<\/span> others were also indicted under anti-racketeering laws designed to go after organized crime, known as the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). Allegations against members of the group include being part of a criminal conspiracy among an \u200b\u201c<\/span>organized mob\u201d to \u200b\u201c<\/span>occupy the DeKalb forest and cause property damage.\u201d Chaoui has struggled to find work since then; he\u2019s been relying on fundraising networks to pay his rent. Chaoui\u2019s relationships with friends and family have also frayed. As a\u00a0Muslim American, the domestic terrorism charge\u2009\u2014\u2009one of the first results that appears if you search him online\u2009\u2014\u2009is an especially heavy burden. \u200b\u201c<\/span>My personal life is in shambles now,\u201d Chaoui told\u00a0me.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The sweeping nature of the Cop City arrests and charges may be novel, but the targeting of protesters and social movements is not. Since 2017<\/span>\u2009\u2014\u2009the same year Georgia expanded its domestic terrorism law to include property destruction\u2009\u2014\u200921<\/span> states have passed legislation to enhance penalties and fines for common protest-related crimes, such as trespassing or blocking\u00a0highways.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>We\u2019re in a\u00a0really unique moment with the amount of legislation that we\u2019re seeing, [with] this legal assault on protesters and the right to protest in the U.S.,\u201d says Nick Robinson, a\u00a0senior legal advisor at the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, which tallied nearly 300<\/span> anti-protest bills introduced in state legislatures since 2017<\/span>, 41<\/span> of which\u00a0passed.<\/p>\n

Many of those laws seemed like direct responses to specific protest campaigns, says Nora Benavidez, senior counsel for the nonprofit group Free Press and lead author of the 2020<\/span> PEN America report, Arresting Dissent: Legislative Restrictions on the Right to Protest<\/em>. \u200b\u201c<\/span>For every progressive movement\u2009\u2014\u2009irrespective of its actual views\u2009\u2014\u2009there\u2019s so quickly a\u00a0crackdown that occurs in language and narrative and\u00a0law.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Among recently passed state laws, 19<\/span> enhance penalties for or make it a\u00a0felony to engage in protest on or near energy infrastructure\u2014 a\u00a0clear reaction to the mass protests over the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock in 2016<\/span>. After 2020<\/span>\u2019s Black Lives Matter protests, five states enacted laws\u2009\u2014\u2009and nine others have pending legislation\u2009\u2014\u2009that impose harsh penalties for individuals who block traffic or even sidewalks. Some states added laws granting immunity to drivers who strike protesters and extending liability for crimes committed during protests to any organizations that support them. This January, in response to growing opposition to the war in Gaza, Democrats in New York proposed a\u00a0bill that would expand the definition of domestic terrorism to include blocking public roads or\u00a0bridges.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not just state legislatures cracking down on protest. Republican senators have introduced federal legislation, also in response to protests over Gaza, to criminalize blocking public roads and highways. Another bill, introduced by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and ostensibly responding to \u200b\u201c<\/span>pro-Hamas leftists,\u201d would increase the prison sentence for participating in a \u200b\u201c<\/span>riot\u201d\u2009\u2014\u2009loosely defined as an act of violence committed by a\u00a0group of three or more people\u2009\u2014\u2009from five years to\u00a010<\/span>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Accompanying these laws is increasingly harsh rhetoric from political figures to demonize protest movements, characterizing activists as rioters, mobs, violent extremists and terrorists. Protesters face other threats too: During the summer of racial justice protests that followed the police killing of George Floyd in 2020<\/span>, the Trump administration openly discussed deploying military force to clear demonstrations, and protesters in Portland, Ore., were snatched from the street by federal law enforcement officials in unmarked vehicles, a\u00a0troubling episode still shrouded in mystery. More recently, pro-Palestinian activists say they\u2019ve faced home visits from police and the FBI. This week, Cotton urged people who end up stuck in traffic due to protest actions to \u200b\u201c<\/span>take matters into your own hands\u201d and \u200b\u201c<\/span>put an end to this\u00a0nonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Courts have also struck at the right to protest. Just this Monday, the Supreme Court announced its refusal to hear a\u00a0case involving DeRay Mckesson, a\u00a0prominent leader in the Black Lives Matter movement. On two prior occasions, a\u00a0lower court had ruled that protest organizers like Mckesson can be held liable for the actions of others, upending decades of legal precedent. The Supreme Court\u2019s rejection of Mckesson\u2019s appeal means that, at least for now, it is a\u00a0huge risk to organize mass actions in Louisiana, Mississippi and\u00a0Texas.<\/p>\n

Taken together, says Charlie Hogle, a\u00a0staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union\u2019s National Security Project, these shifts will inevitably \u200b\u201c<\/span>have a\u00a0chilling effect on the sort of important political speech we think the First Amendment is intended to\u00a0protect.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A Georgia State Patrol officer threatens a journalist with arrest at the Block Cop City march in Atlanta on Nov. 13, 2023, as activists from across the country rallied at the construction site. PHOTO BY CARLOS BERRIOS POLANCO\/SIPA USA VIA AP IMAGES<\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A decade ago, protesters in Georgia and other states who engaged in civil disobedience\u2009\u2014\u2009knowingly breaking the law to advocate for their cause\u2009\u2014\u2009likely would have faced misdemeanor charges and perhaps a\u00a0night in jail. Today, they can spend months in pretrial detention\u2009\u2014\u2009as several activists involved in the Stop Cop City campaign have\u2009\u2014\u2009before facing lengthy and expensive legal battles to clear their names. The new laws, stiffer penalties, and more aggressive policing have, in addition to landing more activists in jail, had a\u00a0corrosive effect on social movements across the\u00a0country.<\/p>\n

Jamie Marsicano, a\u00a0third-year law student at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill who was swept up in the same Cop City raid that nabbed Chaoui, had been arrested at protests before\u2009\u2014\u2009including during street marches in 2020<\/span>\u2009\u2014\u2009and assumed they\u2019d be processed quickly and released. But like Chaoui, Marsicano spent nearly three weeks in jail and had to post $50<\/span>,000<\/span>\u00a0in bonds to get out\u2009\u2014\u2009money that may not be recouped for years. Upon their release, Marsicano had to wear an ankle monitor for three months and, after a\u00a0decision by UNC\u2019s chancellor, was barred from setting foot on campus or even attending classes online. Marsicano was able to finish their coursework at Duke and will graduate this spring\u2009\u2014\u2009but they can\u2019t take the bar exam in North Carolina or practice law until the case is settled, which could take\u00a0years.<\/p>\n

Even if the felony charges are ultimately dropped\u2009\u2014\u2009as lawyers say they routinely are in protest-related arrests\u2009\u2014\u2009the threat keeps activists off the streets and siphons resources away from political\u00a0organizing.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>I don\u2019t think the goal is conviction, which is really sinister,\u201d says Xavier T. de Janon, director of mass defense with the National Lawyers\u00a0Guild.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The tactics have already changed the way movements organize. Activists in Georgia are now worried about the implications of participating in routine political activities, such as putting up flyers or circulating and signing Cop City-related petitions. The fears aren\u2019t unfounded: Three activists swept up in the RICO indictment were initially arrested for posting flyers identifying the police officer who allegedly shot and killed Stop Cop City activist Manuel Esteban Paez Ter\u00e1n in January 2023<\/span>. In September 2023<\/span>, the city of Atlanta made the unusual decision to publish the full names and addresses of the more than 100<\/span>,000<\/span> people who signed a\u00a0Stop Cop City petition, effectively doxxing them. Afterward, according to Marlon Kautz\u2009\u2014\u2009cofounder of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, which has provided bail support and other resources to area activists since 2016<\/span>\u2009\u2014\u2009many locals said \u200b\u201c<\/span>they would never sign another controversial petition\u00a0again.\u201d<\/p>\n

But many states, including Georgia, are now going even further, attempting to pass new laws that could fatally undermine the support networks that social movements depend\u00a0on.<\/p>\n

A couple months after the music festival, Kautz awoke to the sound of his front door being kicked in by law enforcement. The Atlanta Solidarity Fund\u2019s home-based office, which Kautz shares with two of its board members, was ransacked, their files and computers seized. Kautz and his coworkers were initially charged, in May 2023<\/span>, with money laundering and charity fraud\u2009\u2014\u2009though they have not yet been indicted on those initial charges. But in August, they were included in the sweeping RICO indictment, which claims that the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, through its parent nonprofit the Network for Strong Communities, provided financial support to the forest defenders and published posts online claiming responsibility for acts of property destruction. According to Georgia\u2019s attorney general, these were all acts that furthered the \u200b\u201c<\/span>conspiracy.\u201d (Kautz says he is unable to talk about specific allegations while the case is ongoing but \u200b\u201c<\/span>suffice it to say the indictment contains claims which are objectively\u00a0lies.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Like de Janon, Kautz doesn\u2019t believe the RICO charges are intended \u200b\u201c<\/span>to secure convictions in the long term.\u201d Rather, he tells me, \u200b\u201c<\/span>It\u2019s to create as much disruption as possible to protesters and the nonprofit organizations which protect their rights. And in that sense, these charges are working exactly as\u00a0intended.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Kautz and his colleagues also face another threat. Republicans in Georgia have introduced multiple anti-protest bills since Cop City protests began in order to, as one said, send \u200b\u201c<\/span>a signal to troublemakers \u2026 that they won\u2019t get a\u00a0slap on the wrist\u201d if they \u200b\u201c<\/span>engage in rioting\u201d in Georgia. In 2023<\/span>, Georgia Republican state Sen. Randy Robertson introduced what was initially characterized as a\u00a0bail reform bill, which would significantly expand the number of offenses requiring mandatory cash bail to include criminal trespass and unlawful assembly\u2009\u2014\u2009charges frequently lobbed at protesters. That was bad enough, says Tiffany Williams Roberts, policy director at the Southern Center for Human Rights, which opposed the legislation. But this year, a\u00a0new clause was added that makes it virtually impossible to operate a\u00a0nonprofit bail fund in Georgia by limiting the number of people that charitable organizations, including churches, can assist in any given year\u2009\u2014\u2009to only three\u00a0people.<\/p>\n

Kautz, who faces up to 20<\/span>\u00a0years in prison and $25<\/span>,000<\/span>\u00a0in fines if convicted on the RICO charges, sees the bill as a\u00a0direct response to the solidarity fund\u2019s successful work in bailing out nearly 100<\/span> Cop City activists. \u200b\u201c<\/span>It was shocking how blatantly targeted it was at our work,\u201d Kautz\u00a0says.<\/p>\n

The bill passed both houses of Georgia\u2019s legislature. It takes effect in\u00a0July.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Dakota Access Pipeline water protectors face off with militarized police on Feb. 22, 2017, the day their camp was slated to be raided. At least six were arrested, including a journalist who sustained a broken hip. MICHAEL NIGRO\/PACIFIC PRESS\/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES<\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The anti-pipeline campaigns of the 2010<\/span>s ushered in a\u00a0new era of environmental politics and protest. The Keystone XL campaign, targeting a\u00a0pipeline that would have carried oil from the Canadian tar sands to the Gulf Coast, embraced direct action, including tree-sits, to disrupt the project\u2019s construction. Though the movement was committed to nonviolent civil disobedience, it engendered heavy resistance from industry and law enforcement at multiple levels. In early 2012<\/span>, before Keystone XL became a\u00a0household name, the FBI opened a\u00a0counterterrorism assessment of South Dakota activists with a\u00a0focus on Native groups and leaders. A\u00a0second FBI assessment, targeting Texas activists protesting the pipeline\u2019s southern leg, began less than a\u00a0year later. In documents I\u00a0obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, the FBI hypothesized both groups\u2009\u2014\u2009whose members they called \u200b\u201c<\/span>extremists\u201d\u2009\u2014\u2009would move from lawful First Amendment-protected activity (including attending public hearings) to \u200b\u201c<\/span>violent\u00a0opposition.\u201d<\/p>\n

The language of extremism\u2009\u2014\u2009many of the FBI documents are part of larger \u200b\u201c<\/span>domestic terrorism\u201d case files\u2009\u2014\u2009came to permeate the federal government\u2019s characterization of the anti-pipeline movement and has dogged subsequent social justice campaigns. The charging documents in many of the Cop City arrests cite a\u00a0Department of Homeland Security classification that characterized Defend the Atlanta Forest, a\u00a0group affiliated with the Stop Cop City movement, as \u200b\u201c<\/span>domestic violent extremists.\u201d Similar labels have been used to describe Black Lives Matter and anti-fascist activists\u2009\u2014\u2009labels with serious impact on movements\u2019 ability to attract new members and how law enforcement responds to those\u00a0groups.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Hundreds of individuals were arrested during the roughly five-year campaign to halt Keystone XL, which declared victory when Obama canceled the project in late 2015<\/span>. But none of those activists were charged, or even threatened with felonies, recalls Lauren Regan, executive director of the Civil Liberties Defense\u00a0Center.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, policing and prosecution tactics escalated sharply during the Dakota Access Pipeline blockade the following year. In 2016<\/span>, thousands of activists, including many veterans of the Keystone XL fight, descended on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota, where tribal leaders had set up \u200b\u201c<\/span>spirit camps\u201d in an attempt to block pipeline construction. The standoff lasted several months and was marked by violent clashes with heavily armed state and local law enforcement, National Guard troops and private security firms. The FBI, according to newly released court documents, deployed up to 10<\/span> informants to spy on the\u00a0protesters.<\/p>\n

The legislative response to Standing Rock was equally severe. In January 2017<\/span>, just weeks after the camps were cleared, North Dakota introduced and later passed two laws expanding the definition of criminal trespass and dramatically heightening penalties for so-called riot offenses\u2009\u2014\u2009an unmistakable response to what had unfolded at Standing Rock. As with similar bills that have deployed terms like rioting or domestic terrorism, the language in these was deliberately vague, giving law enforcement and state officials broad discretion to target groups whose viewpoints they disagree with. In 2019<\/span>, a\u00a0third law was passed, enhancing penalties for trespassing on or near critical infrastructure and making interference with pipeline construction a\u00a0felony, carrying penalties of five years in prison and fines of up to $10<\/span>,000<\/span>.<\/p>\n

What all of this adds up to is that a\u00a0Standing Rock-style protest in North Dakota, or many other states, is virtually impossible\u00a0today.<\/p>\n

Nearly 20<\/span> states now have similar \u200b\u201c<\/span>critical infrastructure\u201d laws, which have been supported by the petrochemical and oil and gas industry and shepherded through statehouses with assistance from the conservative American Legislative Exchange\u00a0Council.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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At the same time, in the more than 20<\/span>\u00a0years since 9<\/span>\/11<\/span>, many states have passed or amended laws increasing the number of crimes defined as domestic terrorism, which can levy exceptionally harsh punishments and grant law enforcement far greater investigatory powers. Georgia, for example, updated its domestic terrorism law in 2017<\/span>, ostensibly in response to the 2015<\/span> mass shooting of nine Black parishioners by white supremacist Dylann Roof in Charleston, S.C. But the law included provisions\u2009\u2014\u2009like classifying as terrorism the disabling or destruction of critical infrastructure, government facilities or public transit systems\u2009\u2014\u2009that had nothing to do with Roof\u2019s crimes and which were condemned by civil liberties groups as potential threats to constitutionally protected\u00a0speech.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maine and now Oregon have similar statutes. Oregon\u2019s law, passed in August 2023<\/span>, is particularly worrisome, since its definition of \u200b\u201c<\/span>critical infrastructure\u201d extends to public roads\u2009\u2014\u2009meaning protest activity that \u200b\u201c<\/span>damages\u201d a\u00a0highway could be prosecuted as domestic terrorism. What constitutes \u200b\u201c<\/span>damage\u201d Oregon\u2019s statute doesn\u2019t say, exemplifying how vaguely written laws open the door to potential\u00a0abuse.\u00a0<\/p>

Read more My Name is Mahmoud Khalil and I Am a Political Prisoner<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>It places a\u00a0lot of power in the hands of state and local law enforcement and gives a\u00a0lot of prosecutorial discretion to people who may be driven by political incentives,\u201d says the ACLU\u2019s Charlie Hogle. \u200b\u201c<\/span>And that should be very troubling to everyone, no matter your\u00a0politics.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Protesters block the entrance of the Holland Tunnel in Manhattan on January 8, demanding a permanent cease-fire. Hundreds were arrested during simultaneous actions at the\nBrooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge and the Williamsburg Bridge. MICHAEL NIGRO\/PACIFIC PRESS\/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES<\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Donald Trump\u2019s rise to power overlapped with\u2009\u2014\u2009and in many ways fueled\u2009\u2014\u2009the surge in anti-protest legislation, as his 2016<\/span> election was met with unprecedented mass action. The Women\u2019s March on Jan. 21<\/span>, 2017<\/span>, marked what is widely believed to be the largest single-day protest in U.S. history, with some four million people taking to the streets in more than 600<\/span> U.S. cities. The day before\u2014 Inauguration Day\u2009\u2014\u2009more than 200<\/span> protesters were arrested in Washington, D.C., and indicted on felony rioting charges, all but one of which were later dropped. A\u00a0week after taking office, Trump signed an executive order banning people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States, prompting yet more demonstrations at airports across the\u00a0country.<\/p>\n

This period was also marked by a\u00a0dark shift in rhetoric, as Trump and his allies vilified protesters as thugs and referred to constitutionally protected activity as crimes. During 2020<\/span>\u2019s demonstrations against police brutality, Trump reportedly instructed law enforcement and top military officials to \u200b\u201c<\/span>beat the fuck out of\u201d protesters and \u200b\u201c<\/span>just shoot them.\u201d That June, the National Guard used tear gas and rubber bullets to remove peaceful protesters from Washington\u2019s Lafayette Square, before escorting Trump to a\u00a0photo-op in front of a\u00a0church.<\/p>\n

The following month, federal officers dressed in camouflage and driving unmarked vans grabbed protesters off the street in Portland, Ore., and held them for questioning without pressing charges. An attorney with the Oregon Justice Resource Center told NPR it was like \u200b\u201c<\/span>stop and frisk meets Guantanamo Bay.\u201d Mark Pettibone, one of those detained, wrote that the officers covered his eyes and he feared for his life. (The ACLU is currently suing the federal government over what it alleges were unlawful\u00a0detentions.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Meanwhile, Republican congressmembers pushed the Department of Justice to prosecute antifascist and Black Lives Matter activists under federal anti-racketeering laws. \u200b\u201c<\/span>We have laws on the books that prohibit organized crime\u2009\u2014\u2009the kind of organized crime that we\u2019re seeing from BLM,\u201d Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) told reporters at an event organized by the House Freedom Caucus in June 2020<\/span>. The year prior, fellow Texan and Republican Sen. Ted Cruz urged Attorney General William Barr to open a\u00a0similar investigation into \u200b\u201c<\/span>Antifa,\u201d noting that RICO would enable prosecution of members of a\u00a0group \u200b\u201c<\/span>even when the government cannot establish which particular individual \u2026 committed a\u00a0given crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

State legislators heeded their call, enacting laws that empower local officials to charge not only individual activists but also the networks that support them as part of a\u00a0broader \u200b\u201c<\/span>conspiracy.\u201d Many of the critical infrastructure bills, for example, include stiff penalties for organizations that aid\u2009\u2014\u2009through funding or direct-action trainings\u2009\u2014\u2009in impeding pipeline construction. In Montana and North Dakota, an organization found to be a \u200b\u201c<\/span>conspirator\u201d in protesting on or near critical infrastructure is liable for fines 10<\/span> times the amount authorized for\u00a0trespassing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Still, Georgia\u2019s more recent RICO indictment against Stop Cop City activists marks a\u00a0clear shift in government targeting of social movements. According to the Civil Liberties Defense Center\u2019s Lauren Regan\u2009\u2014\u2009who\u2019s representing one Cop City defendant and has advised others\u2009\u2014\u2009it\u2019s the first time RICO has been weaponized this way. There have been lawsuits brought by corporations against environmental activists in the past, but those were civil, not criminal, cases. And while Indiana prosecutors tried to use RICO to criminally prosecute two Earth First! activists in 2009<\/span>, the racketeering charges were eventually\u00a0dismissed.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Regan says, the statute was never intended to be used to prosecute political activity: \u200b\u201c<\/span>Historically, we do not place political protests in the same bucket as gang drug\u00a0dealers.\u201d<\/p>\n

But now, regardless of whether Georgia prevails in its case, other states could follow\u00a0suit.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>The notoriety and the commitment of resources to these cases in Georgia have made a\u00a0lot of states look at their RICO statutes,\u201d says Regan, and think of them \u200b\u201c<\/span>as a\u00a0potential tool.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Cease-fire activists organized by Jewish Voice for Peace-Triangle NC block traffic on the Durham Freeway in North Carolina on Nov. 2, 2023. The rush hour frustration emphasizes the idea that \u201cgenocide is not business as usual.\u201d PHOTO BY RC COLLMAN<\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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On Nov.2<\/span>, 2023<\/span>, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and allied groups in Durham, N.C., staged a\u00a0protest that brought rush hour traffic on Highway 147<\/span> to a\u00a0standstill. About 50<\/span> protesters occupied two lanes of the highway, calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, for two and a\u00a0half hours.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>The political mainstream doesn\u2019t like it when people awaken the conscience of the nation,\u201d Tema Okun, a\u00a0JVP member who participated in the protest (but did not block traffic), tells me, but \u200b\u201c<\/span>it\u2019s deeply American to protest like\u00a0this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two months later, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis and Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn, both Republicans, introduced the Safe and Open Streets Act, which would make it a\u00a0federal crime to block a\u00a0public road or highway or, crucially, to \u200b\u201c<\/span>attempt to conspire to do so\u201d\u2009\u2014\u2009a clause which implicates any individual or group that might help plan such an action. A\u00a0press release for the bill, which describes groups protesting U.S. support for Israel as \u200b\u201c<\/span>Hamas sympathizers,\u201d said the legislation was a \u200b\u201c<\/span>direct response to radical tactics of pro-Palestine\u00a0protesters.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tillis-Blackburn bill is part of a\u00a0wider effort among state and federal lawmakers to subvert the growing opposition to U.S. support for Israel\u2019s war in Gaza. Since the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7<\/span>, and Israel\u2019s retaliatory assault (which has killed more than 33<\/span>,000<\/span> Palestinians), mass civil disobedience has been one of the most visible ways for people to express\u00a0discontent.<\/p>\n

These campaigns, many led by progressive Jewish groups, have been met with reactionary rhetoric equating any support for Palestine with Hamas and a\u00a0new round of legislation criminalizing dissent. Sen. Tom Cotton, who called for deploying the military against Black Lives Matter protests in 2020<\/span> and giving \u200b\u201c<\/span>no quarter\u201d to participants in protests that turn violent, also introduced a\u00a0bill this March: the \u200b\u201c<\/span>Stop Pro-Terrorist Riots Now Act,\u201d against \u200b\u201c<\/span>pro-Hamas mobs.\u201d And Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.), Trump\u2019s former interior secretary, proposed legislation that would \u200b\u201c<\/span>expel Palestinians\u201d from the\u00a0country.<\/p>\n

When Sens. Tillis and Blackburn introduced their bill, Tillis declared that blocking roads or bridges\u2009\u2014\u2009common protest tactics going back at least to the civil rights era\u2009\u2014\u2009\u200b\u201c<\/span>needs to be a\u00a0crime throughout the\u00a0country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon, it may\u00a0be.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Alaska, Arizona, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Washington and West Virginia have all introduced bills in recent months to criminalize blocking roads or highways during protest, with some lawmakers explicitly referencing pro-Palestinian protests as justification. In Tennessee, which already criminalized highway protests, Republicans have proposed an enhancement measure that would make the offense a\u00a0Class D\u00a0felony, punishable by up to 12<\/span>\u00a0years in prison and a $5<\/span>,000<\/span> fine. (South Dakota, Oklahoma, Iowa, Florida and Arkansas have already passed similar bills, and Massachusetts may soon follow.) New York\u2019s bill, introduced by Democratic lawmakers, is perhaps the most extreme, declaring that blocking public roads, bridges or transportation facilities\u2009\u2014\u2009or even \u200b\u201c<\/span>act[ing] with the intent\u201d to do so\u2009\u2014\u2009is a\u00a0form of domestic\u00a0terrorism.<\/p>\n

Even if these bills fail, they contribute to a\u00a0climate of intimidation that chills speech and deters people from taking action. The crackdown has been more explicit on college campuses, amounting to what JVP executive director Stefanie Fox describes as a\u00a0new form of McCarthyism, as student protesters have been doxxed, suspended and threatened with deportation. In early November 2023<\/span>, Brandeis became the first private university to ban its chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP); a\u00a0week later, George Washington University followed suit. Around the same time, Columbia University temporarily suspended its SJP and JVP chapters. More recently, Columbia and American University have drafted policies severely limiting when and where students can\u00a0protest.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Florida\u2019s public university system ordered the deactivation of all SJP chapters, claiming the group\u2019s activism amounted to \u200b\u201c<\/span>material support\u201d for terrorists, a\u00a0felony under Florida law. (The order was challenged by the ACLU and has since been walked back by the chancellor, but the deactivation order remains on the university system\u2019s website.) And a\u00a0growing number of states have passed laws defining antisemitism in ways that limit criticism of Israel and stifle academic\u00a0freedom<\/p>\n

All of this is happening at a\u00a0particularly volatile and perilous moment in U.S. history. The movement opposing U.S. policy toward Israel is attracting \u200b\u201c<\/span>hundreds of thousands\u201d of new supporters, says Fox, but that\u2019s also coming at \u200b\u201c<\/span>a time where the Right is really experimenting and trying to build new tactics and legislative tools of\u00a0repression.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Democratically controlled Chicago, pro-Palestinian groups have already been denied permits to protest outside this summer\u2019s Democratic National Convention\u2009\u2014\u2009an echo of the violent clashes between protesters and police at the 1968<\/span> convention, which also concerned racial discrimination and an unjust war. Organizers have declared that, even if Chicago refuses to allow them near the convention center, the march will take place, \u200b\u201c<\/span>permit or\u00a0not.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

But the FBI has already been knocking on doors in Chicago, home to the largest Palestinian American diaspora community in the country, with roots dating back to the late 19<\/span>th<\/sup> century. Muhammad Sankari, a\u00a0Chicago-based organizer with the U.S. Palestinian Community Network, says at least two Yemeni families and one prominent Palestinian community leader have faced questioning in their homes by the FBI and Chicago police, in visits that followed Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi\u2019s January call for the agency to investigate pro-Palestinian groups\u2019\u00a0funding.<\/p>\n

The FBI has conducted home visits to members of the Palestinian community in the past, Sankari says, especially during periods of social unrest. But the visits now seem particularly intent on intimidating a\u00a0movement that\u2019s growing nationwide. In Oklahoma, three FBI agents showed up at the home of Stillwater resident Rolla Abdeljawad after she posted comments to her Facebook page critical of the war in Gaza. The advocacy group Palestine Legal has reported numerous similar incidents. An attorney working with one of the Chicagoans who was questioned confirmed that a\u00a0Chicago police officer who was present during the visits told them that the FBI again has its eye on the city\u2019s Arab American\u00a0community.<\/p>\n

The Chicago Police Department did not respond to requests for comment. In a\u00a0written statement, an FBI spokesperson declined to confirm whether the Chicago visits had even taken place or if any investigations had been opened. But, the spokesperson assured, \u200b\u201c<\/span>The FBI will never open an investigation based solely on protected First Amendment\u00a0activity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sankari is not convinced: \u200b\u201c<\/span>This sets the stage for the next phase of repression,\u201d he\u00a0says.<\/p>\n

And what that phase brings will be shaped by what happens this November. Whatever the outcome of the election, mass protest is almost\u00a0guaranteed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Should Trump win\u2009\u2014\u2009as he well might\u2009\u2014\u2009he has already vowed to pursue his enemies with a\u00a0vengeance and serve as a\u00a0dictator for at least \u200b\u201c<\/span>day one.\u201d On the campaign trail, Trump has lamented not having sent troops to quell protests during the summer of 2020<\/span> and has said he\u2019d consider suspending the Constitution to further his agenda. Meanwhile, his far-right allies have reportedly drafted plans to invoke the Insurrection Act, allowing Trump to use military force to crush opposition movements and civil unrest, making mass action like the Women\u2019s March all but\u00a0impossible.<\/p>\n

The legal landscape has shifted considerably since Trump last occupied the White House: states have many more tools to go after protesters, and, as the Cop City arrests indicate, Republican officials are increasingly willing to deploy existing laws in new ways to conduct sweeping arrests of\u00a0activists.<\/p>\n

The day after I\u00a0spoke to Tema Okun, who has been an activist with progressive Jewish organizations for 20<\/span>\u00a0years, she emailed to say she felt she had understated the threat posed in this moment. She wanted to try\u00a0again.<\/p>\n

As more and more laws are proposed and passed to \u200b\u201c<\/span>criminaliz[e] dissent, and as we face a\u00a0possible presidency by a\u00a0man who admires Putin and expresses his penchant for dictatorship,\u201d Okun writes, \u200b\u201c<\/span>we are skating closer and closer to authoritarianism.\u201d Basic freedoms, once enshrined in the Constitution, are now at risk of being eliminated. \u200b\u201c<\/span>Congress shaves off more and more rights piecemeal until we find we are unable to speak aloud our criticisms of government policies and practices. We slowly become a\u00a0police state.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

This article was produced in partnership with the nonprofit newsroom Type Investigations, where Adam Federman is a\u00a0reporting fellow.<\/em><\/p>

Read more \u201cIf I Must Die,\u201d A Poem by Refaat Alareer<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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