Part I: U.S. Rulers’ ‘War on Terror’ Re-making the Laws to Wage War on Workers

Fascism is the response of a ruling class in crisis. U.S. bosses are preparing for such a crisis, composed of a critically unstable financial system along with increased competition from imperialist rivals such as China. A dominant section of the ruling class recognizes that the future includes wider and deadlier wars, perhaps a world war. Their response is increased militarism and internal discipline necessary for the bosses to wage and win wars.
In addition to intensifying racist attacks, the rulers are remaking criminal law and processes on the grounds that the “war on terror” requires special laws, and then applying the new procedures to all workers.
During the recent U.S. presidential campaign, Obama and Romney competed with each other to see who could be tougher on terror. This posturing occurred even though the main threats to U. S. capitalism come from rising powers like China, not from small terrorists.
Most recent acts of “terrorism in the U.S” — which Obama claims is the main threat facing America — are usually orchestrated by the FBI or the New York Police Department using informants to entrap a person or group to launch an attack, something they would have been incapable or unwilling to do without the informant.
These traps have been set against the Arab/Muslim community to build fear of, and racism against, this group among other workers. The “war on terror” remains central to the plans of the U.S. ruling class. This lie is part of the plan to lull workers into accepting a future of wider war and increased racist attacks.
Secret Courts Maintain Bosses’ Dictatorship
The laws about “terror” have been written so broadly that 92 percent of those charged are convicted. For example, the “Material Support” Law, which existed before 9/11 but was significantly broadened when the USA Patriot Act was passed in 2001, makes it a crime to provide anything, including humanitarian aid, to any group that the State Department has designated as “terrorist.” The Supreme Court upheld the conviction of lawyers providing advice about why to give up violence, as well as groups trying to provide aid to tsunami victims in Sri Lanka and human rights monitoring in Turkey. The government has turned this law into a tool against any group not supporting the overall plans of U.S. imperialism.
Although this law sounds like it’s aimed at groups outside the U.S., it’s also been used to convict people and groups inside the country. This includes the defense attorney Lynne Stewart as well as Sami Omar Al Huassayn, an Idaho student accused of running a website where radical Islamists posted materials. This trend will continue. All the Feds have to do is classify dissidents and communists as “terrorists” — who advocate violence — and it becomes a crime to give support of any kind.
The main fear of the ruling class is that workers will follow the communist ideas of workers overthrowing capitalism and running society in their own class interests. That’s the only thing the ruling class can’t survive. And that’s why workers must be won to understand that attacks on communists are attacks on their own class interests.
The “material support”  law has been the cutting edge for expanding the use of laws once used primarily in criminal cases: “conspiracy” laws which allow conviction for the “crime” of cooperating with people who talked about doing bad things, and “false statement” laws which make it a crime to tell cops anything which is not completely true. This is particularly vicious when the cops ask, “Is that all you know?” If you say “yes” then they can arrest you if you forgot the slightest detail.
After the 1970s’ scandals about warrantless snooping in the name of “national security,” Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), allegedly to prevent illegal spying on U.S. citizens. However the Act created a secret court that could issue warrants for covert spying against foreign enemies including activities within the U.S. The law was also expanded by the Patriot Act in 2001.
The “war on terror” has been used to justify issuance of FISA secret warrants against anybody accused of “terrorism.” This is a very broad category, enabling thousands of warrants to be issued each year.
Not satisfied with having to go to court — even a secret one which approves more than 99 percent of all requested search warrants — the USA Patriot Act gave the FBI authority to issue “national security letters.” They ordered banks, phone companies and other institutions to hand over records without telling the person whose records were being seized. When five small phone companies refused to comply with such letters, the Justice Department pounced, suing them for interfering with national security.
By 2011, there were 16,511 national security letters, plus tens of thousands of more informal requests from the Feds for information from phone companies and banks.
These “anti-terror” rules have defined the new norm. Judges have long been able to “seal” (keep secret) search warrants, but that used to be very unusual. However, one outraged judge revealed that in 2008 in Houston, 99.8 percent of all electronic surveillance orders were sealed. He estimated that 30,000 sealed surveillance orders are issued each year nationwide by Federal courts alone (state and local courts issue more).
The cops increasingly dispense with court orders, just writing phone companies. Cell phone carriers report that in 2011 they received requests for information about 1.3 million subscribers. What started out as a special authority to be used in special circumstances (first against “spies,” then against “terrorists”) has now become a normal practice by every police department.
Return of the Red Squads
In the 1960s and ‘70s, special police units called Red Squads were used to harass and attack communists. After 1970s scandals in which the FBI had been openly investigating protestors (strikers, opponents of U.S. imperialism, anti-Vietnam war demonstrators, anti-racists), the ruling class switched course and instructed the FBI to concentrate on crimes rather than protests. Meanwhile, it created FISA to quietly proceed with domestic spying.
This two-pronged approach has been scrapped given the “war on terror.” Now the 2011 FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide explicitly allows the FBI to use all its intelligence-gathering techniques against people not suspected of any crime. Agents are allowed to open an “assessment” “proactively” (without any indication a crime is being planned), and, as part of that assessment, to follow people, search their trash, send in informants, and troll the internet — all in the name of capturing terrorists. The Feds have had to admit using “community outreach” meetings with the Muslim community to recruit informants and identify those whom they will prosecute.
(Conclusion next issue: New technology made exempt from privacy rules.)