You missed the big one. Any affiliated groups. Could even mean that if an “Anifa” is a member of the Democratic party, the whole party is a terrorist organization.
On top of that there is evidence that right wing extremists have made claims that they are Antifa online calling for illegal actions. The quotes in the resolution could all be disingenuous. Furthermore, this opens the door for the right to pose as “antifa” in order to make protesting an act of terrorism.
I’m actually less concerned with that because it’s fairly typical for this sort of clause to be included in terrorism law and while I don’t know about the US specifically, most countries have some reasonable safeguards in place, especially via the judiciary, to make sure that only groups that are functionally one and the same are included. It’s to prevent designated organisations simply splintering and reforming under a new name. So I wasn’t really surprised to see that.
As I say, I’m less familiar with the domestic US laws and I don’t need to tell you that implementation is just as important as how reasonable the idea is.
What concerns me more than that is the other stuff this document is doing. It is overtly classifying all protestors as terrorists or potential terrorists purely on a basis that antifa have associated themselves with a protest in some vague, undefined way. That’s worse than the part you raise because it’s open ended: you don’t have to prove that the defendant is a member of any particular group, their mere presence at an “antifa-associated” protest (whatever that means) is enough. To me, that’s a bigger concern to the American citizen worried about their rights.
Again though, not an American and not involved in American law (though most principles are broadly similar to in my country), I’ve only looked at it as part of wider studies into international law. So just a worthless two cents in case anyone is interested in an international legal take.
You missed the big one. Any affiliated groups. Could even mean that if an “Anifa” is a member of the Democratic party, the whole party is a terrorist organization.
On top of that there is evidence that right wing extremists have made claims that they are Antifa online calling for illegal actions. The quotes in the resolution could all be disingenuous. Furthermore, this opens the door for the right to pose as “antifa” in order to make protesting an act of terrorism.
I’m actually less concerned with that because it’s fairly typical for this sort of clause to be included in terrorism law and while I don’t know about the US specifically, most countries have some reasonable safeguards in place, especially via the judiciary, to make sure that only groups that are functionally one and the same are included. It’s to prevent designated organisations simply splintering and reforming under a new name. So I wasn’t really surprised to see that.
As I say, I’m less familiar with the domestic US laws and I don’t need to tell you that implementation is just as important as how reasonable the idea is.
What concerns me more than that is the other stuff this document is doing. It is overtly classifying all protestors as terrorists or potential terrorists purely on a basis that antifa have associated themselves with a protest in some vague, undefined way. That’s worse than the part you raise because it’s open ended: you don’t have to prove that the defendant is a member of any particular group, their mere presence at an “antifa-associated” protest (whatever that means) is enough. To me, that’s a bigger concern to the American citizen worried about their rights.
Again though, not an American and not involved in American law (though most principles are broadly similar to in my country), I’ve only looked at it as part of wider studies into international law. So just a worthless two cents in case anyone is interested in an international legal take.