Terrorist or militia member, where is the line?

[CHIMO]

So let's take a moment and compare Jose Padilla, America's once-notorious "dirty bomber," to David Brian Stone, the "Hutaree" leader now residing in a Michigan jail.

Padilla first. He's an American citizen who converted to fundamentalist Islam in his 20s. He's been widely described here in the U.S. as an "Islamic terrorist."

The former attorney general himself, John Ashcroft, announced Padilla's arrest in 2002: "We have captured a known terrorist who was exploring a plan to build and explode a radiological dispersion device, or 'dirty bomb,' in the United States," Ashcroft told the nation.

The media went nuts, especially the cable networks. WAR ON TERROR banners crawled across every news alert.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/04/06/f-rfa-macdonald.html
Tuesday, April 6, 2010 | 5:51 PM ET

[FiveGoodMen]

1. If your skin is lighter than a pair of khakis, you're a militia member

Unless you're not a Christian...then you're a terrorist.

[metalbot]

2. It's pretty clear

Militia membership is not a crime.

Plotting to blow stuff up and/or kill people is. When you use violence in a manner designed to cause wide social or political change, that's terrorism.

What the Hutaree group was allegedly attempting was clearly terrorism.

The media attention difference between Padilla and Hutaree is not that one was terrorism and the other was not. It has far more to do with the ability of the media's consumers to envision themselves as the target of that attack. Deciding to blow up apartment buildings is a much scarier threat to your average American than the idea that someone might kill police for being police. Padilla made a better story, simply from the perspective that they can spin "It could have been you!" far more easily than they can in the case of Hutaree.

[CHIMO]

3. Clear?

Finally, he was transferred to civilian courts, where no charge relating to a bomb was ever filed. Instead, he was found guilty of conspiring to participate in a foreign jihad and sentenced to 17 years in prison.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/04/06/f-rfa-macdonald.html
Tuesday, April 6, 2010 | 5:51 PM ET

Seems to me what is clear is foreign.

[Arctic Dave]

4. Good post. The real question is will the Hutaree terrorist be treated

the same inside the "system" like Padilla. I am going to go out on a limb and say no. Being white does have its privileges.

[CHIMO]

5. Time

Has a funny way of straightening out things. At least the principles if not the pain. Padilla is still contesting things. And the Hutaree group is only starting out. We will have to wait and see how things evolve.

[metalbot]

6. I think this is not so much a racial issue as one of timing

Jose Padilla was treated deplorably. Had you told me in 2000 that a US citizen could be arrested on US soil and held on secret charges for 4 years without an attorney, I would have laughed, and said that the defendant would sue the living crap out of the justice system.

We have to put the two arrests in context. Padilla was arrested 9 months after the worst terrorist attack in US history, for allegedly plotting other attacks against civilian targets. It's unfair to compare this to a group of whackos who were infiltrated by an FBI/ATF informant who claimed that he was capable of producing bombs for the purposes of killing police. If groups of US grown civilian militias had been responsible for massive carnage in the US, I could easily see a US President issuing very unconstitutional orders relating to the detention of other individuals who had been accused of similar attacks. I'd argue that such presidential orders would be unconstitutional in either case. It wouldn't make the defendants less guilty, but it would lead to challenging questions about under what circumstances the Bill of Rights applies. I don't feel like this is a racial issue, but one of context.