Enemy of the State (Ted Rall)

[struggle4progress]

Tue May 22, 7:56 PM ET

~snip~ According to The New York Times, "hundreds of pages of documents relating to security preparations" released in response to a federal judge's order show that "undercover officers attended meetings of political groups, posing as sympathizers or fellow activists, and infiltrated chat rooms. Although they identified a few people who talked about disrupting the convention, they also monitored many more people who showed no intention of breaking the law." The Times identifies me as one of the three "highlights from the police intelligence digests":

"A November 13, 2003 digest noting the Web site of the editorial cartoonist and activist Ted Rall. 'Activists are talking, some with barely hidden glee, about the possibility of violence', an officer wrote, describing the postings on Mr. Rall's site."

Banned Magazine, Joshua Good's online "Journal of Censorship and Secrecy," printed my reaction upon hearing about the Times piece: "They're not intelligent," I said of the cop spooks. "First they misidentified my syndicated column as a website (presumably blog). Then they misquoted the content. Finally they identified me as something I'm not: an activist. I'm a cartoonist and a columnist and occasional author and freelance journalist. If these are the guys charged with keeping New York safe from another 9/11, we should be worried."

More baffling, the security "experts" totally missed the point. I didn't call for violence; I suggested avoiding the possibility of mayhem at a time that politics had turned poisonous, by moving the Republican National Convention to another, less liberal city. (The NYPD dossier repeatedly attributes quotes to me that are actually me quoting others, a glaring error that the Times repeats, presumably because the paper doesn't have access to Google.) ~snip~

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucru/20070522/cm_ucru/enemyofthestate

[acmavm]

1. The republicans are NOT attracting the best and/or the brightest, are

they?