This collective autobiography delves into the lives of the RNC 8, who were charged with violations of the Minnesota Patriot Act for organizing logistics protests against the 2008 Republic National Convention. Offering a glimpse into the contemporary reality of dissent in America , the book explores the upbringings and early political involvements of the defendants, their infiltration of the convention, and the subsequent arrests, legal defense, and outcomes of the case. Contributors include Luce Guillén-Givins, Max Specktor, Eryn Trimmer, Monica Bicking, Robert Czernik, and Garrett Fitzgerald. Their stories provide an understanding of the political repercussions experienced by activists today as a result of protest activity.

Since the conspicuously broad and vague definition of terrorism in the USA PATRIOT Act, signed into legislation on October 26, 2001 to increase governmental power in domestic security procedures, legal doctrine and normative practices of free speech have become sites of struggle over the meaning of both terrorism and freedom of expression. In 2005, twelve cartoonists drew the Prophet Muhammad for the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. The subsequent reprints and republications led to boycotts, protests, and riots in over 27 countries culminating in at least 139 deaths. Now known as the Danish cartoons controversy, news and entertainment sources alike narrate a story about protecting a fundamental characteristic of American identity -- free speech -- in the face of a terrorist threat. In American universities, David Horowitz's proposed legislation, the Academic Bill of Rights, targets Left academics, who, according to Horowitz, "influence, in a negative way, America's war on terror." In August 2008, protesters at the Republican National Convention were formally charged with conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism. In this dissertation, I explore how the rhetoric of free speech is a naturalizing and legitimating ideology employed to organize people around particular interests and mobilize them toward particular political ends. My research is guided by the question: How has the ideological terrain of the First Amendment -- specifically, the right to free speech -- changed since September 11, 2001, and why? I argue that rhetoricians should approach the traditional free speech narrative as part of an instrumental political act, as opposed to a universal principle. Cast as a discursive tool in a hegemonic struggle, the traditional free speech narrative offers the potential to open up spaces of protest and infuse ordinary citizens with political agency. Using the method of ideology critique, I develop and test these arguments through three case studies of free speech since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001: the Danish cartoons controversy, David Horowitz's Academic Freedom Campaign, and protests during the 2008 Republican National Convention.

Terrorism: Commentary on Security Documents is a series that provides primary source documents and expert commentary on various topics relating to the worldwide effort to combat terrorism, as well as efforts by the United States and other nations to protect their national security interests. Volume 148, Lone Wolf Terrorists, examines the phenomenon of the solitary domestic terrorist, analyzes the distinction between such terrorists and mass murderers who are not deemed to be terrorists, considers the motivations of violent extremists, and examines the dilemmas faced by law enforcement in preventing solitary political extremists with violent ideologies from translating their beliefs into actions. The volume is divided into three sections, providing an overview of the topic, an examination of strategies for prevention of such attacks, and a consideration of the Internet's role in contributing to radicalization. Documents included in this volume include a CRS report on domestic terrorism, a report examining violent radicalization from a criminal justice perspective, and a CRS report differentiating hate crimes from domestic terrorism, as well as other reports on the lone wolf terrorism phenomenon and strategies to prevent and/or counter it. The last document in the volume is a CRS report relating to the advocacy of terrorism on the Internet, especially including social media, and the ways in which law enforcement might be able to address the problem of dangerous online speech within the current U.S. legal structure.

In 2006 the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) was passed with the intention to equip law enforcement agencies with the tools to apprehend, prosecute, and convict individuals who commit "animal enterprise terror." But, as many have come to realize, this act does not concretely define what is meant by that phrase, leading to the interpretation that anyone interfering with a company's ability to make a profit from the exploitation of animals can be considered a terrorist. In this unprecedented and timely collection, some of the most influential voices in the world of law and animal rights examine the legalities of the AETA, highlight its repressive nature and the collusion between private interests and political legislation, and provide theoretical frameworks for understanding a variety of related issues. In a series of interviews, the book also gives animal advocates who have been convicted or directly affected by the AETA, including members of the AETA 4 and SHAC 7, an opportunity to speak for themselves. Ultimately, these writers show that the AETA is less about fighting terrorism and more about safeguarding corporate profit, and that it should be analyzed and resisted by everyone who believes in a better world. Featuring: Piers Beirne, Sarahjane Blum, Heidi Boghosian, Walter Bond, Joseph Buddenberg, Sarat Colling, Kimberly E. McCoy, Jason Del Gandio, Scott DeMuth, Carol L. Glasser, Jennifer D. Grubbs, Josh Harper, Stephanie Jenkins, Jay Johnson, Eric Jonas, Michael Loadenthal, Dara Lovitz, Lillian M. McCartin, Anthony J. Nocella II, David Naguib Pellow, Will Potter, Dylan Powell, Ryan Shapiro, Wesley Shirley, John Sorenson, Vasile Stanescu, Brad J. Thomson, and Aaron Zellhoefer

The Department of Justice sought information on all who visited the DisruptJ20.org website for Donald Trump's inauguration. Undercover agents infiltrate BlackLivesMatter protests. Police routinely command bystanders to stop filming them by falsely claiming it is a crime. Agricultural states like Iowa, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming enact laws that criminalize the filming of factory farm cruelty while allowing other-the-human animal suffering to continue unabated. Dissent and poverty are increasingly criminalized by the state as precarity grows. Abolishing Surveillance offers the first in-depth study of how various communities and activist organizations are resisting such efforts by integrating digital media activism into their actions against state surveillance and repression and for a better world. The book focuses on a wide array of movements within the United States such as Latinx copwatching groups in New York City, Muslim and Arab American communities in Minneapolis, undercover animal rights activists, and counter-summit protesters to explore the ways in which government surveillance and repression impacts them and, more importantly, their different but related online and offline tactics and strategies employed for self-determination and liberation. Digital media production becomes a core element in such organizing as cell phones and other forms of handheld technology become more ubiquitous. Yet such uses of technology can only be successfully employed when built upon strong grassroots organizing that has always been essential for social movements to take root. Neither idealizing nor disparaging the digital media activism explored within its pages, Abolishing Surveillance analyzes the successes and failures that accompany each case study. The book explores the historically shifting terrain since the 1980s to the present of how historically disenfranchised communities, activist organizations, and repressive state institutions battle over the uses of digital technology and media-making practices as civil liberties, community autonomy, and the very lives of people and other-than-human animals hang in the balance.

The United States has poured over a billion dollars into a network of interagency intelligence centers called “fusion centers.” These centers were ostensibly set up to prevent terrorism, but politicians, the press, and policy advocates have criticized them for failing on this account. So why do these security systems persist? Pacifying the Homeland travels inside the secret world of intelligence fusion, looks beyond the apparent failure of fusion centers, and reveals a broader shift away from mass incarceration and toward a more surveillance- and police-intensive system of social regulation. Provided with unprecedented access to domestic intelligence centers, Brendan McQuade uncovers how the institutionalization of intelligence fusion enables decarceration without fully addressing the underlying social problems at the root of mass incarceration. The result is a startling analysis that contributes to the debates on surveillance, mass incarceration, and policing and challenges readers to see surveillance, policing, mass incarceration, and the security state in an entirely new light.

Bringing together a decade’s worth of AK Thompson’s essays on the culture of revolt, Premonitions offers an engaged and engaging assessment of contemporary radical politics. Inspired by the writings of Walter Benjamin, Thompson combines scholarship and grassroots grit to address themes ranging from violence and representation to Romanticism and death. Whether uncovering the unrealized promise buried in mainstream cultural offerings or tracing an imperiled course toward the moment of reckoning, the essays in Premonitions are provocations set to spark debate and kindle fires in the night.