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Saturday, April 16, 2005

Arrest 'em all; Let Gonzo sort 'em out

You probably saw the headlines about the arrests of over 10,000 people in an operation led by US Marshalls and involving federal, state and local cops. The WSWS points out that many of these arrests would have been made anyway, but that this combining them into one massive dragnet was likely a PR ploy for the Patriot Act. WSWS suggests that there may well have been something more sinister going on as well:
[W]as Operation Falcon a dry run for a plan to be executed in the face of intensified political crisis or a resurgence of mass opposition to the government? Was this extraordinary federal, state and local coordination of mass arrests a dress rehearsal for a modern-day version of the Palmer Raids?
(The Palmer Raids were a similar operation taken against Communist and other leftist organizations in 1919, organized by red-baiting Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer.)