Police State

Law claims double standard for Muslims regarding terrorist charges.

"Under the law, this newly created "terrorism" crime is committed whenever one acts with the "intent to intimidate or coerce a civilian population", but the law contains no definition of that term."

Because every act of government is an act of coercion, doesn't that mean every act of government is a terrorist act that should be prosecuted?

"The court ultimately concludes, unanimously, that "terrorism" charges are inappropriate for Morales because acts of gang violence "do not match our collective understanding of what constitutes a terrorist act", whatever this "collective understanding" might be. This reasoning is essentially the same as what US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart infamously offered when applying laws criminalizing obscenity, which, he said, entails "the task of trying to define what may be indefinable". Opining that "obscenity" means "hard-core pornography", he explained: "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it.""

Why is this so surprising? Every law is interpreted by a person. There is no rule of law. There is only rule by people. Why should we be surprised that in the US, Muslims are more easily charged, prosecuted and convicted of terrorism than others? This is the nature of government.

"But the Court of Appeals went much further. It reversed the conviction on all of the counts - including the non-terrorism counts - and ordered a new trial. That was necessary, said the court, because there are special rules that govern a trial whenever a defendant is charged with "terrorism", and these rules are so permissive, so designed to ensure conviction, that it is inherently unfair to convict someone under these rules who is not charged with terrorism."

I'm happy Greenwald reports this, but there's nothing surprising here.

"What the court is admitting here is amazing. It is saying that when someone is accused of terrorism, the rules governing trials and law completely change. All sorts of things that the state is normally barred from doing on the grounds that it is unjust suddenly become permissible when someone faces terrorism charges. Indeed, so "prejudicial" are these special rules of "justice" for terrorism cases that anyone convicted under these rules is, by definition, treated unfairly if terrorism is inapplicable."

It's not amazing. Apparently Greenwald has never been involved in a rape trial. This is common in the corrupt US conviction system. There's nothing unusual, let alone amazing, about it.