Protesters Put on State Terror Watch List
September 15th, 2010Via: Pittsburgh Tribune Review:
An activist who believes he was improperly included on a state terror threat list said this morning he is preparing a federal lawsuit.
“When people’s civil rights are trampled it’s a federal issue,” said Gene Stilp of Harrisburg, who holds a Virginia law license but does not practice as an attorney.
Gov. Ed Rendell, speaking Downtown this morning, said he does not believe activists’ Constitutional rights were violated.
The statement was a reversal from what he said yesterday. Asked in Harrisburg on Tuesday whether monitoring activists was “tantamount to trampling” on their Constitutional rights, he said: “I would say so.”
Rendell said he is “deeply embarrassed” by the disclosure that state Homeland Security officials included information about protesters on what was supposed to be a list of possible terrorist threats.
“Being embarrassed doesn’t cut it,” Stilp said.
The list, which included information on public hearings that opponents of Marcellus gas drilling might attend, was sent to drilling companies.
Stilp said he believes he was among those monitored, based on Rendell’s comment that a 25-foot inflatable “pink pig” Stilp takes to rallies was included in the monitoring.
“The pig! They were after the pig,” Rendell said Tuesday. “That pig is what makes Harrisburg a very special place.”
Stilp owns the pig and frequently displays it at the Capitol at protests over what he sees as government excesses.
Stilp said an outside investigation is warranted, by the attorney general or federal authorities.
The state paid a Philadelphia-based nonprofit $125,000 to compile the list as part of the state Homeland Security’s federally mandated mission to protect public infrastructure.
The list included a Washington County meeting that Rendell attended to discuss Marcellus shale gas drilling, a screening of a documentary on the industry, a rally supporting Rendell’s education budget and anti-tax protesters who took an inflatable pig to Harrisburg.
Homeland Security officials distributed the list in a security bulletin to government and law enforcement officials — including Pittsburgh City Council members — as well as universities and gas drilling companies.
Gawd. I guess if its Pittsburgh I “should” leave a comment. Sigh.
Rendell has really laudered some money of late. I have no work papers to support this, but oh my.
I think PA just defaulted paying a bond interest payment. Yuh.
The second California.
I cannot reveal my opinions on PA without putting myself in double jeopardy.
But for now I am free to say that the legislators in this state will never meet. We’ve got Philadelphia in the east, Pittsburgh in the west, and both are OHMYGOD full of people wanting to break free of the CODE. Then we have the people in the middle (excuse me I lived there too once) who are just learning to read). That’s cruel. Sorry.
Rendell? I don’t what the hell he is doing?
He’s been okay as a govenator, no more crooked than the rest. But he ain’t getting out of here smelling like a rose. Nice back story deals I’d be loving to write about if able to. Not.
Shit Pennsylvania is California’s twin sister. Twist the age groups, we are twins.
Wasn’t that a movie Ahnorld was in? Heh, and catch Rendell in Philadephia. It’s so sad.
Seems its difficult to find things to laugh at anymore, but that’s okay at least for me.
I can find humor in wiping my butt, that I have to add another gallon of water to the low flush toilet so that the waste moves through the olumbing, and isn’t clogged because of the low flush toilet.
Meditate on that if you want to.
Goodnight.