Are you a terrorist if you disclose who is profiting from detention camps?

by Kary Love 

895 words

Once upon a time, in a young republic just emerging from exploitive rule by a mad King, government by the people was celebrated by those liberated people. The right of the people to information about their new government was to be guided by sunshine and full disclosure of information to the people so they could vote intelligently. After all, government of the people, by the people and for the people, only worked if the republic had informed voters guiding the direction of their government.

The hearty working class rebels, the indentured servants who revolted against the mad King, valued knowledge. They realized education, information, and critical thinking skills were essential if their children were to inherit the benefits of government by the people. And so freedom of information about what government was doing became the law. No Star Chambers were allowed for the new republic. No government in secret was lawful. Information about what government does, said the rebels, was necessary for without it the new republic was the “prologue to tragedy or farce or both.” (James Madison) A people voting in the dark were unlikely to make wise decisions and would elect a high percentage of rogues and miscreants to office.

Once in office such miscreants would work to keep even more information secret from the people. Especially, they would work to ensure their own misdeeds and malfeasance would be covered up. And so the people learned to watch out for cover ups. Cover ups, it was known by “Common Sense,” were often evidence of misdeeds being buried.

Over time, as the republic grew in population and power, the peoples’ power and control was limited, and 535 people took over, along with an elected executive, whose job it was to execute the laws made by the congress. But along with growth and power came threats to the republic, especially from other nations the republic invaded or tried to control economically, because even people in other nations do not appreciate being ruled by force or threat. When blowback came to the republic’s shores, panic ensued and the people stampeded into a frightened herd and gave power to govern in secret to its leaders.

This was necessary and proper, the leaders argued, to defend the republic from terrorism like that which had struck the homeland. And so, many of the people, out of fear and loathing for the terrorist cowards who had attacked the republic, went along with more secrecy, more security, to defeat terrorism.

And inevitably the power to defeat terrorism expanded in the government, until the War on Terror began to target “domestic terrorists”; no longer was it restricted to foreigners of strange habits and religious beliefs. Then, arose the case of a citizen of the republic who, concerned about a creeping authoritarianism inside the government of the republic, decided to reveal to the people those who were profiting from government policies of unlimited power to search and seize people without due process of law, to establish for-profit detention camps, not in foreign countries under invasion or occupation, but in the homeland itself. Then that citizen of the republic was accused of terrorism for the crime of providing such information to the people of the republic. 

This is the story of Laura Berlin, American citizen. Ms. Berlin watched government agents rounding up people without due process, expelling them and flying them to prisons in Latin America among other anti-republic acts. Ms. Berlin investigated and published the information about who was profiting from these un-American acts. Other citizens of the republic used her data base to take action opposed to the for-profit actors. It is reported that in one case, an East Coast bank broke with two prominent detention center contractors after account holders – including Jersey City, New Jersey – withdrew more than $350 million. Sadly, the republic had degenerated to the point that, not unlike the Roman Republic as it fell, wealth was quickly becoming the sole value of the nation. Truth and justice were no longer the civic bywords of the American Potemkin republic. And so, the government asserted Ms. Berlin’s information was not protected free speech informing the people but instead was information that could be used by anarchist extremists, according to a secret intelligence bulletin DHS sent to local and federal law enforcement in February 2026, specifically? targeting Berlin’s website. 

“Anti-ICE threat actors, including local anarchist extremists, may escalate otherwise peaceful direct action by carrying out acts of vandalism, often using spray paint, projectiles, blunt and edged objects and improvised incendiary devices,” claims the bulletin.

 The question for the people is: “Are you a terrorist if you expose those profiting off detention camps or other violations of law and American principle?” Apparently, the answer by the US government (still subject to change by the people in elections or ratified if not changed) is “Yes you are a terrorist,” for divulging accurate information to the voters. According to USA TODAY, the U.S. government found her website, too – and labeled it a tool for domestic terrorism, according to a secret intelligence bulletin. Oops. USA TODAY is perhaps also a domestic terrorist? Maybe all who release information those in temporary power, subject to election, do not want released are also domestic terrorists?

The American people will decide—either by repudiating the Trump Republicans at the midterms or by passively allowing the destruction of their republic.

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Kary Love, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a Michigan attorney who has defended nuclear resisters and many others in court for decades.