This is a dangerous leap. Certainly threatening someone's life is a crime but for a judge to call it terrorism is dangerous. How long will it take for the leap to calling dissent terrorism?
One arrested in threats against Seattle congressman
- FBI: California man admitted calls, said he wouldn't risk his $3 mil. trust fund by hurting McDermott
A California man accused of threatening to kill Seattle Congressman Jim McDermott has been arrested and charged in federal court
In sentencing Wilson, U.S. District Court Judge John C. Coughenour described the Eastern Washington man's actions as terrorism and Wilson, by extension, as a terrorist.
"The very foundation of our system of laws and government, and the promise of democracy is that political change is accomplished through reasoned debate, through persuasion, and through voting," Coughenour said, reading from a text prepared by law clerk Colin George. "And we have a word for people who try to effect political change through violence and threats of violence. …
Terrorism is not an ethnicity. Terrorism is not a color. Terrorism is replacing peaceful political participation with violence."
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