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March 12, 2004

Assault on Dissent

Susan Lindauer may be stupid or misguided, but indicting her for meeting with Iraqi officials when we WERE NOT AT WAR WITH THEM is just an attempt to chill global free speech and dissent.

Read this on the indictment:

She faces arraignment Monday in New York on charges of conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, acting as an unregistered agent and illegally accepting money from the Iraqi government, including $5,000 given to her while in Iraq. She was not charged with espionage.

The core of the indictment seems to be failure to fill out paperwork to register as an "agent" of Iraq, although no doubt that's because she didn't see herself as an agent of anyone, but thought she could promote peace as a back channel to her relative, Andy Card.

Maybe more serious evidence of wrongdoing will appear, but this all looks like one more tool to intimidate those who don't think that US intelligence services tell us the truth and might want to have independent contacts with other countries-- and maybe convey that independent information to government officials.

If members of the administration are not going to go to jail for lying to the American people about what was going on in Iraq, private citizens shouldn't be going to jail for presenting alternative views to the government itself.

Posted by Nathan at March 12, 2004 08:03 AM