Anarchists are experiencing police oppression more than any other segment of our population. They are essentially already living in a police state, a state that we will all live in eventually if we continue to sit idly by while the One Percent continues its policies of austerity, wars, debt servitude, and police state methods.
Anarchists are being targeted because they thoroughly reject one pillar of capitalist class rule--hierarchy which makes possible the control of many by a few. In the recent past they targeted mostly socialists because they rejected another pillar supporting capitalist class rule--private ownership and control of the economy. This class rule of the One Percent requires both legs to stand on; and whenever any group threatens either of these legs, they bring down the full wrath of our class masters regardless of constitutional violations.
This piece describes three heroes who refuse to provide information on other anarchists to a ruling class institution called a "grand jury". (See also this.)
Grand juries have historically been used against radical social movements as a tool to intimidate and to gather information. When activists enter a grand jury proceeding, they check their rights at the door. They are asked about what they believe, what their friends believe, who they associate with, what kinds of activism they support. If they choose to assert their First Amendment and Fifth Amendment rights by refusing to speak about their political beliefs and political associations, they can be imprisoned.
