Protest as National Security Threat

SUBHEAD: G20 protest as theater or a new era of revolution and social upheaval?  

By John Robb on 25 September in Global Guerrillas
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2009/09/journal-protest-as-national-security-threat.html


 
Image above: Massive security dampens G20 protests in Pittsburgh. From http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2009/09/26/2009-09-26_massive_police_presence_in_pittsburgh_takes_fight_out_of_protesters.html

In general, governments worldwide are losing control over all of the classical forms of national power from borders, to communication, to media, to economic activity, to security. The upshot of this accelerating weakness is a tendency to view any and all forms of public protest as a security threat. To counter this perceived threat, an ever increasing number of countries have opted to:

• militarize their police forces (from the 5 fold increase in US SWAT teams over the past decade to China's new million man paramilitary force)
• establish rules to neuter expression of dissent (i.e. establishment of "free speech zones" etc.)
• and the immediate/early application non-lethal weapons to disperse crowds. (sonic weapons, tasers, tear gas, etc.)

This effort will almost undoubtedly generate unintended consequences. We can already see protest groups learning to counter this by using flash mob mobility via cell phones.

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Video above: CNN shows sonic weapons used against G20 "anarchists" in Pittsburgh. From YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzJD5Psy5o0

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