The Concord, NH police department submitted an application to DHS for a Lenco Bearcat Armored Vehicle (Tank). Their reasoning is that they consider groups such as Free State Project, Occupy, and Sovereign Citizens domestic terrorists. CPD stated in their application that these groups are active and create daily problems in the city for law enforcement. CPD also stated “The domestic threat is real and here”. 
 
The Free State Project is a peaceful group of people that are asking other peaceful people to move to New Hampshire and live a life free of sales tax and gun control. It is a group of people that believe in liberty and freedom and their “malicious” plan of “take-over” amounts to moving to a state where there is no sales tax. 
 
Many people of this group have run for government office and won. Their goal is to effect change in the laws of the US government. However, the group itself is not a political movement. In fact, Free Staters as they are called, state “Anyone who promotes violence, racial hatred, or bigotry is not welcome.”  So we must ask our government, “If a peaceful people, such as the Free State Project, are considered terrorists, who else is considered a terrorist?”
 
To better understand the NDAA FY 2012 and who is considered a threat we must first ask ourselves “What is a terrorist”? A terrorist, by definition, is a person or group of people that cause fear and panic in others by their words or actions. The U. S. government would have us believe that “covered persons” refers to “terrorists” such as Al-Qaeda or the Taliban. 
 
However, that is not clearly written in the NDAA. The NDAA only mentions “covered persons”. Therefore, the government could effectively use the NDAA with its indefinite detention and lack of due process against anyone they consider a terrorist. This includes peaceful groups such as the Free State Project and the Occupy movement. 
 
While these groups are non-violent, peaceful, they do pose a “threat”, not to citizens but to the structure of the U.S. government. Remember, I said a terrorist is a person or group of people that cause fear in another person or group of people. When people emerge from the pacified state that the government has put them in and begin to understand the laws, the Constitution, and how their government affects them, they also begin to stand up to the imposed tyranny of that government. Knowing your Rights, thinking for yourself, standing up for your Rights could make you a "covered persons”. 
 
To be a terrorist, one does not necessarily have to be violent. Martin Luther King Jr. was non-violent, yet he was considered a threat. Rosa Parks only sat down and refused to move, yet she was arrested and considered a threat. Peggy Dobbins and 5 other women were arrested during a Women’s Suffrage movement in Atlantic City. Not because they were violent, but because they demanded equal rights. 
 
Today, we have groups like Occupy and Free State Project that are demanding the Rights be returned to American citizens. What do you think the government will do to them now that they have the NDAA? These groups are protesting peacefully, yet we saw during Occupy Wall Street, that the police began the violence. The police are macing, beating, and arresting people that peaceably assemble. 
 
According to DHS terrorists “include all cases that meet any two of these three criteria. Nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation), anti-global, suspicious of centralized federal authority, reverent of individual liberty, and believe in conspiracy theories that involve grave threat to national sovereignty and/or personal liberty.” Single issue groups are also included on this list. Groups that are Anti-abortion, Pro-choice, Anti-NDAA, and even Anti-Castro can be considered a terrorist threat according to the DHS.
 
However, the words terrorism and terrorist are all inclusive and have a variety of definitions. Political parties have used these words when describing opponents, the government has used them to describe people that they deem a threat, and society uses those words every day as a way to describe things that they fear. 
 
A terrorist is not one particular group of people in the government’s eyes. It is any person or group of people that will not sit idly by and bow their heads as freedom is ripped away. The word terrorist is thrown out as a means to cause panic and widespread fear to prevent Americans from fighting for freedom or to coerce Americans into submission. Anyone that stands against tyranny, oppression, and speaks out against their government’s wrong-doings is considered a terrorist threat. That includes peaceful groups such as Occupy, Free State Project, and even PANDA makes the cut because we are a “single issue” group focused on restoring the Constitution. When there is a war on terror, those the government fears will be called the terrorists.
 
 
April Johnson