11-Hagan-45315.qxd 8/27/2007 6:20 PM Page 355 CHAPTER 11 POLITICAL CRIME Ideology In the News 11.1 White House Crime and Scandal From Political Crime: A Definition Washington to Clinton Crime Files 11.1 September 11, 2001 Assassination Legal Aspects Espionage The Nuremberg Principle Political “Whistleblowing” The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Terrorism International Law In the News 11.2 The Robert Hanssen Spy Case Crimes by Government Crime Files 11.2 The Turner Diaries, ZOG, and the Silent Secret Police Brotherhood—the Order Human Rights Violations The Oklahoma City Bombing Genocide Criminal Careers of Political Criminals Crimes by Police The Doctrine of Raison d’État Illegal Surveillance, Disruption, and Experiments Terrorism and Social Policy Scandal Societal Reaction Crimes Against Government Protest and Dissent King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. You have just 34 days in which to do it. (This exact number has been selected for a specific reason.) It has definite practical significance. You are done. There is but one way out for you. —Note sent to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., by the FBI 34 days before he was to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. The note allegedly suggested that he should commit suicide. (Nelson Blackstock, Cointelpro: The FBI’s Secret War on Political Freedom, 1976) The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. —Thomas Jefferson, “Letter to William Stevens Smith,” 1787, in The Shorter Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations Ideology An ideology is a distinctive belief system, idea, or abstract ideal. Communism, capitalism, fascism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, fundamentalism, and the like can serve as ideologies, or can combine to supply their adherents with a guide to societal and individual behavior. “True believers,” extremists, or ideologues often are zealots and are absolutely certain of the righteousness of their cause—so much so that they feel justified in forcing their beliefs on others. 11-Hagan-45315.qxd 8/27/2007 6:20 PM Page 356 INTRODUCTION TO CRIMINOLOGY Schafer (1971, 1974) uses the term convictional criminals when referring to politically moti- vated criminals. Such a criminal is “convinced of the truth and justification of his own beliefs” (Schafer, 1976, p. 138). The actual crimes committed by political criminals may be traditional crimes, such as kidnapping, assassination, blackmail, robbery and the like. It is not the crimes themselves that distinguish political criminals, but their motivations, their views of crime as a nec- essary means to a higher ideological goal. Some political criminals, particularly human rights advo- cates, have committed no crime, but have expressed their political views in authoritarian or totali- tarian societies that forbid individual expression or criticism of the states, or in free societies where civil disobedience may be viewed with suspicion and considered criminal. Political Crime: A Definition Political crime refers to criminal acts committed for ideological purposes. Rather than being moti- vated by private greed or benefit, these offenders sincerely believe they are following a higher morality that supersedes present society and its laws. Such political criminals may act for social- political reasons (Robin Hood), out of moral-ethical motivations (antiabortion activists), to advance religious causes (Martin Luther), to disseminate scientific beliefs (Copernicus, Galileo), or to publicize political concerns (Nathan Hale, Benedict Arnold; Schafer, 1976). Such crime may take one of two forms: crime by government or crime against government. Crimes by government include violations of human rights, civil liberties, and constitutional privileges, as well as illegal behavior that occurs in the process of enforcing the law or maintaining the status quo. Secret police violations, human rights abuses, genocide, and crimes by police, as well as illegal surveillance, disruption, and experiments are just some of the examples of governmental crime to be discussed in this chapter. Crimes against the government may range from protests, illegal demonstrations, and strikes to espionage, political whistleblowing, assassination, and terrorism. “One person’s terrorist is another’s patriot” is a common expression that suggests the relative nature of such political crime. In revolutions, the victors’ beliefs become the status quo, and the victors inherit the power and privilege by which to brand the acts of their enemies as criminal. There is a surprising paucity of literature on political crime in criminology (Hagan, 1986; Martin, Haran, & Romano, 1988). Fewer than ten works in the field have specifically addressed this issue (see Ingraham, 1979; Kelman and Hamilton, 1988; Kittrie and Wedlock, 1986; Proal, 1973; Roebuck and Weeber, 1978; Schafer, 1974; Schur, 1980; Turk, 1982). More recent editions include: Hagan (1997) and Ross (2003). In his classic Political Crime, which was originally published in 1898, Louis Proal (1973) indicates: Political passions have bathed the earth in blood; kings, emperors, aristocracies, democracies, republics, all governments have resorted to murder out of political considerations, these from love of power, those from hatred of royalty and aris- tocracy, in one case from fear, in another from fanaticism. (p. 28) While political crimes may be committed by or against the government, seldom do govern- ments or government officials choose to acknowledge their own lawlessness. Sagarin (1973, p. xiv) very aptly points out that political crime includes the tyrant as well as the assassin. The terrorist is the epitome of the political criminal, and no better example of the depths of evil committed in the name of ideology are the mass murders of September 11, 2001. Crime Files 11.1 gives an account of that tragic day. 356 11-Hagan-45315.qxd 8/27/2007 6:20 PM Page 357 CHAPTER 11: Political Crime Crime Files 11.1 September 11, 2001 September 11, 2001, was a transforming event for a new generation of Americans, similar in effect to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Kennedy assassinations in previous generations. In the opening salvo of a declared war against this country, simultaneous terrorist attacks in Washington on the Pentagon and New York City at the World Trade Center resulted in the worst loss of American lives on American soil by foreign attack in history. The new enemy in this new world war was not international Communism or the Japanese Empire, not even a state, but terrorists loosely organized around Osama bin Laden and his organization, al Qaeda. In the name of extrem- ist, fundamentalist Islamic ideology, this group was willing to use any means including weapons of mass destruction to inflict enormous casualties on civilians as well as military targets. The following is the FBI report accounting the activities of 9/11. On the morning of September 11, 2001, four commercial airliners were hijacked by four coordinated teams of terrorists. The 19 hijackers who carried out the operation were affiliated with al Qaeda, a worldwide terrorist network that had previously attacked U.S. military and diplomatic targets. The hijackers used knives, box cutters, and possibly pepper spray to attack passengers and flight crews and to commandeer the aircraft. After taking control of the aircraft, the hijackers flew toward preselected targets on the U.S. East Coast. Three of the commandeered aircraft reached their destinations, destroying the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and badly damaging the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. The fourth aircraft crashed into a remote field in Stony Creek Township, Pennsylvania, as passengers attempted to regain control of the airplane. All of the pas- sengers on each aircraft were killed in the attack, as were more than 2,500 people in the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. In total 2,783 innocent people were murdered along with 19 hijackers, making it the most deadly act of terrorism ever committed. Source: FBI (2002). Terrorism 2000–2001. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, pp. 14–15. Research Project Using the companion Web site, click on and read Albini's "Dealing with the Modern Terrorist: The Need for Changes in Strategies and Tactics in the New War on Terrorism." Which of these suggestions do you find to be the most useful? Legal Aspects In the United States, various laws are, or have been, intended to protect the government from the clear and present or probable danger of disruption or overthrow. Laws such as the Alien and Sedition Act, Espionage Act, Voorhis Act, Smith Act, Internal Security Act, and McCarran-Walter Act are examples. The 1940 Voorhis Act requires registration of agents of foreign powers while the Smith Act (1940), which was later struck down by the Supreme Court, outlaws advocating the overthrow of the government. The Internal Security Act (McCarran Act) calls for registration of Communists and Communist-front organizations, while the McCarran-Walter Act (1952) pro- vides for deportation of aliens who espouse or have associates who espouse disloyal beliefs (Clinard & Quinney, 1973, p. 155). Cuba and other authoritarian countries enact criminal laws forbidding propaganda against the state, complaining about social conditions to foreigners, and attempting to publish works not 357 11-Hagan-45315.qxd 8/27/2007 6:20 PM Page 358 INTRODUCTION TO CRIMINOLOGY authorized by the state. Many of these laws and their enforcement bear an uncanny resemblance to those in George Orwell’s 1984 and to