When Free Expression becomes “Domestic Terrorism.”

For this issue of our newsletter, Selena Coppa-Caldera talks about the use of domestic terrorism charges to chill protests in her own backyard in Atlanta, Georgia. Thank you, Selena!
   
In a majority Black neighborhood of Atlanta sits hundreds of acres of green space known as the Welaunee Forest, a critical piece of climate infrastructure known as one of the “four lungs” of the city. Shockingly, city officials have decided to develop it into a tactical police training compound. The project is known informally as “Cop City,” after the mock city at its center for police to practice “military operations in urban terrain.” This type of facility was originally used to increase lethality for soldiers in the Iraq War. In a city that has already seen police shootings of unarmed men of color, police are training for the same purpose.

Opposition to Cop City has united organizing and activism from a number of movements ranging from environmentalists to prison abolitionists. Individuals and groups attempting to stop Cop City from being built have employed a diversity of tactics. Some began referendums, attempting to influence the city council or divestment from companies supporting Cop City. Others turned to civil disobedience, including occupying the forest to prevent the development and even kinetic abatement of equipment and property. Law enforcement and prosecutors in the area responded by escalating their activity. On January 18, 2023, police shot and killed an environmental protester, Manuel “Tortuguita” Teran, who refused to leave his tent. Prosecutors began charging rightly outraged protesters with a newly amended statute under the crime of domestic terrorism. 
 
The Georgia domestic terrorism law was created in response in part to mass shootings, but defines “domestic terrorism” as any violation of the law, which “is intended to cause serious bodily harm, kill any individual or group of individuals, or disable or destroy critical infrastructure… when such disability or destruction results in major economic loss, and is intended to… alter, change, or coerce the policy of the government of the state.” Ga. Code § 16-11-220. These charges carry a stern minimum penalty of five years and a maximum penalty of thirty-five years. “Critical infrastructure” is defined incredibly broadly, as “publicly or privately owned facilities, systems, functions, or assets, whether physical or virtual, providing or distributing services for the benefit of the public, including, but not limited to, energy, fuel, water, agriculture, health care, finance, or communication”. The statute does not define how precisely “disabling” will be applied, nor what a “major economic loss” is, as such. This overbreadth allows domestic terrorism charges to be applied to anything prosecutors or police wish to deter. 
 
Many protesters arrested and charged by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation with “domestic terrorism” engaged in ordinary civil disobedience activity. Some of the warrants for domestic terrorism covered routine protest behavior, such as:

• being based simply on the misdemeanor of criminal trespass, like “occupying tree house while wearing gas mask and camouflage clothing” 
• being “armed with rifle and handgun” while “dressed in the common attire of camouflage” - which would describe thousands of residents of Georgia, an open carry state, on any given day. 

Others, more alarmingly, were charged specifically for protected First Amendment rights, such as: 

• freely associating with groups falsely claimed as extremist organizations
• “posting videos and calls for actions on social media sites”
• being “present on the property” while other alleged crimes were occurring. 

It is clear that far from being used to deter actual intimidation, these charges have been used to actually try to deter protesters, especially effective and prolific organizers, as warrants listed:

• “admitt[ing] to participating in protests in other states for environmental causes”
• being “known members of a prison abolitionist movement” 

Nearly every protest acts to shut down or “disable” some aspect of “business as usual,” to “alter” or “change” the policy of the government. During debate, opponents of the new domestic terrorism charge  raised concerns that it could be used against Black Lives Matter protesters blocking a highway. At the time, the argument was that prosecutors simply wouldn’t do that - but as we see from these prosecutions, without bars to such activity, they will. Given such tools at their disposal, police and prosecutors have a blank check to chill even the most benign display of speech as well as the right to peaceful assembly. It is hard to imagine that, given such a law, they would not have been used to prosecute the Montgomery bus boycott protesters over integrated busing, for example, which resulted in major economic consequences to a public transportation system, or the Selma marchers, who blocked a bridge, a piece of critical infrastructure, and which could have been said to “coerce” Lyndon Johnson to introduce voting rights legislation. 
 
The existence of these charges has a chilling effect on civic engagement by all but the most stalwart and radical members of our communities. Hundreds of people in Georgia for a music festival were also threatened with “domestic terrorism” charges due to property destruction that took place some area away. Charging people arrested on a given day with all crimes that took place that day encourages people to stay away from protests, lest they be charged with serious felonies that take significant amounts of money to defend. Even if these laws are found overbroad and the charges dropped, countless potential activists’ voices will have been silenced by the threat of domestic terrorism charges. 
 
We see that these civil liberty violations only expand: getting away with First Amendment violations such as the “domestic terrorism” charges only promotes more First Amendment violations. More recent charges have included legal observers who are present on the ground to defend free expression. And in a further escalation, prosecutors have targeted mechanisms of legal support for protesters by charging 3 Atlanta Solidarity Fund bail fund organizers of the bail fund with money laundering and “charity fraud.” This deprivation of counsel by way of nullifying the assets of the defense harkens back to the bad old days of suppression of speech, but threatens to go even further and bring a new era where no speech is permissible if it might have an economic impact. The state of Georgia is testing what they can get away with. Who will stop them? 
 
If you are a lawyer interested in potentially assisting with pro bono work, you can contact the Atlanta Solidarity Fund here.
   
Selena Coppa-Caldera is a JD student at Emory University School of Law. Originally from New York City, in 2022 she graduated magna cum laude from the University of Washington, majoring in Law and Policy and minoring in Labor Studies. Prior to law school, she was a veteran and anti-war organizer who worked in the area of military free expression, as well as a labor organizer who performed direct service work and advocacy for the unhoused. Learn more about our fellows at: https://ifrfa.org/fellows.