The state adapts anti-communist tools to target racialized groups
Evidence
The McCarran–Walter Act of 1952, used to arrest the LA 8, had its origins in the early Cold War period. As legal scholar Kathleen Moore explains, the act was “designed to restrict the entry of communists” into the United States, and if already inside, “allowed for the expulsion of an alien on the basis of confidential information without a hearing.” The PFLP, it was argued, was an organization that advocated “doctrines of world communism.” Thus, support for such a group was punishable through the McCarran–Walter Act. The threat of Communism and that of terrorism came together seamlessly. When the McCarran–Walter Act was repealed after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the government switched to the new “terrorist activities” provisions of the Immigration Act of 1990 to continue the case. It was finally thrown out in 2007. This case illustrates how the national security state adapts provisions originally designed to handle one threat to deal with new and evolving threats. The McCarran–Walter Act, COINTELPRO, and other such means of controlling Communists proved suitable for targeting racialized others as well. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 545
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: Connects to the broader theme of the surveillance/national-security state’s legal toolkit being recycled across enemy categories — parallels the Cold War-to-War-on-Terror continuity argument common in critical security studies.
Related
- Counter-subversive legal machinery is recycled across successive enemy categories (similarity 0.92)
- Anti-communist legal machinery was adapted wholesale to target Muslims (similarity 0.88)
- Anti-communist legal machinery transfers intact onto racialized Muslim and later leftist targets. (similarity 0.87)
- Anti-communist control mechanisms are recycled to target each successive racialized or dissident group (similarity 0.86)
- State surveillance machinery built for the red scare targets each successive dissident group. (similarity 0.80)