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DOMESTIC PRE-EMPTION. This all seems rather draconian:
Hundreds of German police on Wednesday raided the offices and apartments of left-wing activists suspected of planning to disrupt next month's Group of Eight summit, leading security officials to tighten border controls ahead of the gathering.The crackdown was an attempt to ward off the violence that has marred past summits, particularly in 2001 in Genoa, Italy, when police and protesters clashed in the streets for days. Prosecutors said they were investigating more than 18 people suspected of organizing what they called a terrorist group that planned to carry out firebombings and other violent attacks.Some 900 federal and local police officers in cities including Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen searched about 40 premises used by several anti-globalization groups, they said.Films about the East German Stasi, like The Lives of Others, shouldn't make us forget that West Germany had a very extensive domestic security network during the Cold War. The former was swept away and the latter has atrophied, but considerable capacity to operate against extremist groups on the right and the left remains. The concern, as always, is that the German police are moving against people and groups that want to demonstrate, but that aren't planning violence.
--Robert Farley
