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Does Ohio bill quash protest rights or increase penalties for terrorists?

A bill the Ohio Senate passed looks like attempts in other states to quash the right to protest power plants and gas lines after the high-profile and long-lasting Dakota Access Pipeline project protest, said the chief lobbyist for the Ohio American Civil Liberties Union.

But state Sen. Sean O’Brien, D-Bazetta, said the critical infrastructure facilities bill that would increase penalties for trespassing and other crimes already on the books isn’t connected to those protests. It’s a matter of being proactive.

“We want to protect critical infrastructure in the face of domestic terrorism. It doesn’t matter the reasons. If someone goes out and damages a gas line, it could really hurt a lot of people, whether they intended to or not,” he said.

“If you want to protest, go ahead, but do not take a hacksaw or a blow torch,” O’Brien said.

The bill passed the Senate with a vote of 23-5 on Thursday and is now before the Ohio House. All five who voted against it are Democrats and only one Democrat voted for it.

O’Brien voted for the bill in committee, but was unable to make the Thursday vote for the bill before the whole Senate, he said. He supports the bill, but doesn’t think it will have time to pass through the House before the end of the 132nd General Assembly.

Two other Democrats missed the vote, including Sen. Joe Schiavoni, D-Boardman.

Though O’Brien said the bill has nothing to do with the protests in 2016 and 2017 of the Energy Transfer Partners’ Dakota Access Pipeline near Standing Rock Indian Reservation — which temporarily delayed construction without damaging any infrastructure — the chief lobbyist for ACLU of Ohio states the bill “clearly” is written to stifle freedom of speech and the right to assemble.

“We know this because those protests resulted in a wave of bills similar to SB 250 introduced in state legislatures across the county,” states Gary Daniels, chief lobbyist for the ACLU.

Daniels said the bill and others like it across the country is another example of a state legislature looking out for corporations over the rights of individuals.

“SB 250 and its related bills across the country seek to do more than just prevent or punish actual criminal wrongdoing. By design, they are meant to end and severely limit criticism, exposure of possible or actual corporate wrongdoing, or anything that merely inconveniences those who operate or want to build any of the numerous entities defined as ‘critical infrastructure’ facilities,” Daniels said.

O’Brien countered that some of the more controversial elements in the original bill were watered down while it was in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“We are not increasing penalties for exercising your constitutional rights to protest. We took a lot of that out of there,” O’Brien said.

As it stands, the bill would make it a third-degree felony for knowingly destroying or tampering with a “critical infrastructure facility” or trespassing in order to do so, and makes it a first-degree criminal trespassing misdemeanor to trespass at a facility.

The bill would add to an existing law against “making false alarms” — making it a crime to initiate or circulate reports warning of an alleged or impending disaster at a “critical infrastructure facility,” knowing it is false — which is already on the books, but without the “critical infrastructure facility” designation.

The bill also would make it easier to target people and organizations, even those not charged, with court orders for civil damages and “allows the court to hold a person or organization that compensates a person for causing damage to a critical infrastructure facility, or who pays the person’s fees or damages in a civil action, vicariously liable for any judgment the plaintiff obtains against the person who damaged the critical infrastructure facility,” according to the Ohio Legislative Service Commission.

Just five people testified in support of the bill at a June 5 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, representing the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, the Ohio Chemistry Technology Council, Capital Advocates, Coalition of Ohio Regional Districts and the Ohio Rural Water Association.

More than 40 testified as opponents of the bill in Senate Judiciary Committee meetings Nov. 14 and Nov. 28. Some of the opponents include representatives from the ACLU of Ohio, the Buckeye Environmental Network, the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association, the Sierra Club, League of Women Voters Ohio, the Ohio Green Party, Defending Rights and Dissent and the Ohio Community Rights Network.

The chemistry technology council supports the bill “because damage to chemical facilities can lead to grave consequences that threaten the public’s health and safety,” according to testimony presented by the council by Brian Bennett.

“While SB 250 does not focus on preventing terrorist attacks against chemical facilities, the underlying concern is the same. When chemical facilities are willfully damaged, there is a real risk to public health and safety,” Bennett said.

And though there haven’t been many cases of willful destruction of “critical infrastructure” in the state, O’Brien and the state’s chamber of commerce said the bill will act as more of a deterrent than current laws that levy criminal penalties on people who break trespassing and aggravated trespassing laws.

“While fortunately Ohio has not faced the sort of disruptions seen in other jurisdictions, taking this proactive step would protect Ohio’s economy and improve our business climate,” states testimony by the state chamber presented by Zachary Frymier.

“Deterring and punishing those who seek to tamper or destroy these or any piece of critical infrastructure is necessary to allow job growth to continue and to protect the communities and residents. Tampering with this infrastructure could lead to disruptions in the services and comforts that have come to define life in a modern economy,” Frymier said.

Testimony from Rob Eshenbaugh for Capitol Advocates states the Columbus lobbying firm represents the interest of a “coalition of companies and trade associations that are supportive of this bill.

“Unfortunately, this bill is necessary as water treatment facilities, telecommunications facilities, pipelines and energy operations have experienced an increase in threats to operations with various levels of consequence,” Eshenbaugh stated.

rfox@tribtoday.com

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