Cracking Down on Dissent

The Financial Times writes that Greenpeace can't organize protests against Exxon anywhere in the US for the next seven years.

Essentially launching a legal pre-emptive strike against protest, Exxon even invoked post-9/11 security fears as justification for the action. "when the country was on orange alert" Exxon told the FT, "The current climate makes Greenpeace's activities directed at ExxonMobil all the more irresponsible and dangerous".

There's no reason for Exxon to consider "Greenpeace's activities" any more "dangerous" now than it would have 10 years ago. If anything, the activists charged in the case did the company a favor by harmlessly exposing flagrant security breeches at the HQ. Better a tiger-suit-wearing solar-advocate than a gun toting terrorist, no?

Exxon knows this, but decided to invoke the pall of terrorism anyway. Why?