Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act.
Philip Giraldi on the Huffington Post has a long, sobering account of yet another step on the road to the United States of Authoritarianism. Here’s the nugget
One would have thought that the systematic dismantling of the Constitution of the United States would have been enough to satisfy even the most Jacobin neoconservative, but there is more on the horizon, and it is coming from people who call themselves Democrats. The mainstream media has made no effort to inform the public of the impending Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act. The Act, which was sponsored by Congresswoman Jane Harman of California, was passed in the House by an overwhelming 405 to 6 vote on October 24th and is now awaiting approval by the Senate Homeland Security Committee, which is headed by Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. It is believed that approval by the committee will take place shortly, to be followed by passage by the entire Senate.
Harman’s bill contends that the United States will soon have to deal with home grown terrorists and that something must be done to anticipate and neutralize the problem. The act deals with the issue through the creation of a congressional commission that will be empowered to hold hearings, conduct investigations, and designate various groups as “homegrown terrorists.” The commission will be tasked to propose new legislation that will enable the government to take punitive action against both the groups and the individuals who are affiliated with them. Like Joe McCarthy and HUAC in the past, the commission will travel around the United States and hold hearings to find the terrorists and root them out. Unlike inquiries in the past where the activity was carried out collectively, the act establishing the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Commission will empower all the members on the commission to arrange hearings, obtain testimony, and even to administer oaths to witnesses, meaning that multiple hearings could be running simultaneously in various parts of the country. The ten commission members will be selected for their “expertise,” though most will be appointed by Congress itself and will reflect the usual political interests. They will be paid for their duties at the senior executive pay scale level and will have staffs and consultants to assist them. Harman’s bill does not spell out terrorist behavior and leaves it up to the Commission itself to identify what is terrorism and what isn’t. Language inserted in the act does partially define “homegrown terrorism” as “planning” or “threatening” to use force to promote a political objective, meaning that just thinking about doing something could be enough to merit the terrorist label. The act also describes “violent radicalization” as the promotion of an “extremist belief system” without attempting to define “extremist.”
Very little noise about this. Very few comments under his post. No notice yet on the A list blogs…
[thx Rob E.]
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November 27th, 2007 @ 10:42 am
Will:
Please stay on top of this legislation. It is disastrous. Jane Harman needs many others to talk to her. A number of people have expressed their concerns to me about this legislation.
Marcy Winograd of PDA sent out a long e-mail on this subject of great concern. Here’s the opening paragraphs of a longer document which I forwarded
separately:
“Bringing the War on Terrorism Home: Congress Considers How to ‘Disrupt’
Radical Movements in the United States
By Jessica Lee
_Global Research_ (http://www.globalresearch.ca/) , November 25, 2007
_indypendent.org_ (http://indypendent.org/)
Under the guise of a bill that calls for the study of “homegrown terrorism,”
Congress is apparently trying to broaden the definition of terrorism to
encompass both First Amendment political activity and traditional forms of
protest such as nonviolent civil disobedience, according to civil liberties
advocates, scholars and historians.
The proposed law, The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism
Prevention Act of 2007 (H.R. 1955), was passed by the House of Representative in a
404-6 vote Oct. 23. (The Senate is currently considering a companion bill, S.
1959.) The act would establish a “National Commission on the prevention of
violent radicalization and ideologically based violence” and a university-based
“Center for Excellence” to “examine and report upon the facts and causes
of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism and ideologically based
violence in the United States” in order to develop policy for “prevention,
disruption and mitigation.”
Many observers fear that the proposed law will be used against U.S.-based
groups engaged in legal but unpopular political activism, ranging from
political Islamists to animal-rights and environmental campaigners to radical
right-wing organizations. There is concern, too, that the bill will undermine
academic integrity and is the latest salvo in a decade-long government grab for
power at the expense of civil liberties.
David Price, a professor of anthropology at St. Martin’s University who
studies government surveillance and harassment of dissident scholars, says the
bill “is a shot over the bow of environmental activists, animal-rights
activists, anti-globalization activists and scholars who are working in the Middle
East who have views that go against the administration.” Price says some
right-wing outfits such as gun clubs are also threatened because “[they] would be
looked at with suspicion under the bill.”
The Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC), which has been organizing
against post-Sept. 11 legislative attacks on First Amendment rights, is critical
of the bill. “When you first look at this bill, it might seem harmless
because it is about the development of a commission to do a study,” explained Hope
Marston, a regional organizer with BORDC.
“However, when you realize the focus of the study is ‘homegrown terrorism,’
it raises red flags,” Marston said. “When you consider that the government
has wiretapped our phone calls and emails, spied on religious and political
groups and has done extensive data mining of our daily records, it is worrisome
of what might be done with the study. I am concerned that there appears to be
an inclination to study religious and political groups to ultimately try to
find subversion. This would violate our First Amendment rights to free speech
and freedoms of religion and association.”
[continued....]