Today's Thoughtcrime Nightmare: H.R. 1955
The following information comes from this entry, found on the LJ community stolensharpie.
If you care about your civil liberties - or even your right to have an alternative opinion, I encourage you to read it.
The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed HR 1955 titled the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. This bill is ( Read more... )
If you care about your civil liberties - or even your right to have an alternative opinion, I encourage you to read it.
The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed HR 1955 titled the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. This bill is ( Read more... )
Comments 8
I just skimmed though the bill and I don't see anywhere it criminalizes radical or extremist behavior. From what I can tell, it sets up a committee and a university center to study the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism.
The final section of the bill is titled,
"PROTECTING CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES WHILE PREVENTING IDEOLOGICALLY BASED VIOLENCE AND HOMEGROWN TERRORISM," and says that the department of homeland security will do just that.
I mean even in the quoted definition of homegrown terrorism says that it is, "the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual." I don't see environmentalists, animal rights activists, etc. threatening to use force of violence. And if they are, I'm not sure it's terrorism, but it's not exactly legal either.
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I don't mean to be rude, but parroting back just the text itself not only seems willfully ignorant, but serves to further reiterate (at least in my eyes) why this kind of resolution is so insidious in the first place.
Point The Second
it sets up a committee and a university center to study the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism.
That is correct. According to this article from Earthtimes.org, one of the bill's subsections does state that the resolution would "also [establish] a Center of Excellence for the Prevention of Radicalization and Home Grown Terrorism that will study the social, criminal, political, psychological and economic roots of the problem to provide further suggestions for action to address these dangers ( ... )
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As for the university center, I'll bet you dollars for doughnuts that the center is not about teaching students, but it is about funding academic research.
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