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Congress' "anti-extremist" Bill Targets Online Thoughtcrime
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by Rob Walker | November 29, 2007 at 07:10 am
629 views | 17 Recommendations | 2 comments
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Well here we go, as many many people have been predicting, 'terrorists' are now people who say the 'US Government is infringing on their individual rights, and/or that the government's policies are criminal and immoral'. So now questioning the gov and speaking out when crimes are being committed (whether they be torture or money laundering/bribery, etc.) is going to be considered terrorism? That can't possibly be good.
Congress is about to approve the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. This is not necessarily a good thing for Internet users.I say that because VRAHTPA
establishes a new federal commission tasked with investigating
Americans with "extremist belief systems" and those who may engage in
"ideologically based violence." This effort is expected to cost $22
million.
Here's an actual example of censorial mission creep from Alabama's Department of Homeland Security, which believes domestic terrorists are those Americans who say the "U.S. government is infringing on their individual rights, and/or that the government's policies are criminal and immoral."
I guess that would make Al Gore a domestic terrorist, especially after his speech last year saying "the executive branch of our government has been caught eavesdropping on huge numbers of American citizens and has brazenly declared that it has the unilateral right to continue." Presidential candidate Ron Paul, of course, is even guiltier, as are those pesky ACLUers, EFFers, and libertarians.
[q
url="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.thoughtpolice19nov19,0,2384977.story"]With
overwhelming bipartisan support, Rep. Jane Harman's "Violent
Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act" passed the House
404-6 late last month and now rests in Sen. Joe Lieberman's Homeland
Security Committee. Swift Senate passage appears certain.
Not since the "Patriot Act" of 2001 has any bill so threatened our constitutionally guaranteed rights.
The historian Henry Steele Commager, denouncing President John
Adams' suppression of free speech in the 1790s, argued that the Bill of
Rights was not written to protect government from dissenters but to
provide a legal means for citizens to oppose a government they didn't
trust. Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence not only
proclaimed the right to dissent but declared it a people's duty, under
certain conditions, to alter or abolish their government.[/q]
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (2)
at 08:19 on November 29th, 2007
This is alarming.
at 14:04 on November 29th, 2007
Wow!