House Passes Thought Crime Prevention Bill — I thought this was a hoax and still doubt the validity of this. Then I looked it up. It’s indeed real. The funny thing is that only 3 Republicans and 3 Democrats voted against the bill. Balance!
The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed HR 1955 titled the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. This bill is one of the most blatant attacks against the Constitution yet and actually defines thought crimes as homegrown terrorism. If passed into law, it will also establish a commission and a Center of Excellence to study and defeat so called thought criminals. Unlike previous anti-terror legislation, this bill specifically targets the civilian population of the United States and uses vague language to define homegrown terrorism. Amazingly, 404 of our elected representatives from both the Democrat and Republican parties voted in favor of this bill. There is little doubt that this bill is specifically targeting the growing patriot community that is demanding the restoration of the Constitution.
First let’s take a look at the definitions of violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism as defined in Section 899A of the bill.
The definition of violent radicalization uses vague language to define this term of promoting any belief system that the government considers to be an extremist agenda. Since the bill doesn’t specifically define what an extremist belief system is, it is entirely up to the interpretation of the government. Considering how much the government has done to destroy the Constitution they could even define Ron Paul supporters as promoting an extremist belief system. Literally, the government according to this definition can define whatever they want as an extremist belief system. Essentially they have defined violent radicalization as thought crime.
found by Guy Fawkes
Yes, your government is in a bad way. The seem to want to create all these bills with very vague language so they can interpret them anyway they want, depending on what war they want to fight this week. It is funny as an outsider seeing the USA who hold themselves up as a great democracy with freedom for the people, yet they are actually not even close to that.
The good thing is though we know how it ends after watching the movie. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181689/
This is a rather odd set of legislation indeed. I can’t believe . . . well I can believe that such corruption exists in our rulers. What’s left?
Since we put the governor in charge and legally, that’s all he is, we have seen all of our rights diminish and we have dedicated all of our monies and resources into hurting and enraging others all in the name of money.
This vague legislation that was signed on by the lemmings and sheep in power essentially indicates that such groups as Sierra Club, Green Peace, Al Gore Supporters, you name it, are all bad and can be stopped at any cost. If not stopped, then there is a blanket rule to eavesdropping.
Our leader . . . governor once said “My daddy told me to run this country like a business” In which case, we would be bankrupt and be bought out by China, India and anyone else looking to make a profit.
If our movie ends like Minority Report, I hope that we are not saved by a bunch of Scientologists! Whew! That’s all we need are a bunch of freaks running around to make us read Dianetics. No thanks!
THOUGHT CRIME PREVENTION???
Can you re-word that??
I note that Kucinich was one of the three with guts enough to refuse this sack of shit. My opinion of him continues upward…
This site list a massive amount of evidence showing that the USA is becoming a police state.
http://home.comcast.net/~plutarch/PoliceState.html
Double plus ungood!!
#4 – Lauren,
Mine too.
I have also sent email to the ACLU in an attempt to get their position on this bill. Perhaps we’re misreading something here. I did note some nearly reasonable sounding text in the bill.
(8) Any measure taken to prevent violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence and homegrown terrorism in the United States should not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights and civil liberties of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents.
and
`SEC. 899F. PROTECTING CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES WHILE PREVENTING IDEOLOGICALLY-BASED VIOLENCE AND HOMEGROWN TERRORISM.
`(a) In General- The Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to prevent ideologically-based violence and homegrown terrorism as described herein shall not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights, and civil liberties of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents.
`(b) Commitment to Racial Neutrality- The Secretary shall ensure that the activities and operations of the entities created by this subtitle are in compliance with the Department of Homeland Security’s commitment to racial neutrality.
`(c) Auditing Mechanism- The Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Officer of the Department of Homeland Security will develop and implement an auditing mechanism to ensure that compliance with this subtitle does not result in a disproportionate impact, without a rational basis, on any particular race, ethnicity, or religion and include the results of its audit in its annual report to Congress required under section 705.’.
So, there may be some hope that this is not as horrific as the analysis above makes it sounds. However, I do not like the term ‘In general’ which means that they still do allow for rights violations in some cases. I also note that this does not apply to illegal aliens, who would presumably have no rights at all under this bill.
It is sad but true that there are people in Congress who cannot see the irony of their own actions. I applaud Guy Fawkes for bringing this to the attention of us all. Reading the bill though, it is very bad law that establishes a Orwellian named committee to study the effects of homegrown terrorism. It has no teeth to implement any enforcement of law. So doom isn’t here yet. But they are lazily slumbering toward a cumbersome police state.
My favorite section.
“(a) International Effort- The Secretary shall, in cooperation with the Department of State and other Federal Government entities, as appropriate, conduct a survey of methodologies implemented by foreign nations to prevent violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism in their respective nations.”
But never fear.
“SEC. 899F. PROTECTING CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES WHILE PREVENTING IDEOLOGICALLY-BASED VIOLENCE AND HOMEGROWN TERRORISM.
`(a) In General- The Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to prevent ideologically-based violence and homegrown terrorism as described herein shall not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights, and civil liberties of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents.”
It still has to pass the Senate so if you care enough write a letter. And the article states that Ron Paul supporters could be classified under this study or whatever the thing proposes. To bad he didn’t even vote on it.
I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Obviously George W. Bush, the world’s greatest protector of liberty, will veto this awful bill.
The mechanism by which the Total State is being built Look at the Universities and see what students are being taught is acceptable behavior.
This could make it illegal to cite statistics from the fbi’s uniform crime report. In the words of the guy James Watson who invented DNA a fact cannot be racist. This bill has been pushed by the Israel lobby. None of this will matter anyway after Dubya drops a nuke and starts ww3.
This is what happens when a misleading headline is published. Very few can see past that headline and actually read the story. In this case, the site Rogue Government has an anti-government agenda. Their slant is obviously biased. YET ONLY ONE PERSON even bothered to follow through and read that !!!
This bill is to set up a STUDY to discover the the causes behind home grown terrorism. It is to be conducted / supervised by Homeland Security at a University level. While conducting the study, no one’s civil rights are to be disturbed. In other words, what makes violent people want to harm others.
This is a good bill in that it seeks to learn. To discover why. To educate ourselves into the terrorists mind.
H.R. 1955 would direct the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to establish a
university-based Center of Excellence for the Study of Violent Radicalization and
Homegrown Terrorism in the United States. The bill also would establish a commission to
investigate the causes of terrorist acts committed by persons raised or living in the United
States and would require DHS to prepare reports on certain issues relating to domestic
terrorism.
Congressional Budget Office
http://tinyurl.com/2gxogf
This thread would make a good subject for study in rabid mob stupidity.
CAN’T ANYONE THINK FOR THEM SELF ANYMORE ???
* Scott, since you are apparently the only one to even read and question this story, this rant is not directed at you. *
JCD,
Did you read the bill? Basically sets up a committee to study “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism” How is creating a committee to research and study something an attack on our constitution. I think you read this guy’s BS article and then reacted to it. I agree that such a committee is a complete waste of money and nothing will ever come of it, but you are just grandstanding here.
-Erik
#14 is right. And with only $18mil over 5 years the study won’t even be funded well enough to buy pencils for the committee. I guess they are going to have to bring their own.
1984 anybody?
#13 – Mr. Fusion,
Thanks for singling me out. I try to read the original text, if it happens to be in anything close to English, before forming strong opinions. I was especially questioning in this case because of the overwhelming support for it, even by the likes of Jerry Nadler, my own representative, who is usually in agreement with my own opinions on most issues.
However, as a geek, I can’t help but be concerned by one of the paragraphs I already quoted above.
In General- The Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to prevent ideologically-based violence and homegrown terrorism as described herein shall not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights, and civil liberties of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents.
In this paragraph, the statement starts with ‘In general’. Without that lead in, this would state that the rights will not be violated. With it, they may be violated and any review will only be internally by the department of Homeland Security, as stated in a later paragraph.
More irksome than that is the fact that this does not apply to illegal aliens. This allows them to be shot on sight, deported to external torture subcontractors, or whatever else the government feels is appropriate. I am deliberately exaggerating a bit. However, this truly does not recognize illegal aliens as having any rights whatsoever.
And, again, remember the only review of this will be internal.
This does sound bad to me, though not nearly as bad as the headline.
OK, that’s all I need to know about the person writing this article.
I just thought that establishing a Center for Excllence was way too funny in an Orwelian sense to ignore. I guess the sarcasm of my previous post didn’t make it through the filter. Reading the bill this morning it seems like a clearly silly excercise in political pandering. Allowing congress to vote for some sort of “Security” measure that actually does nothng.
There are no provisions for enforcment in this bill. But once again if you are concerned about it, write to your Senator bringing up your concerns.
And I will remind you that Ron Paul idn;t even show up to vote for this one. So it couldn’t have been that important.
#19 – Jezcoe,
I wouldn’t use Ron Paul’s attendance (or any other representative’s) as an indicator of the importance of any bill.
You had my attention until you mentioned Ron Paul.
Those pigs don’t think they have enough on their plates already. Throw the bums out.
I’m at a loss here. Now in the blue hell can you police the mind?
It’s revolution time, folks. I’m damned serious. My name is Jeremy, I live in Western Oklahoma, and I believe it is time for a revolution. Hit the reset button on the American government.
Prosecute THAT, politicos.
First reaction: I’d tell you what I was thinking, but I’d go to jail for it.
With a fraction of the resources I think it’s safe to say that I can summarize the committees report before they’ve even written it:
“Home-grown terrorism is a figment of our imagination. So we changed the definition of terrorism in order to find some.”
Our government only has itself to blame for knee-jerk reactions to simple legislation. If our government was doing a fantastic job, no one would think twice about this. It’s because of the lousy job they’re doing, that people instantly think the worst of them.
I don’t think being suspicious of this bill is a sign of not thinking for myself. On the contrary. When I see smoke, I don’t think “smoke”, I think “fire”. I’m thinking of the next step in the process (a bit like playing chess). So regardless of how benign this bill may be, I can’t help but think, “Well, this seems simple enough, but I wonder where this is headed?”
Sure, it’s only a study. But what can our government do with the results of the study?
“Yes, we’re passing a law that makes it illegal to have criminal thoughts, and we know that seems wrong, but we did this study five years ago that says…”
The process of taking away our civil liberties isn’t going to happen in one fell swoop. It’s going to happen over the course of years, by passing one small benign bill after another. Each one seemly simple, but as a whole paint us into a corner.
the war against terrorism is over — we have lost
we have met the enemy and he is us
It should of been obvious this is where the entire terror war was heading, when instead of Terrorist they started to use the words extremist. Just like it’s not illegal alien it’s undocumented worker/undocumented immigrant.
I really, do believe there are terrorist in the world, some of them are eco-terrorist and they meet the definition of terrorist. I haven’t really believed we have a war on terrorism, not with the border wide open. Even Mexico’s border is a wide open, with only the land side being closed.
We are in the mist of a world wide revolution on a Global scale. Unlike the revolutions of the past, this revolution is being carried out by the elites ( rich and political class of the world ). We are heading towards a caste society on a Global scale. If you look at the communist societies they have consistently started to hand down positions from father to son ( or at least remained withing the family ) – North Korea. The so-called democratic societies have started to separate castes and even the top political positions are remaining within the same families. Really Bush (CIA) – Clinton – Bush – Clinton????
Hahaha… that’s funny, traaxx.
This sounds like they are seeing if they can emulate the British, who deport imams promoting radicalism.
Scott,
The use of the term “In General” is used a a descriptive title and is not part of the sentence. The next three sections each also start off with a descriptive title.
`(b) Commitment to Racial Neutrality- The Secretary shall ensure …
`(c) Auditing Mechanism- The Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Officer of the Department of Homeland Security will develop …
(b) Clerical Amendment- The table of contents in section …