I'm putting this up twice because it is that important. In light of all other problems in America - and the prosecution of people like "The Lyrical Terrorist" a bad poet in the UK this is IMPORTANT:
Senate Bill 1959 to Criminalize Thoughts, Blogs, Books and Free Speech Across America
Wednesday, November 28, 2007 by: Mike Adams
The end of Free Speech in America has arrived at our doorstep. It's a new law called the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, and it is worded in a clever way that could allow the U.S. government to arrest and incarcerate any individual who speaks out against the Bush Administration, the war on Iraq, the Department of Homeland Security or any government agency (including the FDA). The law has already passed the House on a traitorous vote of 405 to 6, and it is now being considered in the Senate where a vote is imminent. All over the internet, intelligent people who care about freedom are speaking out against this extremely dangerous law: Philip Giraldi at the Huffington Post, Declan McCullagh at CNET's News.com, Kathryn Smith at OpEdNews.com, and of course Alex Jones at PrisonPlanet.com
This bill is the beginning of the end of Free Speech in America. If it passes, all the information sources you know and trust could be shut down and their authors imprisoned. NewsTarget could be taken offline and I could be arrested as a "terrorist." Jeff Rense at www.Rense.com could be labeled a "terrorist" and arrested. Byron Richards, Len Horowitz, Paul Craig Roberts, Greg Palast, Ron Paul and even Al Gore could all be arrested, silenced and incarcerated. This is not an exaggeration. It is a literal reading of the law, which you can check yourself here: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h1955_rfs.xml
The bill states:
'...ideologically based violence' means the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual's political, religious, or social beliefs...
Note that this means the "planned use of force to promote a political or social belief" would be considered an act of terrorism. This all hinges on the definition of "force," of course. Based on the loose use of logic in Washington these days, and the slippery interpretation of the meaning of words, "force" could mean:
• A grassroots campaign to barrage Congress with faxes
• A non-violent street protest
• A letter-writing campaign that deluges the Senate with too much mail
• A sit-in protest that blocks access to a business or organization
• A grassroots e-mail campaign that overloads the e-mail servers of any government department or agency
You get the idea. "Force" could be defined as practically anything. And since the "planned use of force" would be considered a criminal act of terrorism, anyone who simply thinks about a grassroots action campaign would be engaged in terrorist acts.
If you stopped someone on the street and handed them a Bible, for example, this could be considered an act of terrorism ("...use of force to promote the individual's religious beliefs...")
If you sent a barrage of angry letters to Washington about global warming and the destruction of the environment by the U.S. military, this could also be considered an act of terrorism ("...to promote the individual's political beliefs...")
If you believe in same-sex marriage and you wrote a letter threatning a sit-in protest in front of your state's capitol building, this could also be considered an act of terrorism, even if you never carried it out! ("...planned use of force to promote a social belief...")
The United States is on the fast track to fascism, and the Congress is working right alongside this nation's traitorous leaders to criminalize any thoughts, words or speeches that disagree with current government policies regarding war, terrorism, domestic surveillance and civil liberties. Simply speaking out against the war on Iraq could soon be labeled a crime. Merely thinking thoughts against the war on Iraq could be considered a criminal act.
Must-see video: Naomi Wolf's lecture on 10 steps to fascism
There's a video lecture you simply MUST watch. It's by Naomi Wolf, author of The End of America. She covers this topic with great elegance and a deep understanding of history. See her video on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjALf12PAWc
Click here to see her book on Amazon.com.
In her lecture and book, Naomi reveals the ten steps to fascist, then reveals how the United States of America is pursuing all ten! This S.1959 legislation, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, represents one of the ten steps to achieve a fascist state!
It is designed to squash all opposition to the State's ongoing march towards blatant fascism, where secret police and secret prisons dominate the law enforcement landscape, stripping U.S. citizens of all civil liberties and Constitutional protections.
Thoughtcrimes are about to become a reality in the United States of America, and Congress is pushing this through as quickly as possible so that each individual member of Congress can claim that he or she is "against terrorism." But this bill doesn't merely target terrorism: It targets anyone who speaks or even thinks thoughts against the U.S. federal government.
With this bill, the U.S. government is officially labeling the People of the United States as criminals. It is drawing a line in the sand and stating that from now on, it's the Government vs. the People.
If we don't stop this bill from becoming law, we are lost as a nation.
There is no turning back from tyranny once the government turns its own citizens into criminals, enforcing only the thoughts, ideas, words and speeches that it approves or tolerates. Everything is at stake here!
Take action now, or lose your freedoms forever
If you live in the U.S., it is urgent that you call your senators right now and voice your strong opposition against this extremely dangerous law.
Here are the phone numbers for the U.S. Senate switchboard:
1-877-851-6437
1-800-833-6354
1-888-355-3588
1-866-220-0044
1-866-808-0065
1-877-762-8762
1-866-340-9281
1-800-862-5530
How to do this:
1) Make sure you know the names of your Senators.
2) Call the U.S. Senate switchboard using one of the numbers above.
3) Ask to speak to the offices of your Senators.
4) Tell them you are strongly opposed to S. 1959, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act
5) Ask for their fax number.
6) Follow up your phone call with a written, signed letter that you fax to your Senators.
Stopping this bill from becoming law is the single most important thing all Americans can do right now. If this becomes law, all free speech about health freedom, the crimes of the FDA, the crimes of the Bush Administration, America's role in global warming and any other topics could all be criminalized. YOU could be labeled a terrorist, kidnapped by government thugs, taken from your home, thrown in a secret prison, denied access to legal representation, denied due process and essentially "disappeared" into a system of such corruption and evil that it now begins to blatantly mirror Nazi Germany.
Think it couldn't happen here? It's happening right now! This is exactly how it happened in Nazi Germany. First, burn the Reichstag and blame it on the "enemy." Pass new police state laws. Disarm the people. Spread fear. Erect secret prisons and secret police. Call anyone who disagrees with you a "traitor." Control the mainstream media. Sound familiar? This is all happening right now in the United States of Amerika, and if we don't work to stop it, this nation will rapidly devolve into a fascist police state where no one is truly free.
We are but a few small steps away from it right now. All it would take is one dirty bomb in a major U.S. city. Bush would declare Martial Law and take over the National Guard. Troops on the streets. Anyone who writes a blog against the government would be arrested. Authors of "alternative" books would be kidnapped and have their books burned on the street. It could all happen at the stroke of a pen. The infrastructure for tyranny is in place right now, just waiting to be invoked.
Our best weapons: Non-violent protest and speaking the truth
How can we fight back against this onslaught of tyranny? We must use what remaining free speech freedoms we have right now to alert our fellow citizens to what's happening. We must rise up and tell the truth while urging our representatives in Washington to resist the temptation to vote for more "anti-terrorism" legislation that only works to enslave the American people.
We must use our phones, faxes, emails and blogs to rally our friends, family members and anyone who will listen to oppose these police state laws, and we must organize mass (peaceful) protests against this government that is attempting to marginalize the rights and freedoms of our People.
We must not be lulled into a sense of false security by the purveyors of hatred and fear -- the Sean Hannitys, Rush Limbaughs and Bill O'Reillys of the world. Instead, we must listen to the voices of freedom. In terms of the upcoming election for U.S. President, there is only one candidate that actually believes in freedom: Ron Paul. He needs your support to win: www.RonPaul2008.com
All the other candidates are nothing more than tyrants of different political affiliations. Ron Paul is the only candidate that truly understands the fundamentals of freedom. That's why he's the only real choice for our next President. Can you imagine what Hillary Clinton would do with the police state powers that Bush has now created? That's the danger of all laws that centralize power in Washington: It's not necessarily what today's President will do with them, but what some future President will do with them.
That's why it's never good enough to say, "Well, we intend to only apply these laws to terrorists and not to U.S. citizens at home." That may be the intention right NOW, but virtually all such laws creep into areas of enforcement for which they were never intended. Just look at the application of RICO laws which were originally designed to fight organized crime operations but are now applied to virtually anyone (and yet they are never applied to Big Pharma, which operates almost exactly like organized crime!). All these anti-terrorism laws run the danger of expanding in enforcement to the point where they are applied against the People of this country. At first, it's only illegal for "terrorists" to think thought crimes, but before long, it's illegal for anyone to think those same thoughts. That when the domestic arrests of authors, journalists, bloggers and thought leaders will kick off, and the country will plunge itself into outright tyrannical fascism.
Again, we're on the track right now. This is happening, folks. You're LIVING through an amazing chapter of history right now. You're actually witnessing the downfall of a free nation and the rise of a superpower fascist state. You're actually part of it.
When it's all over, will you look back and realize you did nothing? Or will you now take a stand against tyranny and oppose these dangerous laws and lawmakers who threaten the Constitutional freedoms of you and your children?
Senate'>http://www.NewsTarget.com/022308.html">Senate Bill 1959 to Criminalize Thoughts, Blogs, Books and Free Speech Across America
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5 comments:
This details the Rand corpporations involvement, they are after criminalising dissent-period.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120307C.shtml
But minus the crow barred in Ron Paul endorsement.
And now at last a clickable link dammit!
The Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act: A Tutorial in Orwellian Newspeak By Robert Weitzel
Thanks Rick! I'll pass those links along. I had just been talking to someone (can't remember who, but i digress) about the Sedition Act, which is another form of dissent crushing legislation from waaaay back in the day, plus the use of religious leaders to teach us common folks "obedience" in the use of Martial Law.
Which tells me all of this is emanant.
Damn that scares me.
The bill's purpose probably does have something to do with curtailing free speech, but it relies on the chilling effects provided by hyperbole in blogs rather than any direct means that could be challenged in court. I'll wager.
If you really wanted to silence dissent, the first thing to do would be to get bloggers and intellectuals to believe that the government actually has the power to silence them, get them to propagate fear, uncertainty and doubt. Get them to take the virus back home to their communities where it will do its insidious work in the minds of the weak and stupid.
Then. you see, you don't have to actually do anything that would actually violate the constitution. You get other people to do the work for you. You're only holding some committee meetings. What harm is there in that?
Let me help you. The key word to reading all of this is "violence." Is anyone you know really contemplating any kind of violence? Are you contemplating violence?
Holding or speaking an opinion does not meet any objective criteria for violence, and therefore you can advocate any form of revolution you want as long as it advocates consensus building as the means to achieve its goal rather than any form of violence.
What consensus are we building here with evidence of this quality?
The silliness of the examples in the first part of this essay makes me want to remove my name from this community blog. Dealing with fascism is serious business which requires serious people with serious minds to propose serious solutions. The Chicken Little approach isn't going to cut the mustard in this league.
Hyperbolic rhetoric does nothing but provide the opposition with opportunities for ridicule and derision. All I have to do to make myself laugh is imagine myself mentioning any of the hypothetical freedoms denied above if I were lucky enough to get my senator on the phone. I'd die laughing before I got a word out.
Let them pass it, I say. Let them have their little committee meetings. Let them invite their witnesses and have their Witch hunt in full view of the press and the public. As opposed to the secret hearings in which they operate now which no citizen may audit.
Let them swear in the revolutionaries they can find and ask them how they intend to overthrow the government. And when the revolutionaries say they are going to follow the model in Venezuela. When they say they are going to build a consensus and vote then the committee's own silliness will hang them.
I'd like to be the first person thrown in jail for holding an opinion. I'll roast their chestnuts on an open fire.
Servant, I have to disagree with some of the things you are saying here. I don't think that this law, if passed is going to rely on the hyperbole of bloggers and the like. I think if it were 2002, you'd be right, but not now. Right now there are too many outraged individuals who will no longer be silenced. You have otherwise normal, inactive citizens forming group after group and coming together with other groups to stand up to this government. If anything, the hyperbole of bloggers will only incite more resistance, more dissent - and possibly less than peaceful action. And that would allow the government to do more than it is currently allowed to do to dissenters.
But I am not an alarmist, I am not Chicken Little. I tend not to fly off the handle until I have given the idea a thorough thrice over. I'm looking at several things here, namely:
1)Previous acts and laws and precedent set by other presidents - such as the Sedition act, Lincoln's Martial Law and detention of dissenters sans Habeas Corpus, Japanese detainment camps (in the US)etc...
2)Acts and laws passed by our current administration, such as the military act of 06, the John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 07, the over turning of Posse Comitatus Act, the granted extension of Emergency rule, the fight for courts to have a say in "enemy combatant" trials, the current use of religious authorities to promote subservience in the case of Martial Law being acted out etc..
3)personal experience, such as watching anti-war activists be put into "free speech zones", arrested for wearing anti-Bush t-shirts, arrested and facing six years of prison for advertising an anti-war demonstration, personally being under surveillance without warrant (in every sense of the word) watching friends being intimidated by authorities, up to and including secret service officers making subtle threats of bodily harm, the arrest and detention of suspected "thought terrorists" in the UK, the surveillance and threats of arrest to Anarchists in Anarchist message board groups, and so forth.
The precedent for unlawful and unconstitutional arrest and detainment has already been set. The stage for serious further restriction of rights, vague definitions for "terrorists" and "enemy Combatants", and laws permitting law enforcement to arrest and detain people based on nothing more than opinion has already been set, dressed, and lit. The "thugs" our government needs to snitch on dissenters is already being used (Gathering of Eagles members love turning suspected "Commies" and "Commie Anarchists" into authorities. They have even gone so far as to lie to police about violence from anti-war protesters, just to get them arrested or removed from protests.)
Could you imagine what these accusations could do if this law passed through?
Its much bigger than Chicken Little - because you're right, the sky 'aint falling. That would be our government throwing bricks at our heads.
Otherwise I am with you - I will not be silenced, I will not be intimidated, and I'll help 'ya roast those chestnuts over an open fire.
I just happen to have a wonderful matching skewer set for the occasion ;)
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