DEMOCRATS CLOSE TO PASSING POLICE STATE LAW TO SUPPRESS POLITICS, SPEECH

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BRUCE FEIN, WASHINGTON TIMES - Congress is perched to enact the "Violent
Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 20007" Act,
probably the greatest assault on free speech and association in the
United States since the 1938 creation of the House Un-American
Activities Committee. Sponsored by Rep. Jane Harman, California
Democrat, the bill passed the House of Representatives on Oct. 23 by a
404-6 vote under a rule suspension that curtailed debate. To borrow from
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, the First Amendment
should not distract Congress from doing important business. The Senate
companion bill, sponsored by Susan Collins, Maine Republican, has
encountered little opposition. Especially in an election year, senators
crave every opportunity to appear tough on terrorism. Few if any care
about or understand either freedom of expression or the Thought Police
dangers of S. 1959. Former President John Quincy Adams presciently
lamented: "Democracy has no forefathers, it looks to no posterity, it is
swallowed up in the present and thinks of nothing but itself."

Denuded of euphemisms and code words, the act aims to identify and
stigmatize persons and groups who hold thoughts the government decrees
correlate with homegrown terrorism, for example, opposition to the
Patriot Act or the suspension of the great writ of habeas corpus.

The act will inexorably culminate in a government listing of homegrown
terrorists or terrorist organizations without due process; a
complementary listing of books, videos, or ideas that ostensibly further
"violent radicalization;" and a blacklisting of persons who have
intersected with either list.

Political discourse will be chilled and needed challenges to
conventional wisdom will flag. There are no better examples of sinister
congressional folly.

The act inflates the danger of homegrown terrorism manifold to justify
creating a marquee National Commission on the Prevention of Violent
Radicalization and Ideologically Based Violence . . .  Since September
11, 2001, no American has died from homegrown terrorism, while about
120,000 have been murdered. . .

The commission's Big Brother task is to discover ideas and political
associations, including connections to non-U.S. persons and networks,
that promote "violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and
ideologically based violence in the United States." And "violent
radicalization" is defined as "the process of adopting or promoting an
extremist belief system for the purpose of ideologically based violence
to advance political, religious, or social change."

Under the Act, William Lloyd Garrison would have been guilty of
promoting "violent radicalization" for publishing the anti-slavery
Liberator in 1831, which "facilitated" John Brown. Susan B. Anthony and
Elizabeth Cady Stanton would have been condemned for assailing laws
disenfranchising women and creating an intellectual atmosphere receptive
to violence. And Martin Luther King, Jr. would have fallen under the
Act's suspicion for denouncing Jim Crow and practicing civil
disobedience, which "facilitated" H. Rap Brown. . .

Lengthy lists of persons, organizations and thoughts to be shunned will
be compiled. Portions of the Holy Koran are likely to be taboo. The
lives of countless innocent citizens will be shattered. That is the
lesson of HUAC and every prior government enterprise to identify
"dangerous" people or ideas - for example, the 120,000 innocent
Japanese-Americans herded into concentration camps during World War II.

Bruce Fein is a constitutional lawyer with Bruce Fein & Associates and
Chairman of the American Freedom Agenda.

http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/
20071227/COMMENTARY02/620257774/1012&template=printart


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