You hit on something very important

I hope people will do this. I am going to get started today on it, calling our representatives and senators and writing a letter to the editor. Thanks for helping clarify for people how to get started. Inaction in the past has allowed the neo-con cabal to get as far as they have curtailing the Constitution. We need to at least try. Thanks for the encouragement and organization of thoughts.

 

 

by JOHN LORENZ (11 articles, 22 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 49 comments) on Thursday, December 6, 2007 at 7:44:08 AM
 

Letter I wrote RE: S1959/HR 1955 to my Rep and Senators

Here is a letter I wrote to both Senators and to my representative:

Dear Senator or Representative (modify as needed)

 

 As you know, "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech" (Amendment I to the U.S. Constitution). Yet, the House of Representatives has passed HR 1955, an unconstitutional bill which says 'violent radicalization' means the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.’ (HR 1955) May I remind you that while violent thoughts, speech, and writings may be anathema, they are clearly protected under United States law. In *Yates v United States*, the court wrote that "advocacy of forcible overthrow of the government" was *protected speech* under the First Amendment. In *Texas v Johnson , the court noted that "if there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea offensive or disagreeable." 

Thus HR 1955/S1959 oversteps the boundaries of prohibiting inciteful speech and instead prohibits "the adopting . . . a belief system." It is impractical, and unconstitutional to determine if "an extreme belief system" is explicitly "for the purpose of facilitating . . . violence" and it is further impossible to determine what belief system someone has adopted

 

There is simply no good way to reliably determine the intent of someone's speech until their intentions become actions. There is no way at all to determine the purpose of someone's adopted system of beliefs. This pernicious piece of legislation (and the commission it would create) would encourage law-enforcement agencies around the nation to engage in domestic pre-emptive strikes based on nothing more than assumptions, lies, and flawed intelligence.

 

We do not need to make thoughts and beliefs a crime in order to combat terrorism. Such laws would not stop terrorists but could open the door to serious abuse of power on the part of the government if that government seeks to suppress

legitimate dissent and it could be abused by an ideologue of either party. 

 

May I remind you that we PAY you as our elected representative to have our Constitution upheld, protected and defended, as is the oath you have taken when you took office, therefore, as an American citizen, I demand, I don’t request, that you filibuster if this bill comes to the floor. You owe it to your country and your constituents. We elected you to protect us.

 We cannot subject our minds to searches for weapons that do not exist. I implore you to vote your oath, uphold the Constitution of the United States of America, and never let HR 1955/S1959 become law. 

Sincerely,

(etc,etc)

by JOHN LORENZ (11 articles, 22 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 49 comments) on Thursday, December 6, 2007 at 8:42:19 AM
 

Thank you John!

John Lorenz, you are wonderful. Thank you so much for doing this and for your very insightful, well-researched letter. I learned a lot from reading it. I am going to submit this to Digg, Readit and Daily Kos asking people to duplicate the talking points (without stealing your actual letter from you).

It gave me much encouragement to see that someone followed up on this: Thank you very much for that, John!

We need pro-activity like never before at this dangerous time in our country's history. Edmund Burke said it very well: Sometimes the greatest evils are committed by the silence of good people.

FOLKS, LET'S PLEASE REMEMBER THAT POLITICIANS WANT TO BE RE-ELECTED! THERE'S HOPE! PLEASE SPREAD WORD, PLEASE TAKE ACTION AND THEN ASK OTHER PEOPLE TO DO THE SAME! THIS IS ABSOLUTELY URGENT AND WE CAN'T AFFORD TO HAVE THE SCENARIOS OFFSHOOTING FROM THIS DEADLY BILL BECOMING LAW. THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP!

by Kathryn Smith (77 articles, 0 quicklinks, 30 diaries, 260 comments) on Thursday, December 6, 2007 at 2:29:32 PM
 

here's another thing we can do:

John et al, I copied your letter John and submitted it along with an article in the San Francisco Bay View to editors around the country, asking them to use talking points from both items (the article/ your letter) in a report of their own.

FYI and for those of you who want to join me (please do), I have compiled a list of e-mail addresses for newspapers and reporters around the country that I want to e-mail news tips, letters to the editor, etc. All conveniently at the press of one group button.

I urge others on this forum to please do the same.

Thanks!

by Kathryn Smith (77 articles, 0 quicklinks, 30 diaries, 260 comments) on Thursday, December 6, 2007 at 2:35:09 PM