OPPOSITION TO LEGISLATION THAT ABRIDGES THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND THE EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION

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The recent arrest of students protesting the recruitment efforts of the Vermont National Guard highlights the clear and present danger to the people of the United States that a Bill recently passed by the House poses. (HR 1955 -Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007)http://safeamericanhome.blogspot.com/2007/12/we-shut-it-down-for-immediate-release.html

Those that are actively engaged in opposition to the United States invasion and occupation of Iraq and the similar threatened action against Iran need to be concerned about the consequences of the passing of the Bill and work to prevent it from becoming Law when it is considered in the Senate as S 1959

The letter below sent to Representative Peter Welch of Vermont, who voted for HR 1955, is representative of the opposition

Dear Mr. Welch,

Your response to Mr. Timothy Price dated November 26, 2007 that contains your defense of HR 1955, Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007, has been distributed on the internet for others to read and evaluate. As you know, the official correspondence of the members of the House of Representatives is in the public domain available to anyone that wants to see it or distribute it.

Your letter states, "The bill (HR 1955) does not include any new criminal law or penalties pertaining to terrorism or terrorist ideology, nor does it criminalize or in any way impugn non-violent social activism." This kind of legislation has become known as "enabling legislation"--legislation which lays the ground for governmental activity that leads to legislation that the criminalizes, in this case, speech and other forms of exchanging information.

Yet. there are a myriad of laws that are passed without criminal law provisions that have a profound and lasting deleterious effect on United States citizens and the organization of our society. Not the least of these myriad of laws are the laws that create corporations and establish their "personhood", the laws that fund and support the invasion and occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan and the Palestine beyond the internationally recognized 1967 border with Israel.

So your statement about HR 1955 is plain, unadulterated sophistry that is a smoke screen for your support for a law that is specifically prohibited by the Constitution and will, like these other cited laws without criminal provisions, have a lasting deleterious effect on all of us.

What HR 1955 does do is to create categories of speech, writing, ideologies, planning, etc., by using pejorative adjectives in the same way that the Bush/Cheney neocon led government suddenly created a category of prisoner called "enemy combatant" intended to obliterate the meaning of "prisoner" in order to circumvent our laws that protects prisoners; just as they created the categories of "methods" of torture such as "waterboarding" intended to obliterate the meaning of the act of torture in order to circumvent our laws that criminalize the act of torture.

The categories would be laughable if it wasn't for the fact that they are such deadly poison to the rights we have written in the Constitution that specifically prohibit the Government from creating such pejorative categories in this respect.

Here are some of the categories that the law creates:

1-"violent radicalization" of speech, writing, media, philosophy, ideology, religion, theater, cinema, sociology, politics, behavioral science, cultural anthropology etc, etc.,

2-"ideological based violence" in speech, writing, media, philosophy, ideology, religion, theater, cinema, sociology, politics, behavioral science, cultural anthropology etc, etc.

3- "extremist belief system" in speech, writing, media, philosophy, ideology, religion, theater, cinema, sociology, politics, behavioral science, cultural anthropology etc, etc.

You and the rest of Democrats in the House of Representatives of Congress, with the exception of six of its members including Representative Kucinich that opposed it, passed HR 1955 which sole effect is to make a law that is contrary to:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

What is it that you do not understand about "Congress shall make no law...ABRIDGING the freedom of speech..."?

Amongst the most interesting of HR 1955's content is the 3rd paragraph of the "whereas" clauses which specifically targets the internet ---the only minimally controlled source of information and news that is distinguished from the corporate media conglomerates that have historically been the major source of jingoism, racism, and the yellow journalism that more than once served as the pimps for war---including the front page pimping for this latest slaughter of innocents by the New York Times through the Judith Miller articles that they own and copyrighted.

Here is what this "whereas" says;

"'(3) The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens".

Harman, and the rest of the 404 Democratic and Republican representatives, must think that they are the arbiters of what is safe for us to read, of what is safe for us to see, of what is safe for us to hear, or safe for us to write, or safe for us to speak, as though they have any more intelligence or discernment than the rest of us.

In other words, you and they want to turn the tables on us --- instead of us, we the people, being the constitutionally designated arbiters of what you and they do, they and you want to be the arbiters of what we do.

Evidently, Jane Harman, the chief author of the bill and the 404 representatives that voted for it, are convinced that the number of people who mentally entertain thoughts of non-compliance with their authority is so numerous that the country is about to teeter into chaos or vote them out of office.

Maybe you and they know something about what has been done to us or is going to be done to us as they engage in the slaughter of innocents, ours and theirs, in the occupation of Iraq and the projected expansion of that slaughter into Iran that we don't.

I would suggest that you consider the provisions of Article 10 of the Constitution of New Hampshire and the comeuppance that it implies for your term of office,

"Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind."

According to reports, you (Repr4esentative Welch) got a taste of what is in store for you at your last meeting with Vermont voters.

The way the Black Commentator's article put it, http://wwwblackcommentator.com/27/27_commentary.html

"The Bush men believe humanity will first recoil, then cower - that the world has no choice but to surrender in "Shock and Awe." The opposite is true. By initiating Permanent War, Bush presents the world - including, ultimately, the American people - with no choice but to turn on their tormentor, and remove him and his pirate class."

If you are of a mind to, I suggest that you write to Senator Leahy and to Senator Sanders to vote against the Bill when it comes before the Senate as S1959.

Authors Website: http://www.billsboard.blogspot.com/

Authors Bio:
40 years experience in the Construction Industry as Construction Manager, Project Manager, Project Superintendent on varied construction projects from waste treatment plants to hi-rise structural steel buildings in New York City and vicinity including Madison Square Garden, 100 Wall Street, the Grace Building, Hostos Community College,Tallman's Island Sewage Treatment Plant, and particular supervision of the repair of a mid-rise structural steel building damaged by fire at the City College of the City University Of New York