SmallGovTimes.com

By: SGT News | Published on 12/07/07    

The "Violent Radicalization & Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act" was quietly passed through Congress two months ago, a bill that surfaces grave concerns over government power to control, oversee and punish the American people and the Internet in the United States.

The bill, HR 1955, would establish two separate government groups tasked with monitoring “extremism” in the United States and crafting new ways to combat actions and communications that they feel may lead to national security concerns.

Many freedom advocates are worried that the fairly broad use of terms within the bill might provide the government with significant authority over virtually any dissent in the United States over the establishment.

“... the broad definitions allow for new laws that can be passed. that can basically equate social justice activism and civil disobedience to terrorism in some ways,” said Kamau Franklin, Racial Justice Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City.

He continued, “So in the past if someone got charged for blocking the street, there were charged with disorderly conduct, or obstruction of governmental administration. Now, after this commission is done, if new laws are passed, with the broadness of the definitions, the Feds can now say “well, wait a minute, you threatened the use of violence or threatened the use of force. And that by itself can mean that we can now charge you with federal terrorist crimes because we do not agree with the type of demonstration that you were doing, we don’t agree with the point of view that you were having”. So its the broad based-ness, the breadth, the scope of the inquiry, which is really threatening for potential activists, people concerned with social justice issues and civil libertarians, something people should really be concerned about.”

One communication medium the bill focuses on is the Internet. “The legislation specifically singles out the Internet for “facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process” in the United States,” said Texas Representative and presidential candidate Ron Paul on the House floor two days ago. “Such language may well be the first step toward US government regulation of what we are allowed to access on the Internet.”

Paul continued to compare the results of this bill to nations around the world that live in an extremely controlled society at the hands of their own federal governments. “It will no doubt prove to be another bureaucracy that artificially inflates problems so as to guarantee its future existence and funding,” he said.

Paul closed his statement by cautioning against the “heavy-handed” governmental authority this bill provides and argues the bill is yet another attack on our civil liberties. “It is my sincere hope that we will reject such approaches to security, which will fail at their stated goal at a great cost to our way of life.”

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