The Story
Watch Out for the Thought Police
On Oct. 23, 2007, the United States House of Representatives passed a bill with a vote of 404-6 and 22 members abstaining. The bill, H.R. 1955, is also referred to as the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act.
Aiming to prevent terrorism that starts within U.S. borders, the bill has many frightening implications, especially for Americans who take full advantage of First Amendment rights of speech and assembly in order to protest.
The bill, which has received alarmingly scant media coverage, is trying to combat “ideologically based violence,” which it defines as any use, planned use or threatened use of force or violence to promote a person’s or a group’s beliefs.
It further defines “violent radicalization” as the adopting of an “extremist belief system” to use ideologically-based violence to incite “political, religious, or social change.”
The bill hopes to establish commissions, with members appointed by high level government officials, to research and control homegrown terrorism and violent radicalization, but the definitions are not narrow enough to facilitate the desired changes.
The bill’s proponents think that using loaded words like “terrorism” and “extremist” and “radicalization” will divert focus from the bill’s unconstitutionality. But is it fair to name violence in support of a cause, even violence that is merely planned or threatened, as terrorism?
Violence is already illegal -- whether or not it is of a political nature -- and there is already a unit of the FBI to deal with domestic terrorism, so it seems that the bill’s supercilious redundancy must have a greater purpose.
One of the first things that came to mind upon hearing about this bill was the 1969 U.S. Supreme Court case Brandenburg v. Ohio, in which the Court determined in a per curiam opinion that speech calling for “imminent lawless action” is protected unless it is likely to incite an illegal action.
The case involved a Ku Klux Klan leader who arranged for a racist rally to be televised. At the rally, he said, “We are marching on Congress July the fourth, four hundred thousand strong.”
Under the definitions presented in the proposed Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, Brandenburg would be a terrorist even though the Supreme Court at the time overturned his conviction.
The bill does not protect threatened use of violence, in direct opposition to the Brandenburg precedent.
The bill is attacking violent ideology rather than actual violence. Many feel that the bill is trying to suppress protest from environmental and anti-globalization groups and extremist political groups like CodePINK, all of which could be defined as homegrown terrorist groups.
However, given the current political structure of the Court, it is unlikely that the same ideals of constitutionality would be upheld. The Court’s recent decision in Morse v. Frederick, more commonly known as the “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” case, proved that the Roberts Court is not above overturning established precedents.
The bill is to be voted on soon by the Senate, and all members of the College are urged to contact their senators to tell them about the magnitude of this bill.
Interested readers can find contact information for senators on the U.S. Senate webpage.
Jake Robert Nelson is a staff columnist for The DSJ. His views do not necessarily represent those of the entire staff.