And yet more! House passes bill targeting "Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act;" What Does It All Mean, Dear?

These guys think: nothing good..

The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed HR 1955 titled the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. This bill is one of the most blatant attacks against the Constitution yet and actually defines thought crimes as homegrown terrorism. If passed into law, it will also establish a commission and a Center of Excellence to study and defeat so called thought criminals. Unlike previous anti-terror legislation, this bill specifically targets the civilian population of the United States and uses vague language to define homegrown terrorism. Amazingly, 404 of our elected representatives from both the Democrat and Republican parties voted in favor of this bill. There is little doubt that this bill is specifically targeting the growing patriot community that is demanding the restoration of the Constitution.

First let’s take a look at the definitions of violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism as defined in Section 899A of the bill.

The definition of violent radicalization uses vague language to define this term of promoting any belief system that the government considers to be an extremist agenda. Since the bill doesn’t specifically define what an extremist belief system is, it is entirely up to the interpretation of the government. Considering how much the government has done to destroy the Constitution they could even define Ron Paul supporters as promoting an extremist belief system. Literally, the government according to this definition can define whatever they want as an extremist belief system. Essentially they have defined violent radicalization as thought crime. The definition as defined in the bill is shown below.

`(2) VIOLENT RADICALIZATION- The term `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.

The definition of homegrown terrorism uses equally vague language to further define thought crime. The bill includes the planned use of force or violence as homegrown terrorism which could be interpreted as thinking about using force or violence. Not only that but the definition is so vaguely defined, that petty crimes could even fall into the category of homegrown terrorism. The definition as defined in the bill is shown below.

`(3) HOMEGROWN TERRORISM- The term `homegrown terrorism' means the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.

Section 899B of the bill goes over the findings of Congress as it pertains to homegrown terrorism. Particularly alarming is that the bill mentions the Internet as a main source for terrorist propaganda...

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The bill, btw, was sponsored by a "rank and file" Democrat, Jane Harman. Apparently this is the first of the 38 bills she's sponsored which has made it out of committee. The one before this was a bill to get the President to shut down the detention facility at Guantanamo.

I dunno what she/they were thinking. One wonders if perhaps someone finally took the "hey, all this focus on the evil Islamofascists and no one's doing jack about groups like Operation Rescue" seriously and, things being what they are, this is what became of it in committee. One ponders that something this vague could, like so much else thrown at us by Fearless Leaders recently, be dangerously unConstitutional and target a number of undeserving innocents and be completely toothless toward finding and stopping actual dangerous groups at the same time; or if indeed the whole thing mostly translates to "put in circular file, needs further study," or what.

One then considers that technically, HUAC was a "committee."

One is feeling sort of overwhelmed by information/panic overload alternating with everyone's apparent apathy/cluelessness at the moment. One has misplaced one's tinfoil hat and has an eye on one's passport. One wants to go home. Wherever that is.

h/t Lisa Harney.