From: Bill
This appears to be the real reason that Obama is bringing the National Guard troops home. Law counteracting free speech and freedom of assembly. See below:
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Foreign Ministry reports circulating in the Kremlin today are warning that an already explosive situation in the United States is about to get a whole lot worse as a new law put forth by President Obama is said capable of seeing up to 500,000 American citizens jailed for the crime of opposing their government.
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Foreign Ministry reports circulating in the Kremlin today are warning that an already explosive situation in the United States is about to get a whole lot worse as a new law put forth by President Obama is said capable of seeing up to 500,000 American citizens jailed for the crime of opposing their government.
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Sparking the concern of Russian diplomats over the growing totalitarian bent of the Obama government is the planned reintroduction of what these reports call one of the most draconian laws ever introduced in a free society that is titled “The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act”.
First introduced in the US Congress in 2007 by Democratic Representative Jane Harmon, this new law passed the US House of Representatives by a secretive voice vote, but failed to pass the US Senate, after which it was believed dead until this past week when it was embraced by Obama who became the first American President to name his own citizens as a threat to his Nations security.
In what is called the National Security Strategy document, that is required of US Presidents by their Congress, that embraces the dictatorial ideals of the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act”, Obama has ordered his Federal police and intelligence forces to begin targeting Americans opposed to him and his radical socialist polices.
Obama’s top counter-terrorism advisor, John Brennan, in speaking to reporters about this new“strategy” says it makes the problem of home-grown terrorists a top priority because an increasing number of individuals in the US have become “captivated by extremist ideology or causes.”
The Times of London is further reporting that Obama’s new National Security Strategy “officially” ends America’s “War on Terror” in what they call “a sweeping repudiation of the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive military strikes.”
And as Obama begins re-focusing his forces from fighting America’s foreign enemies, to those opposed to him in his own country, it is important to remember the warning about this new law given by the former CIA official, Philip Giraldi, who had previously warned of the Bush-Cheney plan to attack Iran with nuclear weapons, and who said:
“The mainstream media has made no effort to inform the public of the impending Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act. The Act, which was sponsored by Congresswoman Jane Harman of California, was passed in the House by an overwhelming 405 to 6 vote on October 24th and is now awaiting approval by the Senate Homeland Security Committee, which is headed by Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut.
Harman’s bill contends that the United States will soon have to deal with home grown terrorists and that something must be done to anticipate and neutralize the problem. The act deals with the issue through the creation of a congressional commission that will be empowered to hold hearings, conduct investigations, and designate various groups as “homegrown terrorists.”
The commission will be tasked to propose new legislation that will enable the government to take punitive action against both the groups and the individuals who are affiliated with them. Like Joe McCarthy and HUAC in the past, the commission will travel around the United States and hold hearings to find the terrorists and root them out.
Unlike inquiries in the past where the activity was carried out collectively, the act establishing the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Commission will empower all the members on the commission to arrange hearings, obtain testimony, and even to administer oaths to witnesses, meaning that multiple hearings could be running simultaneously in various parts of the country.
The ten commission members will be selected for their “expertise,” though most will be appointed by Congress itself and will reflect the usual political interests. They will be paid for their duties at the senior executive pay scale level and will have staffs and consultants to assist them.
Harman’s bill does not spell out terrorist behavior and leaves it up to the Commission itself to identify what is terrorism and what isn’t.
Language inserted in the act does partially define “homegrown terrorism” as “planning” or “threatening” to use force to promote a political objective, meaning that just thinking about doing something could be enough to merit the terrorist label.
The act also describes “violent radicalization” as the promotion of an “extremist belief system” without attempting to define “extremist.”
As an example of those American’s Obama will be targeting, Giraldi further writes that The Simon Wiesenthal Center, in testifying before the US Congress in support of this new law, swore that an organization called “Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth” was an example of a homegrown terrorist organization, leading one Russian diplomat in this report to state “If 1,200 of America’s top architectural and engineering professionals are deemed terrorists simply because they question their governments propaganda than truly no one is safe in the United States anymore”.
As another example of how dictatorial the Obama regime has become, and as the Gulf of Mexico oil debacle has now become the worst ecological disaster our World has ever seen, the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, this past week slammed American reporters for “asking too many questions about BP”. Leading one to ask that if Obama’s regime can’t be asked about this disaster, what can they be asked about?
The answer is apparently none, as Obama himself, just this past week, in announcing his signing of a new law called the Press Freedom Act refused to answer any reporters questions and abruptly left them standing in stupefaction over the irony an ordeal that shows how far America has fallen.
Another irony apparently lost upon the American people is that their President Obama, who has been dubbed “The Great Communicator”, now holds the dubious distinction of having held less press conferences than any American President in modern history. And if yesterday’s press conference, his first in nearly a year, was any example one can see why as incredulous press corps was left astounded that Obama had no knowledge of the firing/resignation of one of his top officials.
In all of these events one fact, beyond all others, stands out….in what was once called “The Land of the Free, And the Home of the Brave”…..the United States today has become “The Land Of Slave, And the Home of the Coward”….and these Americans have only themselves to blame.
Source: www.eutimes (link is external). net/2010/ 05/new-obama- law-warned- will-jail- 500000-americans /
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Violent_Radicalization_and_Homegrown_Terrorism_Prevention_Act_of_2007 (link is external)
Summary
The bill would have:
[edit (link is external)] Defined terms
Points of criticism
The bill has provoked controversy on several fronts.
One is the perceived overly broad and vague definitions of "force", “home grown terrorism” and “violent radicalization” (section 899A). Critics charge that the vagueness in these definitions would permit the government to classify many types of venerated American political activity, such as civil disobedience, as terrorism. Critics frequently cite Section 899A, which reads, in part: "The use, planned use, or threatened use, of force ...to coerce the ..government, (or) civilian population ..in furtherance of political or social objectives",[20] (link is external) as particularly problematic. They argue that major societal reforms, which are now accepted but were perceived at the time as threatening to the government, such as civil rights, suffrage, and others, would be classified as terrorism.[21] (link is external)[22] (link is external)[23] (link is external)[24] (link is external)
Another source of concerns centers around a series of “Congressional findings” (Section 899B) from a House Subcommittee held on November 6, 2007 and chaired by Rep. Jane Harman, the bill's sponsor.[25] (link is external) The Subcommittee heard testimony, which equated the 9/11 Truth Movement (link is external) with terrorist propaganda [26] (link is external) and the committee's findings specify, among other things, that terrorism exists in the United States and poses a threat to homeland security, (item 2), that the Internet (link is external) has aided in facilitating home grown terrorism (item 3) and that preventing home grown terrorism cannot be accomplished through traditional law enforcement efforts. (item 6).[27] (link is external)[28] (link is external)
The Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC) has tracked the bill carefully.[29] (link is external)
[edit (link is external)] Political reaction
Then-presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich (link is external) said he believed the bill to be "unconstitutional" and has referred to the bill as a "thought crime bill".[30] (link is external)
Representative Ron Paul (link is external) (R-TX),[31] (link is external)[32] (link is external) addressed the bill in the House on Dec. 5, 2007 saying:
In North Carolina (link is external), Republican Congressional candidate BJ Lawson (link is external) has made the bill a theme in his campaign against Democrat David Price (link is external), who voted in favor of the bill.[33] (link is external)[34] (link is external)
[edit (link is external)] Media reaction
The Baltimore Sun published an opinion article by Professor Emeritus Ralph E. Shaffer and R. William Robinson, titled "Here come the thought police.";[35] (link is external)[36] (link is external)
The Pioneer Press published an article by Professor Peter Erlinder (link is external), pointing out disturbing parallels to the House Un-American Activities Committee (link is external).[37] (link is external)
Conservative commentator Devvy Kidd wrote: "Since the bill doesn't specifically define what an extremist belief system is, it is entirely up to the interpretation of the government.... Essentially they have defined violent radicalization as thought crime."[38] (link is external)
In an interview aired on Democracy Now (link is external), academic and author Ward Churchill (link is external) said: "HR 1955, as I understand it, provides a basis for subjective interpretation of dissident speech...."[14] (link is external)
Kamau Franklin of the Center for Constitutional Rights (link is external) said that the bill "concentrates on the internet as a place where terrorist rhetoric or ideas have been coming across into the United States and to American citizens.” [39] (link is external)
The Hartford Advocate (link is external), noting that all of Connecticut (link is external)'s Representatives had voted for the bill, sought to interview one of them, but reported that none of them would comment on the record, personally or through a spokesperson, about their reasons for voting in favor. The Advocate concluded that the problem with the bill was "not that the bill threatens anything specific, but that it’s far too vague."[40] (link is external)
An op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle (link is external), discussed HR 1955 in the context of the Homeland Security concept of Endgame. The article garnered several hundred readers comments when it was originally published. "HR 1955 is an important topic that continues to be largely absent from mainstream media as of Nov 23, 2008. President elect Obama, served on Lieberman's Homeland Security committee in the US Senate wherein the Senate bill version Titled: S-1959 continues to be discussed, absent mainstream scrutiny, but has garnered widespread internet-web scrutiny." (accessed on Nov 23, 2008) "[41] (link is external)
The New York Times (link is external) editorialized that "The Internet is simply a means of communication, like the telephone, but that has not prevented attempts to demonize it — the latest being the ludicrous claim that the Internet promotes terrorism." (accessed on Jan 2, 2009). "[42] (link is external)
The internet, if considered to be "new media (link is external)" includes this offering by OpenCongress.org, a project of the Sunlight Foundation and PDF. All 26 comments about S. 1959 dating from 2008. "[43] (link is external)
[edit (link is external)] Institutional reaction
The American Civil Liberties Union (link is external) (ACLU) issued a statement saying: "Law enforcement should focus on action, not thought. We need to worry about the people who are committing crimes rather than those who harbor beliefs that the government may consider to be extreme."[44] (link is external)
The National Lawyers Guild (link is external) and the Society of American Law Teachers (link is external) issued a joint statement opposing the Bill: "The National Lawyers Guild and the Society of American Law Teachers strongly urge the Senate to refuse to pass the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007."
The Center for Constitutional Rights (link is external) opposes the bill.[45] (link is external)
The John Birch Society (link is external) wrote in an Action Alert: "the legislation could attack First Amendment rights by mandating the government to clamp down on free speech online, among other things."[46] (link is external)
[edit (link is external)] Responses to criticism
Harman replied by letter to criticisms from the director of the American Civil Liberties Union (link is external)'s legislative office. Caroline Fredrickson asserted "the bill should read 'intentionally aiding and abetting' violent radicalization, 'because otherwise you’re really looking at what someone’s thought processes are, what their ideology is, and not what they’re doing.'" Harman defended the resolution, saying: “HR 1955 is not about interfering with speech or belief. The hearing record makes that abundantly clear. Radical speech, as I have said repeatedly, is protected under our Constitution.”[47] (link is external)
Harman chaired a November 6, 2007 hearing of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment (link is external) on “Using the Web as a Weapon: the Internet as a Tool for Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism.”[48] (link is external) In her statement before the hearing Harman tied its subject to Resolution 1955.[49] (link is external)
In December 2007 the United States House Committee on Homeland Security (link is external) released a "fact sheet" entitled "Understanding HR 1955: The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007"[50] (link is external) which elaborates on the rationale and purpose of the bill and includes a "Myth vs. Fact" section offering rebuttals to the perception that the bill would "criminalize constitutionally-protected behavior" or "lead to Internet censorship".
[edit (link is external)] See also
This is un nerving to say the least. It seems that American citizens will eventually be challenged to fight for their freedom, be enslaved or leave the country.
The lunacy begins...
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/the-rachel-maddow-show/45364103#45364232 (link is external)
...here is a bill that died in the senate four years ago. What one should be more concerned about are the draconian measures hidden under the guise of the ridiculous Obama care. I'm sure there are many other examples of draconian measures hidden within other bills not to mention the many things put in place by executive order with no legislative process whatsoever. Also, be aware of U. N. treaties which seek to undermine the second amendment thus insulating the legislators from public backlash over a normally enacted law.
Thanks for your research Noa. I wanted to know who the 6 congress members were who voted against it. Disappointingly for me Ron Paul did not vote on this bill. It's a bit hard to understand why he chose no vote over voting against it when he did choose to speak out against it.
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll993.xml (link is external)