Letters to the Editor

• HR 1955: Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act

  Several here have spoken out with skepticism to critics of the pending Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act. I would like to see a broader discussion of this legislation on Salon, but would add my condemnation of HR 1955 for several reasons:

  • Hearings authorized under HR 1955 will be used to silence dissent through use of sweeping investigational power and hearings. Hearings will be a method to intimidate activists identified for appearance in front of investigative committees, with testimony likely magnified and legitimized by the media, and will quiet supporters of these activists.
  • HR 1955 is a large step to creation of a new COINTELPRO (1956 - 1971) in 2008. In 1956, COINTELPRO was launched to address the threat of communism. It quickly expanded to include the Socialist Workers Party, the Nation of Islam, and eventually the anti-war community. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cointelpro
  • HR 1955 is designed to attack speech on the Internet, the last source of broad political discourse available to the public. How many folks sitting at home watching the evening news have heard criticism of this legislation? How many are even aware of this legislation? None. It's vital that political discussion on the Internet be entirely unrestrained, or we will surely wind up with an Internet as free as China's.
  • HR 1955 blurs the line between thought and action, and uses broad terms and definitions in the tradition of other repressive government actions. HR 1955 is a significant shift towards criminalization of ideology. To believe that the government will not eventually equate ever more policy criticisms to an application of terrorist force is naive. See the bill for how the term "force" is used distinctly from "violence", in the context of "ideological" violence. This is how your government is defining the agenda, actionable or not in HR 1955.

  This topic deserves further discussion as the bill now sits in Senate committee and may be acted upon quickly in 2008. A more exhaustive and articulate criticism can be found here:

  http://www.indypendent.org/2007/11/19/homegrown-terrorism/

  -- bostonMA
  [Read bostonMA's other letters]
  Permalink Sunday, January 13, 2008 08:05 PM