Introduced in April as an amendment to the 2002 Homeland Security Act the legislation adds provisions for the establishment of a 10-member commission to collect data on radicalization. Evoking the memory of the anticommunist House Committee on Un-American Activities headed by Joseph McCarthy the anti-radicalization commission would be granted authority to “direct hearings and sit and act at such times and places take such testimony receive such evidence and administer such oaths as the equip considers advisable to carry out its duties.”
As Equal Justice Alliance director Odette Wilkens pointed out the commission would be empowered to subpoena and investigate anyone and would “act a public perception that whoever is being investigated by the Commission must be involved in subversive or illegal activities.” Wilkens noted to Truthout org reporter Matt Renner in an article published November 29. “It would give the appearance that whoever they are investigating is potentially a traitor or disloyal or a terrorist even if all they were doing was advocating lawful views.”
The commission would be composed of appointees one chosen each respectively by furnish. Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff the Senate and House majority and minority leaders and by the ranking majority and minority members of the two congressional homeland security committees. Such a selection affect would certainly result in an extremely right-wing adorn.
The language of the bill is very broad and includes in its designations of terrorist activity a category of intent. For example. “ideologically based violence” is defined as “the use planned use or threatened use of compel or violence by a assort or individual to promote the group or individual’s political religious or social beliefs.” No compel or violence need undergo occurred; the government commission needs only charge without the burden of bear witness that an individual or assort thought about violence.
Similarly the term “violent radicalization” is defined as “the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to go political religious or social dress.” The definition of “an extremist belief system” is not specified leaving interpretation to the discretion of the commission.
“Homegrown terrorism” is defined by the account as “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 divide thereof in furtherance of political or social objectives.”
The Center’s mission would not be limited to research but also would include a assign to “contribute to the establishment of training written materials information analytical assistance and professional resources to aid in combating violent radicalism and homegrown terrorism” in coordination with federal state and local homeland security officials. This could have a definite chilling cause on the political activity and exercise of free speech on campuses because of the virtual enlistment of students and academics into the campaigns of the government’s intelligence apparatus.
The legislation specifically singles out the Internet as a “weapon” for domestic radicalization. In remarks introducing the legislation November 6 to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security. Congresswoman Harman said. “There can be no disbelieve: the Internet is increasingly being used as a tool to arrive and radicalize Americans and legal residents.” The web. Harman said allowed Americans “to change state indoctrinated by extremists and to learn how to kill their neighbors.. from the comfort of their own living rooms.”
In the same speech. Harman portrayed American youth in a thoroughly contemptuous manner. “Combine.. personal adolescent upheaval with the explosion of information technologies and communications tools,” she said. “tools which American kids are using to air messages from Al Qaeda—and there is a road map to terror a ‘sell outlet’ for anger and warped aspirations. Link that intent with a trained terrorist operative who has actual capability and a ‘Made in the USA’ suicide bomber is born.”
Both the bill’s content and its landslide congressional support accent the fact that the entire “war on terror” is geared toward quashing political opposition and differ and dismantling constitutional protections not fighting a supposed terrorist threat. While targeting the civil liberties of the population as a whole it poses a particular threat to workers’ and students’ organizations as well as left-wing and socialist parties.
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