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Dead Constitution See other Dead Constitution Articles Title: Police in thought pursuit Article published Dec 27, 2007 Police in thought pursuit December 27, 2007 By Bruce Fein - The Pope had his Index of Forbidden Books. Japan had its Thought Police against subversive or dangerous ideologies. And the United States Congress and President Bush have learned nothing from those examples. Congress is perched to enact the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 20007 (Act)," probably the greatest assault on free speech and association in the United States since the 1938 creation of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Sponsored by Rep. Jane Harman, California Democrat, the bill passed the House of Representatives on Oct. 23 by a 404-6 vote under a rule suspension that curtailed debate. To borrow from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, the First Amendment should not distract Congress from doing important business. The Senate companion bill (S. 1959), sponsored by Susan Collins, Maine Republican, has encountered little opposition. Especially in an election year, senators crave every opportunity to appear tough on terrorism. Few if any care about or understand either freedom of expression or the Thought Police dangers of S. 1959. Former President John Quincy Adams presciently lamented: "Democracy has no forefathers, it looks to no posterity, it is swallowed up in the present and thinks of nothing but itself." Denuded of euphemisms and code words, the Act aims to identify and stigmatize persons and groups who hold thoughts the government decrees correlate with homegrown terrorism, for example, opposition to the Patriot Act or the suspension of the Great Writ of habeas corpus. The Act will inexorably culminate in a government listing of homegrown terrorists or terrorist organizations without due process; a complementary listing of books, videos, or ideas that ostensibly further "violent radicalization;" and a blacklisting of persons who have intersected with either list. Political discourse will be chilled and needed challenges to conventional wisdom will flag. There are no better examples of sinister congressional folly. The Act inflates the danger of homegrown terrorism manifold to justify creating a marquee National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Ideologically Based Violence (Commission) in the legislative branch. Since September 11, 2001, no American has died from homegrown terrorism, while about 120,000 have been murdered. In the so-called post-September 11 "war" against international terrorism, Mr. Bush has detained only two citizens as enemy combatants. One was voluntarily deported to Saudi Arabia; the other was indicted, tried and convicted in a civilian court of providing material assistance to a foreign terrorist organization. And employing customary law enforcement tools, the United States has successfully prosecuted several pre-embryonic terrorism conspiracies amidst numerous false starts. Prior to September 11, homegrown terrorism consisted largely of Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph, the Unibomber and the D.C. Metropolitan area snipers. The Act, nevertheless, counterfactually finds "homegrown terrorism ... poses a threat to domestic security" that "cannot be easily prevented through traditional federal intelligence or law enforcement efforts." Twelve members of the commission will be appointed by the president and leaders in the House and Senate. They will predictably serve the political needs of their political masters. The commission's Big Brother task is to discover ideas and political associations, including connections to non-U.S. persons and networks, that promote "violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence in the United States." And "violent radicalization" is defined as "the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change." Under the Act, William Lloyd Garrison would have been guilty of promoting "violent radicalization" for publishing the anti-slavery Liberator in 1831, which "facilitated" John Brown. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton would have been condemned for assailing laws disenfranchising women and creating an intellectual atmosphere receptive to violence. And Martin Luther King, Jr. would have fallen under the Act's suspicion for denouncing Jim Crow and practicing civil disobedience, which "facilitated" H. Rap Brown. The commission will certainly hold choreographed public hearings. Witnesses will testify that non-Christian ideas or vocal challenges to the status quo promote "an extremist belief system" that facilitates ideologically based violence. Internet communications, the media, schools, religious institutions and home life will be scrutinized for promoting pernicious thoughts. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes observed in Gitlow v. New York (1925): "Every idea is an incitement. It offers itself for belief and if believed it is acted on unless some other belief outweighs it or some failure of energy stifles the movement at its birth. The only difference between expression of an opinion and an incitement in the narrower sense is the speaker's enthusiasm for the result." Lengthy lists of persons, organizations and thoughts to be shunned will be compiled. Portions of the Holy Koran are likely to be taboo. The lives of countless innocent citizens will be shattered. That is the lesson of HUAC and every prior government enterprise to identify "dangerous" people or ideas — for example, the 120,000 innocent Japanese-Americans herded into concentration camps during World War II. The ideological persecutions invited by the Act will do more to create than to deter homegrown terrorism. Mark Anthony's words in "Julius Caesar" are a fitting commentary on what Congress is prepared to enact: "O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason." Bruce Fein is a constitutional lawyer with Bruce Fein & Associates and Chairman of the American Freedom Agenda.
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#1. To: robin (#0)
...Portions of the Holy Koran are likely to be taboo Maybe it's my perspective ,but what is an otherwise good article correlates the Vatican's historical 'index of forbidden books', which, one can certainly argue the merit of the foridden list, but it's intent and context was religious in nature and did not bound citizenry of a country with criminal punishment if they ignored the warnings of the church. Catholics did not have to fear arrest and subsequent potential torture/ execution for breaking any govt 'law', because this was not a law. so therefore it is not comparable. Not coincidentally the author Fein (a jew?) then ends his article in reference to 'THE HOLY KORAN'(!)-oh so respectful and reverent, people don't usually , try never, refer to the koran in a secular article as 'the holy koran'. So this guy's bias negates promotion of this particular article, one which is an otherwise very good article, IMO. So I take it Fein's ''holy koran''(sic) never advocates oppression, self denial, or suggests limits on what what people do. Here is an interesting blip on the pre-mentioned 'index' You Must Not Read This! Younger readers may never have heard of the Index of Forbidden Books. (1) But those of us who lived before the Second Vatican Council will remember what it meant when someone said, "That book is on the Index." Any book on the Index was dangerous and forbidden to a good Catholic. Yet most Catholics, including the clergy, have never seen a copy of the famous (infamous to some) Index of Forbidden Books. It was with perseverance that I was able to procure and study the 1938 edition of this work. In the course of over 500 pages several thousand forbidden books are listed in detail. The text is in Latin with an Italian introduction by Cardinal Merry del Val first written in 1929. It is published by the Vatican. (2) One of the reasons why we do not hear about the Index of Forbidden Books today is that its publication came to a rather inglorious end in 1966 when Cardinal Ottaviani, head of the Sacred Congregation of the Faith, declared that there would be no further editions of the Index. (The latest edition was in 1948.) Yet Catholics are not so easily off the hook as far as the books on the Index are concerned. The New Catholic Encyclopedia admonishes that, "This does not mean, however, that whatever has been contained on the Index is now automatically permitted reading for all Catholics." (page 435) What kind of dangers lurked beneath the pages of these forbidden books? After all, the banning of books in our liberal tradition of freedom of expression and investigation seems quite undemocratic and runs counter to values we Americans hold dear. For centuries, however, the church as "custodian of divine revelation" felt bound in duty to protect the faithful from everything that would endanger faith or morals. (more)
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