By Abigail D.

Imagine this. You are sitting at a meeting of Quakers (curiosity got the best of you). After the quiet prayer meeting, some folks in the group start talking about how this country is fueled by greed, banks are failing, and how some of them were going to start pulling their money out of banks and pooling it amongst themselves. Others agreed and talked about the prospects of such action. Then they started talking about how nice it would be if the US got back to an agrarian society and how a different Quaker chapter in another state had bought land and started a self contained community based on trading for goods rather than buying and selling. These ideas get tossed around for another 5-10 minutes when all the sudden, 6 FBI officers armed for battle bust the door down and yell at everyone to hit the floor. One man gets up and walks over to an FBI agent. He pulls out a small recording device hidden inside his shirt, hands it to him, and walks out the door. After he leaves, everyone in the room is put under arrest. Their crime? Domestic Terrorism.

What? Quakers labeled as terrorists? That makes no sense.

That’s true, but under the recently passed Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, anyone who does not fall in line with the “system” can be considered a terrorist. HR 1955 as it is referred to, was passed by the House of Representatives in October 2007 by a vote of 404-6 and is currently being considered in the Senate with an excellent chance of it passing. Under this bill, anyone who has ideas that go against the United States government could be considered a terrorist and punished as such. This is a thought crime bill, plain and simple.

The language of the bill is so vague it can be loosely interpreted to fit the agenda of any presidential administration. The terms defined within the bill give cause for much concern. Homegrown Terrorism is defined 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 segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”

In the above sentence, force is differentiated from violence implicating that force does not necessarily mean violence. The Miriam-Webster dictionary defines force in a number of different ways:

1. The strength or energy exerted that causes motion or change
2. active power
3. moral or mental strength
4. the capacity to persuade or convince
5. an individual or group having the power of effective action, and
6. the quality of conveying impressions intensely in writing or speech.

According to the above definition, someone would be using force to further their political or social objectives by simply writing a very compelling and persuasive essay or being a part of an activist organization who were effecting change in some way or a librarian who ordered books by Mumia Abu-Jamal.

There are a couple other terms defined in the bill: violent radicalization and ideologically based violence. Violent Radicalization is “..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 text goes on to define ideologically based violence as “the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual’s political, religious, or social beliefs.” So here it is. If you promote a belief system that the government deems extreme (such as not wanting innocent people to be murdered by the state or not wanting animals to be tortured in slaughter houses or seeking to abolish government all together), and you are using force (non-violent protests, etc) or violence to do so , you could be called a terrorist.

This bill is the brain-child of Rep. Jane Harman, a Democrat from California. It is a bi-partisan bill that was brought to the floor as a “suspension bill” meaning its supposedly a non-controversial bill and needs no open debate. It was passed by a simple vote of yea or nay. In this bill, Congress establishes their take on domestic terrorism and why there is a need for the bill. Among their findings they state that domestic terrorists are a definite threat to homeland security, that traditional law enforcement will not suffice to stop these “terrorists” from succeeding in their mission to bring change, that the internet has aided in radicalizing “terrorists” in the US by giving people access to a wide range of propaganda, and that the US must step up its efforts to fight this domestic war against terrorism.

The purpose of the bill is to establish a ten person committee, appointed by high ranking government officials, to investigate why domestic terrorism exists and what the government can do to fight against it. They are given all power to conduct their research such as free range to classified information, the ability to convene hearings to question people, and have all the agencies of the federal government at their fingertips. After 18 months of putting Americans under intense scrutiny, most likely groups like religious Muslims, The New Black Africans, Environmental Activists, the Revolutionary Communist Party, Anarchists, Peace Activists, and any other grassroots organizations where people are effecting change in some way, they will submit their report to the Big House. This report will detail “legislative recommendations” and “measures that can be taken” to prevent us evil people from furthering our evil ideas. After this, they want to establish a “university-based Center of Excellence for the Study of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism in the United States”. This center shall “assist Federal, State, local and tribal homeland security officials through training, education, and research in preventing violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism in the United States.”

Some critics of this bill say that it is not even necessary, that its just another way to give a few people a job for 18 months and another way to waste tax-payers money. The federal, state, and local governments have already teemed up to fight against the threat of domestic terrorism. As far back as 2002, they established the first “fusion centers” in a number of cities throughout the country. As of today, there are almost 60. These fusion centers are a way for state and local agencies to collaborate information amongst themselves and pass it on to the federal government and vice-versa. They are operating with little to no oversight and continue to increase their scope of what and who they feel they need to collect information about. Officials who frequent the fusion centers have top-secret clearance and have access to classified national security systems, such as secret telephones and the Homeland Security Data Network, a secure Web portal containing “sensitive intelligence and privacy related information.” It is plain to see the government is struggling to keep its grip on the lives of Americans who are getting increasingly disgusted with its web of lies and destructive, oppressive tendencies.