[Infowarrior] - New domestic terror bill proposed

[Richard Forno]

MinMon audio: Coleman co-sponsors troubling, under-the-radar domestic
terrorism bill
by: Steve Perry
Tue Apr 15, 2008 at 3:26:12 PM

http://minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3719

Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman is the Senate co-sponsor of a little-noticed
domestic anti-terrorism bill that could carry us several steps closer to the
good old days of the House Un-American Activities Committee and Joe
McCarthy. The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act
(S.1959) is currently in committee after passing the House last year with no
media scrutiny and no real debate by a 404-6 margin. The primary sponsor of
the Senate bill is fellow Republican Susan Collins of Maine.

The purpose of the measure is to create a permanent federal commission to
scrutinize radicals and would-be terrorists, and to fund a series of
university-based centers devoted to ferreting out and tracking the dangerous
subversives among us. The latter would operate under the auspices of the
Department of Homeland Security. A handful of critics from the blogosphere
and the legal world have called out the measure on grounds that it its vague
mandate amounts to criminalizing dissent. But even in the civil liberties
demi-monde, it seems to be making little impact.

One reason the bill has attracted so little attention: It's a thoroughly
bipartisan push that actually originated in the Democratic party. Though the
Senate version is sponsored by two Republicans, the House version that
passed last year was introduced by a Democrat, Jane Harman of California,
and 10 of her 14 co-sponsors were also Democrats.

I contacted Peter Erlinder, a former president of the National Lawyers Guild
and a constitutional criminal law professor at William Mitchell in St. Paul
who has spoken up against the bill. "If politically motivated violence is
what this war [the 'war on terror'] is about," he tells Minnesota Monitor,
"we can put virtually any definition to it that we choose to. Even, for
example, something like a demonstration against the World Trade Organization
where there might be some broken windows. Even the Republican National
Convention in St. Paul this fall would carry with it the possibility that
there might be some acts that are not completely passive. Under this
definition, anyone associated with those acts, even if they didn't intend
the result, could conceivably find themselves being investigated by a
commission like this."

Currently S.1959 is before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs. Asked about the status of the bill at a Martin Luther
King Jr. Day appearance in St. Paul, Coleman reportedly told the audience
that he had no plans to try to bring it to the floor in this session. Even
if true, that suggests it could well be an early item of congressional
business during the administration of President Clinton/McCain/Obama.

More from Peter Erlinder regarding S.1959:

"We've had experience with this sort of thing before," notes Erlinder. "The
legislation not only sets up a study mechanism. It sets up a commission
structure that would permit the Congress to organize commissions that would
travel around the United States to see who, in any local area, might fit the
definition.

"It's similar to the hearings that the House Un-American Activities
Committee had from the '30s through the '70s. 'Un-American activities' is a
term that's just as broad as 'homegrown terrorism' or 'violent
radicalization.' There is no there there. [HUAC] was set up in order to
study Nazi infiltration in the United States. After WWII, however, its
character changed as the political climate changed. It then became the
committee that was used to investigate alleged communist ties that people
had. And because 'un-Americanism' is something that's in the eye of the
beholder, the committee would travel around the country having hearings to
find out who was un-American in any particular community.

"The problem is that legislative commissions like this have the power of
contempt, so that if a person either doesn't answer questions because they
don't want to expose their friends to liability, or they don't appear, they
can be held in contempt of Congress and be sentenced to prison as a result.
Under the HUAC period, that was about two years. So the Hollywood 10, when
they refused to name names, were given two years. Under the current state of
the law, however, the terrorism enhancements for criminal sentences have
been used to extend contempt sentences from two years to 10 years. So people
who don't appear before this commission, or don't answer questions the way
the commission thinks they should, could face up to 10 years in prison for
failing to cooperate."