[News] Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act Means a Crackdown on Dissent
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Tue Nov 20 19:21:10 EST 2007
Tuesday, November 20th, 2007
Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act Raises Fears
of New Government Crackdown on Dissent
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/20/1458214
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A little-noticed anti-terrorism bill quietly
making its through Congress is raising fears of a
new affront on activism and constitutional
rights. The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown
Terrorism Prevention Act was passed in an
overwhelming 400 to six House vote last month.
Critics say it could herald a new government
crackdown on dissident activity under the guise
of fighting terrorism. [includes rush transcript]
----------
A little-noticed anti-terrorism bill quietly
making its through Congress is raising fears of a
new affront on activism and constitutional
rights. The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown
Terrorism Prevention Act was passed in an
overwhelming 400 to six House vote last month.
Critics say it could herald a new government
crackdown on dissident activity and infiltration
of universities under the guise of fighting
terrorism. The bill would establish two
government-appointed bodies to study, monitor and
propose ways of curbing what it calls homegrown
terrorism and extremism in the United States. The
first body, a National Commission, would convene
for eighteen months. A university-based "Center
for Excellence" would follow, bringing together
academic specialists to recommend laws and other measures.
Critics say the bill's definition of "extremism"
and "terrorism" is too vague and its mandate even
more broad. Under a false veil of expertise and
independence, the government-appointed
commissions could be used as ideological cover to push through harsher laws.
Following last month's approval in the House, the
Senate version is expected to go before the Judiciary Committee this week.
* Jessica Lee, reporter for the
<http://www.indypendent.org>Indypendent,
published by the <http://nyc.indymedia.org>NYC
Indymedia Center. Her latest article is called
"Bringing the War on Terrorism Home: Congress
Considers How to 'Disrupt' Radical Movements in the United States"
* Kamau Karl Franklin, Racial Justice Fellow
at the NY-based <http://ccrjustice.org>Center for
Constitutional Rights. He is also co-chair of the
National Conference of Black Lawyers and serves
on the Executive Committee of the National Lawyers Guild.
AMY GOODMAN: A little-noticed anti-terrorism
bill, quietly making its way through Congress is
raising fears of the new affront on activism and
constitutional rights. The Violent Radicalization
and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act was passed
in an overwhelming 400-6 House vote last month.
Critics say it could herald a new government
crackdown on dissent and infiltration of
universities under the guise of fighting
terrorism. The bill would establish two
government-appointed bodies to study, monitor,
and propose ways of curbing what it calls
homegrown terrorism and extremism in the United
States. The first body, a national commission,
would convene for 18 months. The university-based
"Center for Excellence" would follow, bringing
together academic specialists to recommend laws
and other measures. Critics say the definition of
extremism and terrorism is too vague and its
mandate even more broad. Under a false veil of
expertise and independence, they say, the
government-appointed commissions could be used as
ideological cover to push through harsher laws.
Following last month's approval in the House, the
Senate version is expected to go before the
Judiciary Committee this week. Two guests join us
now in the Firehouse studio. Kamau Franklin is an
attorney with the Center for Constitutional
Rights. CCR has been closely following the
measure. And Jessica Lee with us. Shes a
journalist with the Indypendent, put out by the
New York Indymedia Center. She has an extensive
piece in the latest issue of the Indypendent. Its
called "Bringing The War On Terrorism Home:
Congress Considers How To 'Disrupt' Radical
Movements In The United States." Jessica, lets
begin with you. Lay out what this bill is.
JESSICA LEE: Thank you for having me. When I
first heard about this, I immediately did a
Google news search and was alarmed to find that
no media was talking about it whatsoever. So I
looked into the bill and are two things that
immediately jumped out of me. The first was that
there is a broad use of definitions and the
second is, who would they study? What does this
mean? I would first like to point out the two
definitions that many people I interviewed had
problems with. And if you wouldnt mind me just
reading them. The first is violent
radicalization. This term means the process of
adapting or promoting an extremist belief system
for the purpose of facilitating
ideologically-based violence to advance
political, religious, or social change. Many
people I interviewed were very concerned about
this. The second definition, which is homegrown
terrorism, talks about the planned use,
threatened use, of force or violence by a group
to intimidate or coerce the government of the
United States. When you think about these
definitions, what does that mean? When you look
at the activism going on today, is there planned
use of force or coercion going on? When you look
at what is going on in Olympia, with individuals
sitting down and blocking war shipments. When you
look at Code Pink going into Congress and
disrupting activities. Could this be included in
this definition? And thats what I went out to try to find my article.
AMY GOODMAN: Kamau Franklin, your concerns?
KAMAU FRANKLIN: Somewhere, as Jessica stated, the
broad definitions allow for new laws that can be
passed. that can basically equate social justice
activism and civil disobedience to terrorism in
some ways. So in the past if someone got charged
for blocking the street, there were charged with
disorderly conduct, or obstruction of
governmental administration. Now, after this
commission is done, if new laws are passed, with
the broadness of the definitions, the Feds can
now say well, wait a minute, you threatened the
use of violence or threatened the use of force.
And that by itself can mean that we can now
charge you with federal terrorist crimes because
we do not agree with the type of demonstration
that you were doing, we dont agree with the
point of view that you were having. So its the
broad based-ness, the breadth, the scope of the
inquiry, which is really threatening for
potential activists, people concerned with social
justice issues and civil libertarians, something
people should really be concerned about.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the groups you see.
KAMAU KARL FRANKLIN: Well, I see groups as folks
that are come out against the globalization,
anti-globalization activists, social justice
activists, animal rights activists. I think the
breadth is [extounding] in terms of what can be
covered. I dont think theres any limits placed on
who can be targeted by this particular act. I
think certain groups have already been singled
out, like folks that are fighting against some of
the globalization measures that are happening.
And I think that is really going to be scary.
Because The the sponsors of this bill are really
targeting this sect more than targeting anything else.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the groups, Jessica. In
particular, youve mentioned, for example,
Critical Mass, the cycling movement all over the country.
JESSICA LEE: Right. When I started to look into
this bill, what I found was a great influence by
the Rand Corporation, which is a government
affiliated think tank. Twice, Brian Michael
Jenkins, who is an expert on terrorism, gave
testimony in the House on this bill.
AMY GOODMAN: He is from the Rand Corporation.
JESSICA LEE: He is from the Rand, yes. They
largely tried to push this bill through on this
idea there are these extreme political Islamists
in our country and they did not do a very good
job stating the actual threat. But when you look
through the Rand Corporation's other reports in
2005, they had a report called Trends in
Terrorism. And they had one chapter called
Homegrown Terrorism Threats. When you look in
that chapter, theres nothing about political
Islamists. In fact, its all about anti-
globalization people on the right and left side
of the spectrum. The animal rights and the
environmental movements; and anarchists. And to
me I found that very interesting that that
testimony was not mentioned at all when this bill
was passed. That this legislation is not just
gonna look at so-called violent, religious
people, but also people who have been very strong
opinions against this administration.
AMY GOODMAN: In terms of the Rand Corporation, it
was Daniel Ellsburg who worked for the Rand
Corporation, when he have that many thousands of
pages on the history of the Vietnam war and the
Pentagon papers. So Rand is the key -- what would
you say, writer of the bill? And the
Congressmember whos most involved in this?
JESSICA LEE: Representative Jane Harmon, a
Democrat from California, has had a lengthy
relationship with the Rand Corporation. I called
several times to get comment from the Rand
Corporation, they said that their experts are out
of town and unavailable due to the holidays. So I
did not find out if they indeed did write the
bill themselves. What we do know is that have a
great influence and that they have had in the past.
KAMAU FRANKLIN: I just wanted to add to the Rand
comment, particularly with Brian Michael Jenkins,
supposed terrorist expert whos mainly known
according to Rand as someone who helped the
United States in counter-insurgency measures in
Vietnam, which is one of his claims to fame. In
addition to that, he wrote a book and in his own
book, I just want to quote that says "in their
international campaign, the Jihadist will seek
common ground with leftist, anti-American and
anti-globalization forces who will in turn seek
radical Islam comrades against a mutual foe." So
I think what Jessicas talking about, is that,
the breadth of it is not focused in on supposed
terrorists who are threatening the United States,
but folks who have real concerns about where this
country is heading, folks who express dissent in
various different ways including demonstrations
and marches. These are the folks who this bill potentially good target.
AMY GOODMAN: The Baltimore Sun has a column
called "Here Comes the Thought Police."
KAMAU FRANKLIN: I think theyre saying thought
because one of the important aspects of this
bill, also, is to it concentrates on the
internet as a place where terrorist rhetoric or
ideas have been coming across into the United
States and to American citizens. If, once again,
this bill reaches to become a law and that study
is done, who is to say that now after the study
is done, the recommendations wont get made to say
lets curb how the internet is being used, lets
put filters on what gets to come into the
country. You spoke a little bit about al-
Jazeera. Imagine after they take a look at this
and how al-Jazeera is viewed, one particular area
well say let's stop that I mean they stopped
that from coming in over a cable but, lets
stop that from coming from the internet. That
could be happening to thousands of web sites in the near future.
AMY GOODMAN: And local, federal cooperation among police, Kamau?
KAMAU FRANKLIN: Theres a New York study that was
done that also was a basis for some of where this
bill came from. These type of operations go
hand-in-hand with of course, joint task force. So
we truly would expect when they go around and
seek out experts and they talk to folks that it
would be talking to local police officials and
looking for ways in which they can work together
on this, where the local officials can seek
federal funding and they will come out and try to
use this and say let's target these particular
groups in our area that we know about. Once
again, no basis for terrorism, but theyve been
dissenters, they have their internet sites reviewed and we dont like those.
AMY GOODMAN: Jessica Lee, the Violent
Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention
Act was passed in the house 400-6. That is a very big margin.
JESSICA LEE: Correct. It was actually passed
under what is called the Suspension of the
Rules, which is a provision the House uses to
pass bills very quickly and these are usually
bills deemed uncontroversial and do not need more
debate. So we saw a quick vote. Six people voted
against. One was presidential candidate Dennis
Kucinich. He was unavailable for comment
unfortunately. So what we're seeing not only the
Republican congress giving the Bush
administration swath of powers to confront the
war on terrorism, but we are also seeing the
democratically-led congress also extending these powers.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the Center for Excellence.
JESSICA LEE: It would be one of the theres
already eight in existence, under the Department
of Homeland Securityg, and theyre based in
universities, they bring scholars together from
around the country, that are experts in a bunch
of different fields to study a particular thing.
This is someone who would want to study the
moment in which somebody who is a radical or
extremist will turn from being peaceful, having
those beliefs which are protected under the First
Amendment, to when they might become violent. I
found it very interesting because if you want to
study the moment in which somebody is going to
turn violent, don't you need to study them before
they turned violent? If so, arent you studying
First Amendment beliefs? I talked to a couple of
scholars who study this type of thing. One is
Braun Taylor who has studied the radical
environmental movement for about 15 years, and he
says if you really want to understand this stuff,
you have to go into the field, make human
interactions, build trust, and you have to talk
to them. It takes a long time. These people are
very wary to talk to academics in the first
place. So we are seeing the Center of Excellence
that is supposed to bring people together to
study these very people that are skeptical of
academics. Another interesting thing, the
national commission which has mandated to produce
three reports, each six months apart. The first
report is supposed to come out after six months.
How in the world can they possibly study these
very complex issues? They want to study the
social, criminal, political, psychological and
economic roots of terrorism. How are they
supposed to study this in six months and come up
with these recommendations, which in fact, are
going to be used to prevent, disrupt and mitigate
domestic terrorism in six months?
AMY GOODMAN: Kamau Franklin, Center for
Constitutional Rights, what are you doing about this?
KAMAU FRANKLIN: On our website, we have a lot
more information about what this bill is. In
fact, we have the different versions for people
to start to view. Were gonna call for some
actions in the next couple of weeks. We probably
agree that at this stage the Senate is also going
to pass their version of the bill. What is really
going to happen, where the fights really gonna
start to take place is in the forming of this
commission, watching this commission, responding
to its inquiries. In fact, doing demonstrations
against this commission. We think that is where
the real fight will be now is in the grassroots
who are gonna have to come out and really talk
about how they think this commission will not
really study terrorism but will study them. We
want to provide as much information as we can on
who should be the target of some of this work
that will have to be done. So when people go to
the website ccrjustice.org, theyll start to find
this information. In the next couple of weeks,
well rally start to target and hone in on who should be thought about.
AMY GOODMAN: Kamau Karl Franklin, Center for
Constitutional Rights and Jessica Lee, journalist
for the Indypendent. Thank you for being with us.
This is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war
and peace report. I'm amy Goodman. When we come
back, I will be joined by Marcel Khalife the Marcel.
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