The Sons of Liberty

George Orwell = Prophet? The house of representatives recently passed with a huge majority HR 1955, which, under the guise of protecting us from “homegrown terrorists”, would in effect make it unlawful to even to adopt a specific belief system.  This is essentially “Thought Crime” legislation.  This is seriously scary shit, not to mention being completely unconstitutional, and we really need to put a stop to it.

I couldn’t find a way to link directly to the full text of the resolution, but here’s how to get there if you wan to read it:

Go Here —> http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.html

Search for the term ‘H.R.1955′

This resolution has already been passed by the house and is currently under review in the Senate. If you want to help stop this resolution from becoming law, contact your Senators as soon as possible. I’ve copied the text of a sample letter you are welcome to use that was posted by our friends over at http://www.dailypaul.com

Dear Senator ________,

As you know, “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech” (Amendment I to the U.S. Constitution). Yet, the House of Representatives has passed HR 1955, which states:

The term `violent radicalization’ means 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.

(HR 1955, emphasis mine)

While violent thoughts, speech, and writings may be anathema, they are clearly protected under United States law. In *Yates v United States*, the court wrote that “advocacy of forcible overthrow of the government” was *protected speech* under the First Amendment.

The court further expanded the protection of the First Amendment in *Texas**v Johnson *, when it noted that “if there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea offensive or disagreeable.”

Though its supporters may argue that HR 1955 solely addresses speech meant to directly incite violence (which would not protected under *Schenck v. United States*), this is an inapplicable argument, because HR 1955 oversteps the boundaries of prohibiting inciteful speech and instead prohibits “the adopting . . . a belief system.” It is impractical, impossible, and unconstitutional to determine if “an extreme belief system” is explicitly “for the purpose of facilitating . . . violence” and it is further impossible to determine what belief system someone has adopted

There is simply no good way to reliably determine the intent of someone’s speech until their intentions become actions. There is no way at all to determine the purpose of someone’s adopted system of beliefs. HR 1955 and the commission it would create would encourage law-enforcement agencies around the nation to engage in domestic pre-emptive strikes based on nothing more than assumptions, lies, and flawed intelligence. We do not need to make thoughts and beliefs a crime in order to combat terrorism. Such laws would only drive terrorists further underground, making attacks more likely and America less safe.

We cannot subject our minds to searches for weapons that do not exist. I implore you to vote your oath, uphold the Constitution of the United States of America, and never let HR 1955 become law.

Sincerely,

We can still stop this blatant infringement on our freedom of speech, but only if we all take action.

Tags: constitution, first amendment, freedom of speech, Orwell, Politics, thought crime

This entry was posted on Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 2:50 am and is filed under History, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.