Source: www.newstarget.com

Senate Bill 1959 to Criminalize Thoughts, Blogs, Books and Free Speech Across America
by Mike Adams

The end of Free Speech in America has arrived at our doorstep. It’s a new law called the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, and it is worded in a clever way that could allow the U.S. government to arrest and incarcerate any individual who speaks out against the Bush Administration, the war on Iraq, the Department of Homeland Security or any government agency (including the FDA). The law has already passed the House on a traitorous vote of 405 to 6, and it is now being considered in the Senate where a vote is imminent. All over the internet, intelligent people who care about freedom are speaking out against this extremely dangerous law: Philip Giraldi at the Huffington Post, Declan McCullagh at CNET’s News.com, Kathryn Smith at OpEdNews.com, and of course Alex Jones at PrisonPlanet.com

This bill is the beginning of the end of Free Speech in America. If it passes, all the information sources you know and trust could be shut down and their authors imprisoned. NewsTarget could be taken offline and I could be arrested as a “terrorist.” Jeff Rense at www.Rense.com could be labeled a “terrorist” and arrested. Byron Richards, Len Horowitz, Paul Craig Roberts, Greg Palast, Ron Paul and even Al Gore could all be arrested, silenced and incarcerated. This is not an exaggeration. It is a literal reading of the law, which you can check yourself here: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h1955_rfs.xml

The bill states:

‘…ideologically based violence’ means 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…

Note that this means the “planned use of force to promote a political or social belief” would be considered an act of terrorism. This all hinges on the definition of “force,” of course. Based on the loose use of logic in Washington these days, and the slippery interpretation of the meaning of words, “force” could mean:

• A grassroots campaign to barrage Congress with faxes
• A non-violent street protest
• A letter-writing campaign that deluges the Senate with too much mail
• A sit-in protest that blocks access to a business or organization
• A grassroots e-mail campaign that overloads the e-mail servers of any government department or agency

You get the idea. “Force” could be defined as practically anything. And since the “planned use of force” would be considered a criminal act of terrorism, anyone who simply thinks about a grassroots action campaign would be engaged in terrorist acts.

If you stopped someone on the street and handed them a Bible, for example, this could be considered an act of terrorism (“…use of force to promote the individual’s religious beliefs…”)

If you sent a barrage of angry letters to Washington about global warming and the destruction of the environment by the U.S. military, this could also be considered an act of terrorism (“…to promote the individual’s political beliefs…”)

If you believe in same-sex marriage and you wrote a letter threatning a sit-in protest in front of your state’s capitol building, this could also be considered an act of terrorism, even if you never carried it out! (“…planned use of force to promote a social belief…”)

The United States is on the fast track to fascism, and the Congress is working right alongside this nation’s traitorous leaders to criminalize any thoughts, words or speeches that disagree with current government policies regarding war, terrorism, domestic surveillance and civil liberties. Simply speaking out against the war on Iraq could soon be labeled a crime. Merely thinking thoughts against the war on Iraq could be considered a criminal act.

I have been fortunate enough to be in communication with RSF from the start of DBTB. In my recent discussion with Mr. Julien Pain (Head of the Internet Freedom Desk at RSF), we were both in agreement that the blanket ban was not just an a strong interference for Pakistani bloggers but may actually turn into a deterrence where some bloggers might just get fed up with the problems with the accessing their blogs and give up blogging altogether. We cannot allow this to happen. With that concern in mind I have a small reminder for blogspot domain bloggers to please source alternate solutions for hosting your blog. Launch a new blog on typepad, wordpress or livejournal, until such time when a concrete solution is provided to you for accessing your blogspot blog so you can permanently transfer all your old posts to your new blog. The point is to continue blogging and invite others to blog. I realize that there are no guarantees with either of these other blog solutions but it is most likely to be better than blogspot.

To additionally encourage Pakistani bloggers to exercise the right to free speech, DBTB would like to announce a small writing competition which for Pakistan based bloggers. RSF which provides a paid solution for prominent political and social bloggers to host their blogs at the RSF blogging platform, has decided to award a free blog, on my behest, to the winner of this competition. The topic for the writing competition will obviously will have to do with free speech. The formal announcement and rules of the competition will soon be highlighted on DBTB blog, Bloggers.Pakistan, and the respective blogs of the DBTB team members.

What is the advantage of (winning and) owning a blog at rsf.org?

- Your blog will be associated with an NGO that defends press freedom and the rights of bloggers and journalists.
- Your address will be myblog.rsfblog.org
- You can contact others in the rsfblog community, people who know about and are interested in what’s happening on the other side of the world and care about human rights
- What you post may be picked up on the front page of “Looking at the world through Blogs,” a website that reviews what bloggers everywhere are doing.
- Your details will remain totally confidential. Unlike hosts such as Yahoo! or Google, who in the past have worked with authorities in repressive countries by providing private information.
- This blog is the least likely to cause you problems as it is a paid service platform and should provide you the requisite support technically and in support of your free speech.
- It is just one of the ‘coolest’ blog addresses to have on the internet!

That’s all for now but I hope to bring you more DBTB updates and hopefully some concrete solutions to the Pakistan blogging ban issue.