I'm not going to claim to have watched the entire video or to have read the entire bill in question. No offense, SeoReborn, but the videos you've posted in the past have definitely been enough for me to not waste my time watching any more you post.
However, curious about what you were tin-foil-hatting this time, I checked out the link you posted. Unfortunately, the author of the article you posted to is clearly either an alarmist or ignorant... though likely a combination of both.
I quote:
‘...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
Now that is just damn funny. I don't know about you, but "
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" sure sounds like something that should be dealt with. Of course, the author decides to blow this way out of proportion and starts to claim that the law will be interpreted in such a way that pretty much anybody who disagrees with the government will be labeled a terrorist and be thrown in jail. Sure seems like a stretch to me.
The author then lists some examples that supposedly will fall under the definition of "force" in the new law. Now, I again doubt any of those items listed will ever be labeled a terrorist act, though I must say all but one could definitely be considered a crime. Flooding any office with an excess of email, faxes, or mail should at least be met with a fine, if not some other minor form of punishment. Just as you can't spam people with email, you sure shouldn't be able to overflow an office with junk mail. Hell, I think they need to extend the Can Spam law to deal with physical junk mail because I'm damn tired of dealing with flyers and mail that I'll never read and just end up throwing away.
"A sit-in protest that blocks access to a business or organization". Uh, that's already against the law if I'm not mistaken. You can strike and protest all you want, but you can't block access to buildings. If I owned a retail business and some organization decided to protest it by completely blocking access, I'd be pretty damn pissed if I wasn't able to get the police down there to break it up.
Now with that all being said, if the bill is merely adding more punishment for acts labeled "acts of terror" then I'd likely be against it. A murder is a murder in my book. Just as the whole hate crime thing is hilariously misguided. Why would murdering somebody based on prejudice be worse than just murdering somebody because they looked at you funny? Same with terrorism. If somebody murders somebody because they were doing it for some terroristic (no idea if that's a word) means, then it shouldn't be any more or less punishable than merely murdering your wife because she cheated on you.
The bill does seem to talk about appointing more people to positions dedicated to stopping terrorism, which could be good if done correctly or could be a waste of time and money if it's just another useless bureaucratic layer created for the sake of creating it.
