The Bill that no one will talk about

From the Hartford Advocate:

Full disclosure: according to a staff member from the office of Hartford’s own Congressman John Larson, this article is “not a good story.” It wasn’t worth our time to write it, nor the Congressman’s time to discuss it, and probably not worth your time to read it either. Nothing to see here, people. Move along. Worthwhile or not, the story’s about a bill that recently passed the House of Representatives and looks on track to pass the Senate and be signed into law. Over 98 percent of Congressmen, including all five from Connecticut, voted in favor of it (the final count was 404 to 6), and when a bill passes with such a high majority it’s usually easy to find among that 98 percent a few Congressmen willing to go on the record to say “I voted for this incredibly important bill because blah blah blah.”

Not this time. No one who voted for the bill wants to talk about it. And when we called Larson’s D.C. office hoping to chat, staff member Emily Barocas said: “I used to be a journalist — I was on NPR — so I know where you’re coming from. I know what it’s like to want to get that big scoop, but this isn’t it … I know a good story from a bad story. This isn’t a good story.”

[...]

What is this Bill of Mystery, that Congresspeople will vote for yet not discuss? It’s called the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, also known as HR 1955, and one of the first things it says is that “Congress finds … The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to ... terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.”

Four hundred and four Congressthugs voted for it, and yet this newspaper can't get any of them to say why they voted for it. The only answer they can get is, trust us, it's not really that important anyway.

“Violent radicalization,” one of the threats the bill seeks to curb, is defined there as “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.”

Extremist views such these, for example:

Gun Control is a conspiracy to enslave us starting with the removal of our ability to either defend ourselves or forcefully change our government.

All judicial authority resides with the people. The jury, not the Judge, directs trials and can nullify laws they do not approve of.

U.S. sovereignty is being surrendered to the U.N., World Court, and World Bank, with the U.S. becoming an economic region of this New World Order.

And as Kucinich said in the article, acts of violence are already illegal. This is nothing but the criminalization of thought.

And if this is mere paranoia, then why won't those who voted for it explain why and how it is not criminalization of thought, instead of just saying, trust us, it's really no big deal.

Besides, we're way past slippery slope time. Just ask this Constitutionalist.

The sheriff said the decision to use SWAT team force was justified because the father was a "self-proclaimed constitutionalist" and had made threats and "comments" over the years.

UPDATE: Here's another source for that last linked story, via Say Uncle.

via Bill of Right Defense Committee and The War On Guns