Charlie Turner’s piece in the Nov. 29 Commonwealth
Times was fascinating simply because his
outrage about the “violations” of our civil liberties
appears to stem from an article that was immensely
popular on the Web site Digg.com. This article
alerted the public to the “danger” presented to
the public in the form of an academic commission
that would be created by Congress, were this bill
to pass into law, to study how homegrown terrorism
(like the terrorists who have been active in
England recently) is facilitated by new technologies,
particularly the Internet. The fact that Mr. Turner
doesn’t mention the bill number (HR 1955) and
doesn’t seem to have quite read the bill thoroughly
leads me to believe that he does not fully understand
what it actually does. It is indeed sad to see that
Mr. Turner feels that the definitions given for
“violent radicalization,” “homegrown terrorism” and
“ideologically based violence” could lead toward
the creation of “thought crimes.”
While I am an enormous fan of George Orwell, I
think many of the opponents of this bill are perhaps
far too paranoid. Mr. Turner clearly misinterprets the
basis of this bill since I fail to see the possibility that
social activists, protesters and social justice crusaders
and yes, even socialists themselves, could be seen
as attempting to coerce or force the government
via ideologically based violence. The only social
group that I could possibly see fitting into these
paradigms of homegrown terrorist or violent radicals
would be groups already acknowledged as domestic
terrorist groups like the Environmental and Animal
Liberation Fronts (ELF and ALF, respectively) or
other anarchist protest groups, which are widely
acknowledged as groups that de-legitimize social
movements.
I applaud Mr. Turner’s concern for civil liberties,
liberties that have been under constant attack under
the current administration in large part because of
the Republican passivity as the majority congressional
party during this administration. However,
attacking a bill that would create grants and funding
opportunities for the academics’ study of terrorism
(just as the U.S. government did during the Cold
War with Russian studies programs) is absurd and
misconstrues the reality of HR 1955.
I suggest that next time you read an article
lambasting a bill, read the actual bill first and see
what you think. Form your own opinion and test
the validity of the author’s claims. Don’t just take
what someone says at face value.
-Mitchell Smiley