Atlas Shrugs has the full details, but it seems that free speech could now be considered a felony if you offend someone else.
Heh, I bet for once the left and the right blogosphere will be in agreement that this is a very very bad bill.
Read Atlas, then go read the bill in full here.
I do gather severe emotional distress would have to be proven in order to be convicted of the felony, but just the fact that someone could waste the courts time, cost a person money by hiring lawyers to defend their right of free speech is a path we truly shouldn't be traveling.
Then, we have this, just as worrying:
Amendments to the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act, which has already been passed by the House, would empower the Attorney General Eric Holder to define gun owners, anti-abortion activists and tax protesters as domestic terrorists in light of recent federal reports that classify millions of Americans as “extremists”.Read the rest at Civics News.
Former impeached Florida judge and now Democratic Congressman Alcee Hastings has introduced amendments to H.R. 2647: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010, which would give Holder dictator powers to demonize legitimate protest groups as being affiliated with violent race hate organizations.
The bill is ostensibly aimed at preventing race “extremists” and gang members from joining the Army, but since the Army already hires felons, criminals, racists and gang members, the real purpose behind the legislation is to codify the move to label gun owners, “anti-government” activists and tax protesters as domestic terrorists, a process that has been ongoing since at least the start of the decade.
The bill’s definition of “people associated or affiliated with hate groups” include, “Groups or organizations that espouse an intention or expectation of armed revolutionary activity against the United States Government,” or “Other groups or organizations that are determined by the Attorney General to be of a violent, extremist nature.”
The evidence required to show that such an organization is affiliated with a violent hate group includes people possessing tattoos identifying them with the group, individuals who attend conferences or rallies sponsored by a “hate group,” people who engage in online discussion forums of an “extremist” nature, people who possess documents, books or photographs or simply “related materials as defined by the Attorney General” that represent “hate propaganda.”
The amendments introduced by Hastings were passed by the House and the bill now moves on to the Senate for approval before it is signed by the President.
Still waiting for the ACLU to throw a fit over this but as of right now, I can't find anything out of them.
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