Fighting terrorism is hard, but fighting the Big Brother bureaucrats in Washington is even harder.
While Osama bin Laden’s tapes keep coming from who-knows-where, the D.C. bureaucrats act in the open and often vote in unison. Such is the case of a congressional bill destined to become law.
The so-called Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act recently cleared the House with more than 400 representatives voting in favor. Its champion is local Rep. Jane Harman, D-Venice, who is summoning the spirits of national security and congressional oversight to fight “radicals” in the United States.
The Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act says it will do a lot but can prove little of it.
It will mainly distribute money to two new bodies: a “National Commission” and a “Center of Excellence,” both dedicated to the study of ideologically based violence. Together, they will report on the roots of radical thought and propose legislation to intercept violent acts.
In her testimony to the House floor, Harman argued: “Our plan must be to intervene before a person crosses that line separating radical views from violent behavior. … The legislation before us today offers us this opportunity.”
The bill is the most recent example of a decadent government eager to pat itself on the back but cautious to actually change the world dynamics that cause people to use violent methods.
Scrutinizing lawful activists in order to determine if their movements could become violent is too far removed from the threat of al-Qaida and similar groups.
In promoting the Homegrown Terrorism Act, Harman’s own statement to the House floor failed to give a clear example for organized terror in this country. She simply said, “Think of Timothy McVeigh or Theodore Kaczynski.” Pointing to the Oklahoma City bomber and others, however, refers us to individual attackers, not the social movements meant for study under this bill.
Harman, for example, thought it would be imprudent last year to enact a resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide, citing that doing so would add to instability in the Middle East.
Nonetheless, she voted to authorize military force in Iraq in 2002.
Pardon me, but I think the largest military in the world is more destabilizing than a resolution based on facts.
Kamau Karl Franklin, a racial justice fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, said the bill was simply “a tool of the government against dissenters.” He added, “It can potentially scare people away from forms of activism that are protected under the law.”
The awkward wording of the bill comes into play here. When separating the concept of force from the concept of violence, both could be prosecuted ““ even nonviolent acts of force such as blocking a street, or taking over a building.
Despite the opposition, the Homegrown Terrorism Act will surely become law after receiving 404 votes in the House. With this latest edition, we can already mark up the 21st Century “Anti-terrorist” Bill Hall of Fame.
First they came up with the USA PATRIOT Act. Fresh off the tragic events of Sept. 11, the politicos in D.C. thought it would be appropriate to take shelter under a catchy legislation name to succeed in “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.”
Translation: wiretap our phones, supervise our reading interests and database all our information, down to the last Facebook poke.
The long name was a mouthful, but it stands as one of the most cleverly assembled yet viciously misleading acronyms ever.
Then we had the infamous anti-immigrant bill that sparked the largest marches in the United States since the Civil Rights Movement.
Even though its call to fame was in its number, HR 4437 also had a name that reeked of rhetorical propaganda: the “Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism and Immigration Control Act of 2006.”
Immigrants! Terrorists! Mexicans! All the same if you were listening to the congressional justifications for it. The scope of the anti-immigrant bill was quite broad; it would have nearly criminalized the reading of this column.
This is how our government works.
The end result? Give money to researchers at the “Center for Excellence,” shut the idealist activists up, feel good about your work, and don’t really do anything about stopping terrorism abroad.
Ask Ramos what kind of radical he is at mramos@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.