Posted on 10/25/2001 4:00:37 PM PDT by real saxophonist
Terrorism bill goes too far
By Reggie Rivers
Denver Post columnist
Thursday, October 25, 2001 - Fortunately for all of us, the Denver Broncos are playing lousy this season and it seems unlikely that they'll make the playoffs. We're lucky, because if they were on track for another Super Bowl victory, we'd have to worry about massive terrorist arrests.
Congress has just finished crafting an anti-terrorism bill that will be sent to the president in the next couple of days, and among the many things legislators have done is create a new crime called "domestic terrorism."
According to section 803 of the bill, a person commits domestic terrorism if, within the United States, he engages in illegal activities that are dangerous to human life, and if those acts "appear" to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping.
That's a definition that encompasses all the young, dumb, drunk idiots who ran out of sports bars and rioted after the Colorado Avalanche Stanley Cup championship in 1996 and the Broncos Super Bowl victories in 1998 and 1999.
They broke windows, overturned cars, set fires, got into fights and generally engaged in intimidating, illegal activity that was dangerous to human life.
Remember the stupid people throwing objects onto the field at Mile High Stadium during the University of Colorado vs. Colorado State football game a couple of years ago? We complained then that it wasn't appropriate for the police to use pepper spray and tear gas against entire sections of the stadium. That's nothing compared to people who are now going to get sprayed with the terrorist label.
Let's say students get rowdy during an anti-war march or riot to protest other government decisions. The actions of people who break the law on those occasions already are subject to prosecution. This new legislation just adds the prospect of being called a domestic terrorist on top of that. And once that label is attached, it opens up the full complement of special laws created by this anti-terrorism package.
Imagine your college student was part of a drunken riot like the one we saw at CU a couple of years ago. It's bad enough that he did something stupid and is going to have to pay the price with an arrest record. But the new legislation allows the FBI, CIA, NSA, INS and any other law enforcement agency to pierce the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act to see if he's taking any suspicious classes or is associated with any suspicious clubs or people. They can find out his ethnicity and who pays his tuition.
If he comes home over Christmas, you might be guilty of harboring. Authorities could use their new Sneak-and-Peek privileges to search your home, look in your drawers, take pictures and download information from your computer without leaving you a note to tell you they were there.
If you're writing a check every month to pay the rent for your student's apartment, then you could be guilty of providing material support to a terrorist, and your bank account could be frozen. If your student is driving your car, then your vehicle could be seized. These are terrorists, after all, and anyone who supports or harbors a terrorist is as guilty as the terrorist himself.
Obviously, this isn't how we want the legislation to work, but given the broad definition that Congress has chosen, they've opened the door to turn ordinary domestic disturbances into acts of terrorism.
Hopefully it won't happen this way, but average Americans - and especially Arab-Americans - have to be acutely aware that Congress has sold us out. How far law enforcement goes with this is now entirely up to the investigators involved.
Former Denver Broncos player Reggie Rivers (reggierivers@clearchannel.com) writes Thursdays on The Post op-ed page and is a talk host on KHOW Radio (630 AM, weekdays from 3 to 5 p.m.).
Can you imagine what a Hillary! admin. would do with these laws? Faugh!
Any person who is an official or employee of any department, agency, bureau, office, commission, or other entity of the Federal Government, and any other person who is acting for or on behalf of any such entity, who, directly or indirectly, in connection with the administration of this title, corruptly demands, seeks, receives, accepts, or agrees to receive or accept anything of value personally or for any other person or entity in return for--
(1) being influenced in the performance of any official act;
(2) being influenced to commit or aid in the committing, or to collude in, or allow, any fraud, or make opportunity for the commission of any fraud, on the United States; or
(3) being induced to do or omit to do any act in violation of the official duty of such official or person,
shall be fined in an amount not more than 3 times the monetary equivalent of the thing of value, or imprisoned for not more than 15 years, or both. A violation of this section shall be subject to chapter 227 of title 18, United States Code, and the provisions of the United States Sentencing Guidelines.
Hell, that would mean that most of the personnel from the last administration and many of Bill the Rat's cronies should now be in the slammer.
You just can't get anymore Orwellian than that.
It's the truly worst example of law making to come around in a looooong looooong time.
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