NEWS: CQ says 'Violent Radicalization & Homegrown Terrorism Act' is dead

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Congressional Quarterly's national security correspondent, Jeff Stein, reported in mid-December that the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Act" "died a quiet death in the Senate last week."[1]   --  So quiet that Paul Craig Roberts, generally a well-informed commentator, was still denouncing the bill three weeks later as an attack on fundamental American freedoms, on Jan. 9 the Ithaca Journal published an Op-Ed arguing against the bill, and Dan Scott posted a denunciation only last week on an Indymedia site.  --  These are only a few among a stream of criticism that continues to be directed against the allegedly defunct HR 1955, which passed the House on Oct. 23, 2007, by a vote of 400-6.  --  There seems to be no official record of the bill's death however, which was formally introduced in the Senate on Aug. 2, 2007....

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BACKCHANNEL CHATTER
By Jeff Stein

Congressional Quarterly
December 14, 2008

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=hsnews-000002643554

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Radical: Legislation to create a “National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism” (HR 1955) died a quiet death in the Senate last week. Much maligned here as a $22 million boondoggle, the idea to create yet another government entity to study an overblown threat already addressed by the $44 billion-a-year U.S. intelligence community, not to mention countless think tanks and authors, was the brainchild of Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif. A few years ago local police and the FBI broke up a prison-based plot to bomb synagogues in the name of jihad in her district. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, introduced a companion measure, but it was doomed by a lack of specificity on who the commission’s targets were, among other problems.

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