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Chronology of Islam in America (2012)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
March 2012
Big Brother: Watching over you
March 2012: New technology is allowing businesses as well as government to read the contents of our internet exchanges. Internet service providers stand to gain from this access until there is legal control over the export of surveillance equipment. The technology is innocuously named “deep packet inspection” (DPI). When someone sends an email, a series of servers relays it to its destination. Each server sends the message on to the next, looking only at the recipient’s address, and not at the contents. An expert on internet law, Jonathan Zittrain, explained: “It’s a bit like being at a party with polite friends. If you’re too far from the bar, or there are too many people in the way, you ask the person next to you to get you a beer. They ask the person next to them, who is a bit closer to the bar, and so on. Eventually your order reaches the bar and your beer arrives via the same route back. Since everyone is polite, no one will have drunk your beer along the way.” But DPI is less polite. How would you feel if the person next to you analyzed your order, and started lecturing you about it? Or if they tampered with your drink, adding water or something stronger? This is exactly what DPI technology can do: it allows people to read the content of internet traffic, modify it, and even send it to someone else. Amesys is not alone in this market. US press agency Bloomberg recently reported that another French company, Qosmos, had provided DPI technology to a consortium equipping Syria to the same standard as Gaddafi’s Libya (3). DPI is also at the heart of China’s firewall, which allows the government to censor internet traffic and spy on its citizens.
Legal surveillance
Another natural market for DPI technology is legal surveillance. In France police sometimes monitor a suspect’s communications as part of a judicial investigation, authorized by a judge and the National Committee for the Control of Security Interceptions. But this is a niche market, concerning a very small proportion of the population. Unless they were counting on another huge rise in the anti-terrorist budget, it would make sense for businesses in this sector to look for other commercial outlets. That is where the governments of police states, which want to listen to their entire populations, come in. Surveillance software can be tested in these countries under real conditions. That is why Ben Ali’s Tunisia received a discount on systems that still had bugs. Libya provided Amesys with a real life experiment of what Eagle software could or could not do. Alcatel is doing the same in Burma. The information gathered by DPI inevitably leads to arrests. (Torture, using tried and tested methods, can do the rest.) [Big Brother: Watching over you By Antoine Champagn - Le Monde Diplomatique]
U.S. Court Approves Warrantless Searches of Cell Phones
March 1: U.S. police can search a cell phone for its number without having a warrant, according to a federal appeals court ruling. Officers in Indiana found a number of cell phones at the scene of a drug bust, and searched each phone for its telephone number. Having the numbers allowed the government to subpoena the owners’ call histories, linking them to the drug-selling scheme. One of the suspects, Abel Flores-Lopez, who was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison, argued on appeal that the police had no right to search the phone’s contents without a warrant. The U.S. Court of Appeal for the 7th Circuit rejected that argument yesterday, finding that the invasion of privacy was so slight that the police’s actions did not violate the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches. The case gave the court an occasion to examine just how far police can go when it comes to searching electronic gadgets. [Reuters]
Ten Civil rights groups urge investigation into Muslim spying
March 1: In Hartford, Connecticut, ten civil rights organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut, are calling on state law enforcement officials, local elected officials and two major universities, to investigate the New York Police Department's unlawful racial profiling and surveillance of Muslims in Connecticut. In letters mailed yesterday, Feb. 29, to mayors, first selectmen, the state Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection and the presidents of Yale University and the University of Connecticut, the groups' request an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice into the New York Police Department's activities. A recent Associated Press report revealed that the Islamic Institute of Ahl'albait in West Hartford was among the targets by the New York Police Department. A secret police document obtained by the Associated Press shows that the NYPD recommended increasing surveillance of thousands of Muslims and their mosques based solely on their religion. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said the NYPD never considers religion in its policing. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has said police only go where investigative leads take them. But the document lists no leads justifying spying at Shiite mosques. The organizations that signed the letter are: the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut; the Council on American-Islamic Relations - Connecticut; the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund; the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School; the New England Muslim Bar Association; the Muslim American Civil Liberties Coalition; Desis Rising Up and Moving; the Connecticut Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild; The Civic Trust Public Lobbying Committee; and The Bill of Rights Defense Committee. The letter is also signed by Hartford City Councilperson Luis E. Cotto. The African-American Affairs Commission was unable to sign the letter before it was mailed but endorses it. [WFSB]
Florida House passes 'anti-Sharia' bill despite protests
March 1: A proposal critics say targets Islam passed the Florida House today despite heated opposition from two Jewish Democratic lawmakers who called the bill unnecessary and discriminatory. The House passed the bill 92-24, but the measure will stall in the Senate unless leaders steer it to the floor. Muslim, Jewish and activist groups united against HB 1209 as it advanced through the hearing process in recent weeks. About 50 opponents drove to Tallahassee Tuesday only to be shut down when time-crunched lawmakers skipped witnesses and passed the bill in a 5-2 vote. Critics have dubbed it the bill as “anti-Sharia,” referring to the Koran-based code of some Islamic countries. “I’ve received thousands of emails from constituents who oppose this,” said Schwartz, who fought the bill with Rep. Jim Waldman, D-Coconut Creek. In floor debate, Waldman repeatedly hammered Rep. Larry Metz, R-Eustis, the bill’s sponsor, to describe the bill’s intent. [The Miami Herald]
Demographic concern prompted S. Dakota anti-Sharia bill
March 2: South Dakota legislators this week overwhelmingly approved the so-called anti-Sharia bill. The measure, which is expected to be signed into law in the next two weeks by Republican Gov. Dennis Daugaard, attempts to avoid legal shoals by barring enforcement of "religious code" by U.S. courts, rather than focusing on foreign laws as other state laws have done. Nonetheless, civil rights advocates are vowing to challenge the bill, saying it violates the First Amendment. Beyond that, critics say the South Dakota bill and similar legislation in other states unfairly stigmatize Muslims by signaling that their religious beliefs are dangerous to society and may gradually undermine American democracy. This bill was motivated by a "growing demographic concern in Sioux Falls," Gov. Daugaard’s general counsel Jim Seward said, referring to the influx of immigrants from majority Muslim countries. "If HB 1253 were signed into law today, it would be a blatant violation of the Establishment Clause" of the First Amendment, CAIR’s Abbas said in a letter to Daugaard on Wednesday. "It would also communicate to the world that South Dakota does not welcome religious minorities." The South Dakota bill does exactly what that Oklahoma legislation did, "albeit in a slightly more general manner," said CAIR’s Abbas, who was involved in the successful challenge to the Oklahoma measure. [MSBNBC]
AIPAC Works for the 1 Percent
March 5: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, does not drive Middle Eastern policy in the United States. I am afraid it is worse than that. AIPAC is one of an array of powerful and well-funded neoconservative institutions that worship force and drive our relations with the rest of the world. These neoconservatives choose an enemy and then our compliant class of journalists, specialists, military analysts, columnists and television commentators line up to serve as giddy cheerleaders for war. Moments like these always make me embarrassed to be a reporter. Our political elite, Republican and Democrat, finds in this ideology a simple, childish allure. This ideology does not require cultural, historical or linguistic literacy. It reduces the world to black and white, good and evil. The drumbeat for war with Iran sounded by AIPAC is part of this broad, sick, binary vision of a world that can be subjugated by force, a world where all will be made to kneel before these corporate and neoconservative elites, where none, including finally us, will be permitted to whisper dissent. [Chris Hedges – OpEdNews]
Minnesota Anti-Sharia bill dropped following CAIR news conference
March 5: The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MN) announced today that a lawmaker in that state's legislature will drop a proposed "anti-Sharia" bill written using a template provided by an anti-Islam extremist, Yerushalmi. That announcement came following a news conference CAIR-MN held earlier today with interfaith leaders to challenge the threat to religious freedom posed by the bill. In announcing his decision to drop the bill, Republican State Senator Dave Thompson said: "It was never my intent to introduce legislation that was being targeted to any one group." According to media reports, Thompson's anti-Islam bill (S2281) was a "boilerplate copy-pasted verbatim from a far right policy group." Yerushalmi is head of the anti-Islam hate group Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE), which once offered a policy proposal that would make "adherence to Islam" punishable by 20 years in prison, called for the immediate deportation of all non-citizen Muslims and urged Congress to declare war on the "Muslim Nation," which SANE defined as "all Muslims." The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) named Yerushalmi a member of the "anti-Muslim inner circle." [CAIR]
Admin's defense of extrajudicial killings infuriates ACLU, Civil Libertarians
March 5: Today Eric Holder gave a speech essentially justifying the extrajudicial killings of American citizens based on suspected terror activity--with a "due process" as determined by the executive branch. He laid out the following conditions for "lethal force”: “Let me be clear: an operation using lethal force in a foreign country, targeted against a U.S. citizen who is a senior operational leader of al Qaeda or associated forces, and who is actively engaged in planning to kill Americans, would be lawful at least in the following circumstances: First, the U.S. government has determined, after a thorough and careful review, that the individual poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States; second, capture is not feasible; and third, the operation would be conducted in a manner consistent with applicable law of war principles.” The primary point that riled Holder's critics was his assertion that due process did not necessarily mean due judicial process--that the process undergone by the President's branch of government would, in the above cases, be enough, without going through the courts. The ACLU, which had filed suit on this issue over the case of Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed by a U.S. drone strike along with a son after being placed on a government "kill list," makes it clear why Holder's explanation doesn't hold water and reaffirming the role of checks and balances. [Alt.Net]
Congress votes to end protesters' rights
March 5: Last week, the Senate unanimously passed a bill that would severely limit the First Amendment rights of protesters. Now known as the “anti-Occupy law,” H.R. 347 makes it a federal offense to “enter or remain” in an area designated as “restricted.” As RT.com (via the ACLU blog) put it: Under the act, the government is also given the power to bring charges against Americans engaged in political protest anywhere in the country. The new legislation allows prosecutors to charge anyone who enters a building without permission or with the intent to disrupt a government function with a federal offense if Secret Service is on the scene… It also restricts access to buildings or grounds that are connected to a “special event of national significance,” or a National Special Security Event, which are so categorized by a simple stroke of the pen by the Department of Homeland Security.
If President Obama signs the bill into law, it means that any person protesting a Romney or Santorum event (since they enjoy Secret Service protection) could potentially be arrested, fined, and incarcerated for a year. It means that protest of national or global summits could be punishable under federal law. It means that government workers striking outside of government buildings or ‘special events’ could be thrown in jail. And it means that certain Occupy gatherings would be expressly forbidden. H.R. 347 is the definition of authoritarianism. It is a serious and blatant violation of the First Amendment rights of every American citizen. And it should be repealed immediately.
Conveniently, this bill would also undermine protest efforts at the upcoming Democratic and Republican National Conventions. Congressmen Justin Amash (R-MI), one of the few to oppose the bill, has published this on his FB page: Current law makes it illegal to enter or remain in an area where certain government officials (more particularly, those with Secret Service protection) will be visiting temporarily if and only if the person knows it’s illegal to enter the restricted area but does so anyway. The bill expands current law to make it a crime to enter or remain in an area where an official is visiting even if the person does not know it’s illegal to be in that area and has no reason to suspect it’s illegal. (It expands the law by changing “willfully and knowingly” to just “knowingly” with respect to the mental state required to be charged with a crime.) [Alternet]
Congress votes to end protesters' rights
March 5: Last week, the Senate unanimously passed a bill that would severely limit the First Amendment rights of protesters. Now known as the “anti-Occupy law,” H.R. 347 makes it a federal offense to “enter or remain” in an area designated as “restricted.” As RT.com (via the ACLU blog) put it: Under the act, the government is also given the power to bring charges against Americans engaged in political protest anywhere in the country. The new legislation allows prosecutors to charge anyone who enters a building without permission or with the intent to disrupt a government function with a federal offense if Secret Service is on the scene… It also restricts access to buildings or grounds that are connected to a “special event of national significance,” or a National Special Security Event, which are so categorized by a simple stroke of the pen by the Department of Homeland Security.
If President Obama signs the bill into law, it means that any person protesting a Romney or Santorum event (since they enjoy Secret Service protection) could potentially be arrested, fined, and incarcerated for a year. It means that protest of national or global summits could be punishable under federal law. It means that government workers striking outside of government buildings or ‘special events’ could be thrown in jail. And it means that certain Occupy gatherings would be expressly forbidden. H.R. 347 is the definition of authoritarianism. It is a serious and blatant violation of the First Amendment rights of every American citizen. And it should be repealed immediately.
Conveniently, this bill would also undermine protest efforts at the upcoming Democratic and Republican National Conventions. Congressmen Justin Amash (R-MI), one of the few to oppose the bill, has published this on his FB page: Current law makes it illegal to enter or remain in an area where certain government officials (more particularly, those with Secret Service protection) will be visiting temporarily if and only if the person knows it’s illegal to enter the restricted area but does so anyway. The bill expands current law to make it a crime to enter or remain in an area where an official is visiting even if the person does not know it’s illegal to be in that area and has no reason to suspect it’s illegal. (It expands the law by changing “willfully and knowingly” to just “knowingly” with respect to the mental state required to be charged with a crime.) [Alternet]
Oklahoma pastor urged to drop anti-Muslim agenda
March 7: A Muslim civil rights organization is asking an Edmond (Oklahoma) pastor to drop his anti-Muslim agenda, which includes spreading false information, the group says. Muneer Awad, executive director of the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, issued a press release calling on Fairview Baptist Church to drop its anti-Muslim agenda citing the purported views of a speaker scheduled to appear at the church Wednesday evening.
The release states that Jewish author and speaker Avi Lipkin claims President Barack Obama is an undercover Saudi Arabian “Muslim plant” in the White House and that Muslims worship the devil. According to Lipkin’s bio posted on the website of Connections (www.yourisraelconnection.org) he has been a spokesman for the Israel Defense Force (reserves) and is a former senior editor and translator for the Israeli government press office under Prime Minister Shamir. Lipkin wrote “Obama, non-proliferation treaty and Israel,” a column posted at WebToday.com, self-advertised as a conservative and Christian online daily news resource. “Today, the United States has a president by the name of Mubarack Hussein Obama,” Lipkin wrote. “Until proven otherwise by a real live birth certificate, I would rather believe that according to the U.S. Constitution, this president is ineligible to be president of the U.S. because he was born in Kenya, not the U.S.” Lipkin listed six media reports his wife picked up at Kol Israel radio in the Arabic language as a monitor during the past decade. He states: Obama’s “biological father and step-father were Sunni Moslems and that he was raised until age 11 in Islamic schools and mosques in Islamic Indonesia. This makes Obama a Moslem according to the Moslem faith” and that his wife “picked up a Nile TV broadcast in which Egyptian Foreign Minister Abul Gheit said on the ‘Round Table Show’ that he had had a one-on-one meeting with Obama who swore to him that he was a Moslem, the son of a Moslem father and step-son of Moslem step-father, that his half-brothers in Kenya were Moslems, and that he was loyal to the Moslem agenda.” Obama maintains that he is a Christian. Lipkin’s column concludes, “We must pray for a Christian Revival for Israel’s Survival. We must work together to prevent the Islamic Holocaust staring us in the face.” [The Edmond Sun]
Oklahoma pastor urged to drop anti-Muslim agenda
March 7: A Muslim civil rights organization is asking an Edmond (Oklahoma) pastor to drop his anti-Muslim agenda, which includes spreading false information, the group says. Muneer Awad, executive director of the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, issued a press release calling on Fairview Baptist Church to drop its anti-Muslim agenda citing the purported views of a speaker scheduled to appear at the church Wednesday evening.
The release states that Jewish author and speaker Avi Lipkin claims President Barack Obama is an undercover Saudi Arabian “Muslim plant” in the White House and that Muslims worship the devil. According to Lipkin’s bio posted on the website of Connections (www.yourisraelconnection.org) he has been a spokesman for the Israel Defense Force (reserves) and is a former senior editor and translator for the Israeli government press office under Prime Minister Shamir. Lipkin wrote “Obama, non-proliferation treaty and Israel,” a column posted at WebToday.com, self-advertised as a conservative and Christian online daily news resource. “Today, the United States has a president by the name of Mubarack Hussein Obama,” Lipkin wrote. “Until proven otherwise by a real live birth certificate, I would rather believe that according to the U.S. Constitution, this president is ineligible to be president of the U.S. because he was born in Kenya, not the U.S.” Lipkin listed six media reports his wife picked up at Kol Israel radio in the Arabic language as a monitor during the past decade. He states: Obama’s “biological father and step-father were Sunni Moslems and that he was raised until age 11 in Islamic schools and mosques in Islamic Indonesia. This makes Obama a Moslem according to the Moslem faith” and that his wife “picked up a Nile TV broadcast in which Egyptian Foreign Minister Abul Gheit said on the ‘Round Table Show’ that he had had a one-on-one meeting with Obama who swore to him that he was a Moslem, the son of a Moslem father and step-son of Moslem step-father, that his half-brothers in Kenya were Moslems, and that he was loyal to the Moslem agenda.” Obama maintains that he is a Christian. Lipkin’s column concludes, “We must pray for a Christian Revival for Israel’s Survival. We must work together to prevent the Islamic Holocaust staring us in the face.” [The Edmond Sun]
Islamic school in Missouri cancels classes after word of 'protest'
March 8: In Ballwin, Missouri, an Islamic school has canceled classes for Friday after parents and faculty expressed concern about a Christian group gathering outside the school to distribute religious materials. “We sent a notice to parents that attendance was optional in case they didn’t feel comfortable,” said Donna Bari, a spokesman for Al-Salam Day School, which serves about 300 students in grades kindergarten through eighth. As a result, Bari said, the principal and the school board agreed to close the school for the day. The school sits next door to Daar-ul-Islam mosque, also known as the Islamic Foundation of Greater St. Louis. Reclaiming Missouri for Christ group planned passing out packets including DVDs featuring people who have converted to Christianity from Islam. The packets also contain Bible scripture “highlighting Jesus Christ.” “Reclaiming Missouri for Christ is not an organization. It is a vision. It is a mission,” the website says. “Messages of repentance, personal responsibility, liberty, and holding our public officials responsible before God have been forsaken and replaced with messages of social justice, personal affluence, and political correctness. These messages have nearly destroyed this nation.” [Salt Lake Today]
The radical right grew explosively in 2011
March 9: The radical right grew explosively in 2011, the third such dramatic expansion in as many years. The growth was fueled by superheated fears generated by economic dislocation, a proliferation of demonizing conspiracy theories, the changing racial makeup of America, and the prospect of four more years under a black president who many on the far right view as an enemy to their country. The number of hate groups counted by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) last year reached a total of 1,018, up slightly from the year before but continuing a trend of significant growth that is now more than a decade old. The truly stunning growth came in the antigovernment “Patriot” movement — conspiracy-minded groups that see the federal government as their primary enemy. The Patriot movement first emerged in 1994, a response to what was seen as violent government repression of dissident groups at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992 and near Waco, Texas, in 1993, along with anger at gun control and the Democratic Clinton Administration in general. It peaked in 1996, a year after the Oklahoma City bombing, with 858 groups, then began to fade. By the turn of the millennium, the Patriot movement was reduced to fewer than 150 relatively inactive groups. But the movement came roaring back beginning in late 2008, just as the economy went south with the subprime collapse and, more importantly, as Barack Obama appeared on the political scene as the Democratic nominee and, ultimately, the president-elect. Even as most of the nation cheered the election of the first black president that November, an angry backlash developed that included several plots to murder Obama. Many Americans, infused with populist fury over bank and auto bailouts and a feeling that they had lost their country, joined Patriot groups. The swelling of the Patriot movement since that time has been astounding. From 149 groups in 2008, the number of Patriot organizations skyrocketed to 512 in 2009, shot up again in 2010 to 824, and then, last year, jumped to 1,274. That works out to a staggering 755% growth in the three years ending last Dec. 31. Last year’s total was more than 400 groups higher than the prior all-time high, in 1996. Meanwhile, the SPLC counted 1,018 hate groups operating in the United States last year, up from 1,002 in 2010. That was the latest in a string of annual increases going all the way back to 2000, when there were 602 hate groups. The long-running rise seemed for most of that time to be a product of hate groups’ very successful exploitation of the issue of non-white immigration. Obama’s election and the crashing economy have played a key role in the last three years. [Southern Poverty Law Center]
SPLC: U.S. anti-Muslim hate groups triple in 2011
March 9: The number of anti-Muslim groups tripled in 2011, jumping from 10 groups in 2010 to 30 last year. That rapid growth in Islamophobia, marked by the vilification of Muslims by opportunistic politicians and anti-Muslim activists, began in August 2010, when controversy over a planned Islamic cultural center in lower Manhattan reached a fever pitch. Things got worse later in the year, when Oklahoma residents voted to amend the state constitution to forbid the use of Islamic Shariah law in state courts — a completely unnecessary change, given that the U.S. Constitution rules that out. The overheated atmosphere generated by these events also helped spur a 50% jump in the FBI’s count of anti-Muslim hate crimes in 2010. Then, in March 2011, U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) held hearings on the radicalization of U.S. Muslims that seemed meant to demonize them. At the same time, there was a swelling of truly vicious propaganda like this remarkable Jan. 14, 2011, comment from columnist Debbie Schlussel: “They are animals, yes, but a lower form than the dog, as they won’t learn to change their behavior for a carrot or a reward.”
Anti-Muslim hate groups are a relatively new phenomenon in the United States, most of them appearing in the aftermath of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Earlier anti-Muslim groups tended to be religious in orientation and disputed Islam’s status as a respectable religion. All anti-Muslim hate groups exhibit extreme hostility toward Muslims. The organizations portray those who worship Islam as fundamentally alien and attribute to its followers an inherent set of negative traits. Muslims are depicted as irrational, intolerant and violent, and their faith is frequently depicted as sanctioning pedophilia, marital rape and child marriage. These groups also typically hold conspiratorial views regarding the inherent danger to America posed by its Muslim-American community. Muslims are depicted as a fifth column intent on undermining and eventually replacing American democracy and Western civilization with Islamic despotism. Anti-Muslim hate groups allege that Muslims are trying to subvert the rule of law by imposing on Americans their own Islamic legal system, Shariah law. Anti-Muslim hate groups also broadly defame Islam, which they tend to treat as a monolithic and evil religion. These groups generally hold that Islam has no values in common with other cultures, is inferior to the West and is a violent political ideology rather than a religion. [Southern Poverty Law Center]
NYPD kept secret files on Muslim-owned businesses
March 9: The New York Police Department kept secret files on businesses owned by second- and third-generation Americans specifically because they were Muslims, according to newly obtained documents that spell out in the clearest terms yet that police were monitoring people based on religion, the Associated Press reported today. The AP Report said: “In late 2007 plainclothes officers in the department's secretive Demographics Unit were assigned to investigate the region's Syrian population. Police photographed businesses and eavesdropped at lunch counters and inside grocery stores and pastry shops. The resulting document listed no threat. And though most people of Syrian heritage living in the area were Jewish, Jews were excluded from the monitoring. "This report will focus on the smaller Muslim community," the report said. Similarly, police excluded the city's sizable Coptic Christian population when photographing, monitoring and eavesdropping on Egyptian businesses in 2007, according to the police files. "This report does not represent the Coptic Egyptian community and is merely an insight into the Muslim Egyptian community of New York City," the NYPD wrote.” [AMP Report]
The Criminalization of Protest: Say Goodbye To Free Speech in America
March 9: A new bill, HR 347, the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011, also known as the “Trespassing Bill,” is soon to be signed into law by President Obama. This bill effectively criminalizes protest and will hurt protest groups and movements such as Occupy quite hard. The bill as states that anyone who knowingly “enters or remains in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority to do so” with the “intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, engages in disorderly or disruptive conduct in or [in] proximity to, any restricted building or grounds” or “impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions” will be punished with a fine or “or imprisonment for not more than 10 years, or both.” There are already many problems with the bill as it does not attempt to define what “imped[ing] or disrupt[ing] the orderly conduct of government business or official functions” is, nor does it specify what “government business” is or what an “official function” is. This vagueness will allow for the US government to effectively stifle protest and free speech, thus criminalizing such actions like the upcoming Occupy Chicago anti-NATO/G-8 protests. In addition to this, such a law will make it impossible for Americans to exercise their First Amendment rights when “government business” is being attended to or “official functions” are occurring. Unsurprisingly, only three people voted against the measure: Paul Broun (R-GA-10), Justin Amash (R-MI-3) and Ron Paul (R-TX-14). This law would allow federal law enforcement “to bring these charges against Americans engaged in political protests anywhere in the country, and violators will face criminal penalties that include imprisonment for up to 10 years.” HR 347 will is ripe for abuse, as the NYPD has, as of recent, assumed the notion that taking photos and videotaping is a form of disorderly conduct. The fact that only three people in the House, all Republicans oppose the bill and absolutely no Democrats, only shows just how both parties are just two sides of the same coin. This law comes at the heels of the US government having debated over whether or not to indefinitely detain US citizens and Attorney General Eric Holder- the Obama administration’s version of John Yoo, arguing that the President can assassinate US citizens without providing any evidence whatsoever to anyone. Free speech may very well soon be nothing but a distant relic of the past. [By Devon DB - Global Research]
After easy house passage, anti-Sharia bill dies in Senate
March 10: Assailed by Muslim groups and quashed by Senate President Mike Haridopolos, an anti-Sharia law bill died in the Florida Legislature today. Senate Bill 1360 would have restricted state courts from considering foreign laws in most cases. Authored by Sen. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, the bill was identical to HB 1209, which easily passed the House 92-24. But Hays' bill became ensnared in a late-breaking political controversy when proponents distributed fliers and a pamphlet decrying the alleged intrusion of Islamic law into America's courts. The Council on American-Islamic Relations and another Muslim group, United Voices for America, condemned the leaflets, as well as the legislation -- even though the bill did not specifically reference Sharia or any religious law. A delegation of Muslim and other religious leaders met with Haridopolos' chief of staff earlier in the week to demand that Hays' measure be postponed pending an investigation of the fliers. Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, made no public statement about the controversy, but refused to call the bill for a vote in the waning hours of the 2012 session Friday.David Yerushalmi, author of similar legislation being considered in other states and a defender of Hays' bill, deferred comment on the situation pending the close of the session. "The people's representatives will do their job as they deem appropriate. If it passes, good. If not, there's always next legislative session with a new freshman class," said Yerushalmi, who is legal counsel at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Security Policy and author of "American Laws for American Courts." [Sunshine State News]
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