Source/Credit: The Paris Post-Intelligencer
By Parispi | April 26, 2011
It's discriminatory and duplicates federal law
The Tennessee legislature should turn thumbs down on what’s billed as an anti-terrorism law, but which instead is a discriminatory witch hunt that invades federal responsibility. If our lawmakers pass it anyway, the governor should veto it.
Senate Bill 1028/House Bill 1353 was originally known as the “anti-Shariah law bill,” but after objections to its blatant bias against Muslims, all references to that religious code (not known to be practiced anywhere in Tennessee) were removed.
What’s left would allow the state attorney general and the governor, after investigation by the state safety commissioner and the homeland security director, to designate an organization as a domestic terror group. Once that designation is made, any contributions or other “material support” to that group would be illegal.
What’s wrong with that? Lots of things.
For one, designation as a terror group apparently could be based on an organization’s beliefs rather than on its actions. A group may never have been known to violate the law, yet they would be blacklisted. That smacks of Sen. Joe McCarthy’s pursuit of “Reds” in government which ruined careers in the 1950s.
Our Constitution has stern safeguards over the right to express views that are not in the mainstream. As long as they do not advocate violence against the government, people in this country are free to believe what they like, even if it’s hateful.
And speaking of hate groups, the author of the original bill presented to our legislature is an Arizona lawyer who heads the Society of Americans for National Existence, considered a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League.
Sponsors of the Tennessee bill say it contains “multiple internal checks and balances to protect against potential abuse” in the process of declaring an organization as terrorists. Those provisions should be thoroughly explained to the legislature and to the public to see whether they truly protect organizations from being branded merely for their beliefs.
The bill also would seem to confer on state officials powers now vested in the federal government to designate terrorist organizations. Federal agencies have expertise in this area that state officials lack.
The bill seems to be a thinly veiled attack on Muslim extremism. It is offensive to Tennesseans whose faith is Islam, and who have not been shown to be supportive of terrorism.
This bill goes the wrong way. It should be defeated.
-- Via @NJQRN
Read original post here: Anti-Muslim bill should be defeated
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