Legislation

Mr. Speaker, I rise to restore the right the founding fathers saw as the guarantee of every other right by introducing the Second Amendment Protection Act. This legislation reverses the steady erosion of the right to keep and bear arms by repealing unconstitutional laws that allow power-hungry federal bureaucrats to restrict the rights of law-abiding gun owners.

A storm of liberal criticism erupted today over a Justice Department draft of legislation to increase the law enforcement powers it won in 2001 in the U.S.A. Patriot Act. Although a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, Barbara Comstock, insisted that the draft represented nothing more than staff discussions, copies were sent to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and to Vice President Dick Cheney in his capacity as president of the Senate.

\266Invalidate state legal consent decrees that seek to curb police spying. The authors argued such orders could hinder terrorism investigations.

\266Eliminate the requirement that the attorney general personally has to authorize using certain intelligence evidence in a criminal case, permitting him to designate an assistant attorney general to make such authorizations.

\266Allow the collection of DNA samples by "such means as are reasonably necessary" from suspected terrorists being held by federal authorities. Failing to cooperate would be a crime.

\266Flatly bar Freedom of Information Act efforts to gain information about detainees, because litigation over such issues costs the Justice Department resources.

\266Allow citizenship to be stripped from people who support groups that the United States considers terrorist organizations.

According to the definitions in this bill, "terrorism" (punishable by life imprisonment -- no provisions for lesser sentences) is defined to include a number of very broad activities, including "disruption" of public assemblies, commerce, transportation systems, schools, or government institutions. The bill indicates that "conspiracy to commit terrorism" is itself an act of terrorism.

It's obvious that these definitions are so broad that even peaceful protests fall easily under the definition.

This proposed policeware would restrict what we can and cannot do with our own personal computers in our own homes and businesses. Any person who disables this policeware would be subject to five years in federal prison and a $500,000 fine. We believe this proposed bill is a severe threat to the freedoms we enjoy as Americans. The very idea of forcing government policeware into our homes and businesses, and jailing those who tamper with or refuse to run this policeware on their own private computers, is terribly wrong and completely contrary to both the letter and spirit of our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

A bipartisan group of senators called on Congress Thursday to pass a hate-crimes bill, saying that such a move is necessary to curtail acts of violence directed at specific classes of people. The legislation, opposed by many conservatives, would add tools for local and federal officials to use to prosecute crimes stemming from an individual's hostility toward another person because of race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, ethnicity or disability.

Folks, crimes are crimes. If you beat up someone for any reason, that is a crime. Hate is not a crime. Hate is an opinion. Opinions are protected under the First Amendment. We can disagree with them, but we cannot make them illegal.

OREGON'S SENATE Bill 742, section 19, chapter 666 (here) defines the "unlawful labeling of a sound recording" as terrorism and would make it punishable by a minimum life sentence of 25 years in prison without parole. After 25 years (if they're fortunate) the state might allow them to find "employment at a forest or work camp" or other similar "post prison supervision".

This is just disgusting.

In a Wednesday speech at the FBI academy in Quantico, Va., Bush called for three new law enforcement powers that had been included in early version of the 2001 law, known as the USA PATRIOT Act, but that were stripped before its enactment. On Tuesday, lawmakers introduced two new bills, H.R. 3037 and H.R. 3040, that would address two of those three powers.

The first bill would authorize executive-branch officials to seize Americans' records in terrorism cases without any form of judicial review. The other measure would reverse the burden of proof by which individuals could be held without bail in cases involving terrorism. The third power, not addressed in either bill, would expand the death penalty in terrorism cases.