Bad IdeasThe law promoting outstanding excellence in fighting terrorism—and why you never heard about it.
Posted Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2007, at 6:52 PM ET
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StumbleUponHarman was apparently inspired to act by a foiled 2005 prison-based plot in Los Angeles to attack synagogues during Jewish holidays. But her opening remarks reveal that the government already does a pretty good job of foiling those plots, and she's after something else entirely.
Look carefully, and you learn that Harman's real targets aren't the homegrown plotters so much as their legal Web sites. In her remarks, she thus leads with Samir Khan, the North Carolina blogger whose jihadi Web site showcases Osama Bin Laden's videos and other anti-American propaganda. Vile, but legal. She moves on to another interrupted plot—by Ahmed Mohamed and Youssef Megahed—but focuses on their YouTube video. She rounds up her case with California native Adam Gadahn's 45-minute Internet video, called "An Invitation to Islam."
The name of Harman's hearing was "Using the Web as a Weapon: The Internet as a Tool for Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism." And in those same introductory remarks, Harman fretted that Americans in search of radicalization "no longer need to travel to foreign countries or isolated backwoods compounds to become indoctrinated by extremists or learn how to kill their neighbor. On the contrary, the Internet allows them to share violent goals and plot from the comfort of their own living rooms." Let's be honest, then. The point of this new legislation isn't just to interrupt existing homegrown terror plots but to do something about the radical ideas that inspire them. That may be a worthy goal, but it's assuredly a goal that implicates protected speech.
Careful readers have picked up all of this, and that's where the second group of critics come in. From Jeralyn Merritt, who called it a "thought crimes bill," to Ralph E. Shaffer and R. William Robinson, who worry that the commissions are granted wide-ranging authority "to hold hearings, take testimony and administer oaths," almost all of those who view this new law with genuine fear, as opposed to contempt, focus on the bill's overbroad definitions. "Homegrown terrorism" and "violent radicalization," as defined here, may encompass thoughts, ideas, and plans, not just acts or conduct. This is an attempt to get at radical ideas.
I am not yet willing to panic about Harman's "thought crimes" bill, because as drafted, it does no more than explore whether those thought crimes are a problem. It doesn't create new crimes, although that is presumably the next step. I don't much care for the idea of roving commissions with subpoena power skipping around the country trying to stamp out "radical" ideas on the Internet. But as expensive threats to free speech go, I'll take a time-limited commission over a bill that criminalizes speech. Maybe I'm being shortsighted, but then the Democrats in Congress have taught me to keep my expectations very low. Today, therefore, I am profoundly grateful that instead of criminalizing protected speech outright, Democrats merely form a commission that will do a study, which will in turn christen a Drive-Thru Center for Excellence, where they will someday consider criminalizing protected free speech.
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