Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is made a highly disturbing proposal that people who visit sites that are deemed as favoring terrorist groups. As articulated by Gingrich in his Fox News interview, the proposal would eviscerate the first amendment and leave that government in a position to regulate speech and association based on an ill-defined standard. Gingrich also attracted criticism for his proposal to test Muslims to allow for deportation of anyone who “believes in Sharia” — a proposal that would sanction peoplr for their religious and political views.
Gingrich told Sean Hannity:
Sharia is incompatible with Western civilization. Modern Muslims who have given up Sharia, glad to have them as citizens. Perfectly happy to have them next door. But we need to be fairly relentless about defining who our enemies are. Anybody who goes on a website favoring ISIS, or Al Qaeda, or other terrorist groups, that should be a felony, and they should go to jail.
I have been a long critic of Sharia systems and I share the view that it is incompatible with Western values of due process and free speech. Yet, Gingrich combines his criticism with a proposal that itself would deny the very rights threatened by Sharia systems. People can check out these sites for a variety of reasons. Journalists and columnists routinely visit such sites. So do academics and curious citizens. Moreover, people are allowed to read about and support such causes so long as they do not offer material support to a terrorist organization.
If Gingrich were successful, what would stop another Administration from declaring other sites as the basis for arrest like militant pro-life sites or Black Lives Matter sites or militant environmental sites? Once you give the government the power to effectively criminalize ideas or associations, the desire to expand such prohibited zones becomes insatiable as authoritarian figures in China, Iran, and most recently Turkey have shown.
What do you think?
Here is an excerpt: “In 2013, The Guardian revealed that the FBI had spied on activists organizing opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline. The agency “collated inside knowledge about forthcoming protests, documented the identities of individuals photographing oil-related infrastructure, scrutinized police intelligence and cultivated at least one informant.” The FBI later confirmed that the investigation violated its own guidelines.
In 2011, an executive with Anadarko boasted that his company was deploying military-like psychological warfare techniques to deal with the “controversy that we as an industry are dealing with,”
I think this is good cop/bad cop tactics. Newt says exactly what the govt. is doing. Democrats freak out because a Republican said it. Democrats pay little attention to the fact that Democrats are already doing what Newt just said.
Here is an example: https://theintercept.com/2016/07/19/blm-fracking-protests/
This pattern reverses when a Republican is in charge. Bush backers wouldn’t admit “their guy” would ever break the Constitution–no, that’s what Democrats do.
My hope is that citizens will quit falling for good cop/bad cop and start thinking about what is actually happening.
shohrss29,
But these camps will have free wifi!
bettykath… huh??? better check out the Patriot Act. I wouldn’t count on those articles to keep anyone from a one-way vacation in a former cold war rendering facility not of your choice.
@bettykath
The UN? Hilarious!
Try selling that in Egypt or Istanbul or Saudi Barbaria.
Let me know how that works out.
Technology to know everything about everyone is inevitable and irresistible to those who want to attain and retain power. It will be a race between the machines and the autocrats as to which will destroy civilization first.
For those who think that non-citizens have no rights:
Article 6.
Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
Article 7.
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.
I keep telling you and telling you:
The Constitution is dead.
The Constitution is no more! It has ceased to be!
It’s expired and gone to meet its maker!
It’s a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace!
If SCOTUS didn’t keep honoring it in the breach, it’d be pushing up daisies!
Its metabolic processes are now history!
It’s off the twig!
It’s kicked the bucket, shuffled off this mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!!
Good ole eye of newt! He is openly stating what is already happening. USGinc. regularly monitors your twitter, FB, all other social media, blog comments-where you go on the net, who you meet in person. This is known through FOIA requests and I refer people to The Intercept (whose, BTW, super rich backer Pierre, is also is involved in this monitoring citizens to the hilt) for the original FOIAs so you can read it for yourself.
The FBI came for friendly tea and crumpets, visiting activists in Cleveland, including people who had no intention of going or protesting at the RNC, before the circus even began. This will happen prior to the DNC as well.
From what I see the govt. is getting more and more blatant in what it will say and what it will do. The police state is here already. One look at the military police confronting unarmed protesters in Baton Rouge should make that very clear.
Newt is simply making the future explicit for us. You already can’t visit sites without being logged and monitored. People have been arrested just for going to them, or perhaps they get that special one on one visit with a member of one of the many US “intelligence” agencies arrayed against our citizens. After 9/11, the events of whom were linked to Saudi Arabia (the redacted 28 pages have been released), Muslims were simply taken from their home. Some got rendered, tortured and killed. They didn’t have to be Sharia law supporters either.
So, yes, Newt is evil. I thank him for pointing out what the “liberal”, Nobel peace prize president is already authorizing against our citizens.
I never, ever believed our nation could sink so low. Not ever.
Sure why not? It’s not like we have a govt. that can force you to buy something or tell you you can’t have a 60 watt light bulb. Oh, wait, we do have that govt.
Newt is competing w/ Obama to for the annual Orwell Award.
I don’t believe that accessing a website should be illegal. The only time I ever heard of that is in connection with kiddie porn. I believe (not sure) that federal law prohibits even accessing that on the Internet. Although I suppose it could be argued that accessing sharia law on the internet is equally dangerous, given the recent violence in the U.S. and Europe by its adherents.
As to potential immigrants, however, it must be remembered that they are not protected by U.S. laws and have no right to enter this country and no protections under the Constitution. Any sovereign country must retain the right to select which potential immigrants are the desirable, from any number of standpoints, including skills, education, health, and culture. I believe that sharia law is so inherently incompatible with American culture, law and values, that I would support banning any of its adherents from entering the U.S. Given the massive immigration over the past three decades, however, I think that the U.S. would be wise to halt ALL immigration for awhile, to give us a chance to assimilate those who are here, and to reassess our immigration needs. The government could easily and justifiably take a break from all immigration, and thereby avoid the unnecessary controversy of singling out any particular group.
The obvious dividing line and contention area is are they already citizens or not. Apples and Oranges.
Those seeking to join our culture must be willing to put aside their old culture completely and accept ours completely. Showing up at an immigration wearing a mask is not a good sign.
The harder issue is those already citizens. While the first group has zero citizenship rights the second group has all citizenship rights. Are they clearly defined? No they are not. When rogue cities declare them selves safe spot for honor killers. we’ve got a problem
I’m speaking in extremes because extremes are what is resulting from allowing non citizens rights in advance. Those already slipped in are going to be a problem let it be a police and judicial matter like any other crime.
OR change the law.
Normally I would be against this but in this case I think of Sharia like a disease that needs to be eradicated. We are letting disease ridden people into the US without checking them or curing them. If we cured people of Sharia then I would be fine with them coming in.
I do not agree with the criminalizing of sites though.
Well, depending on the ATTITUDE of the visitor, a person visiting the ruins of the World Trade Center in Manhattan might be considered to be visiting a site “deemed ‘favoring’ terrorist groups.” The thought police will have a field day with this one.
Justice Holmes
Do you think he had a mind to begin with?
What if the government kept track of everyone who reads Squeeky’s Irish Poems?
Good ol’ J. Edgar would’ve probably considered them quite subversive.
Anyone here familiar with the history of the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses?
Did someone hack your website and post this item? I’m certain a person of your intelligence wouldn’t write such an illiterate post.
I have said for over fifteen years that once the government makes the requisite infrastructure to completely watch everything people do on the Internet, it only takes a change in the intents of our government before we are transformed into a police state.
Now, our government has that infrastructure and the best way the can take away our liberty is to achieve this one small step at a time.
Mr. Gingrich’s suggestion is a step in that direction.
Well, after WWII the Germans cracked down on free speech for quite a few years. I think it was only recently Germans could sing the Horst Wessell song. I think this is a bit of a stretch though. Plus, isn’t it better to track people who go to those websites???
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Newt has lost his flippin mind!