USA180 has analyzed the bill here:
http://www.usa180.org/
USA180 has put up a petition to STOP this bill here:
http://www.petitiononline.com/
Currently USA180 is encouraging all citizens of the United States to contact their Senators and BOTH call and email/fax/mail them their powerful sample letter on their site (see the link above).
USA180 also has created a PDF flyer that it is sending to 10,000 homes and has a campaign to call 10,000 people directly. This is clearly an organization of action.
From their perspective, S1959 is the 800 pound gorilla waiting to pounce on the American people and the US Constitution. Here are some excerpts from the latest PDF being distributed in wide circulation by USA180 that illustrates what COULD happen if this bill passes the Senate:
'...ideologically based violence' means the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual’s political, religious, or social beliefs...
Note that this means the "planned use of force to promote a political or social belief" would be considered an act of terrorism. This all hinges on the definition of "force", of course. Based on the loose use of logic in Washington these days, and the slippery interpretation of the meaning of words, "force" could mean:
• A grassroots campaign to barrage Congress with faxes
• A non-violent street protest
• A letter-writing campaign that deluges the Senate with too much mail
• A sit-in protest that blocks access to a business or organization
• A grassroots e-mail campaign that overloads the e-mail servers of any government
department or agency
You get the idea. "Force" could be defined as practically anything. And since the
"planned use of force" would be considered a criminal act of terrorism, anyone who simply thinks about a grassroots action campaign would be engaged in terrorist acts.
If you stopped someone on the street and handed them a Bible, for example, this could be considered an act of terrorism ("...use of force to promote the individual's religious beliefs...")
Jason Rutberg, National Deputy Director of USA 180, put his convictions this way:
"It's my feeling that people should take an immediate vacation for 1 week. 35 articles of impeachment against George Bush and the media gives more coverage to a journalist dying than the state of our nation and the restoration of Habeas Corpus for gitmo detainees AND gives NO COVERAGE to a BILL like THIS?"
“People need to understand that if they are labeled a terrorist – because they handed someone a Bible or someone overheard them talking to the wrong person about something - it does not matter how much money they make. That money is gone. Their kids are taken away from them. On a simple allegation- their rights are GONE. I had the misfortune to have an allegation thrown against me in a divorce case. They took my kids. I had to pay approximately $2k a month to see them under supervised access AND I have had to spend over $130k defending my rights to get justice – JUST so the judge could “BE SURE” that the allegation was not true. These actions were taken based on an allegation. You DO NOT want to be caught up in the legal system. We MUST stop S1959 – no self respecting citizen would DARE give ANY government this kind of power.”
"Print out the press release on S 1959 USA180 has prepared on our site, that brings up Impeachment as well, and put it on people's windshields and hand this information out to everyone you know quickly. There was a run against some banks in New York at the end of June 2008 where the banks had to place a 24 to 48 hour hold on people requesting to take their money out of the bank and we are now actively discussing invading Iran and the markets are responding accordingly. We MUST breach the Internet NOW."
However USA180 clearly recognizes that no single organization can stop this bill alone and this is why in the last two weeks it turned its focus strictly to alliance building and leveraging certain services to get the message distributed widely for the lowest possible cost.
In the words of USA180:
“Tear Down the Walls of Division and I Will Show You an Unprecedented Unstoppable Power” - Dr. Mark Taylor (National Director USA180)
USA180 also directly attacks the mainstream media by deftly pointing out that in 2003 in a little known court case in Florida it was ruled that it is not illegal to falsify the news.
So get this. USA180 recognizes that the obstacles they are facing to reach the American people are massive yet they have developed a strategy for this too. This is a very forward thinking organization.
From their point of view, the Constitution is a citizens issue and therefore they have networked and discussed alliances with everyone from MoveOn to Ralph Nader to Ron Paul to Dennis Kucinich to John McCain to Barak Obama. They are NOT partisan in the least here.
Not only is USA180 a non-partisan organization they currently heavily leverage technology right now at http://youinc.ning.com, that allows people to create a cause that anyone can form an alliance around and that spreads the cause to a much much broader audience for ZERO cost. So it does not matter if your organization agrees with another organization to form an alliance on stopping a particular bill such as S1959 – you just agree on the cause.
This is the approach that USA180 has taken to promote alliance building between organizations in addition to having their own forum for internal collaboration between members at http://www.usa180.org/
It looks like USA180 is very serious about stopping S1959. Maybe you should be too.
This is how you can contact USA180:
USA180 National Headquarters
Atlanta, Georgia
Main: 404-287-0414
Fax: 206-350-8788
Site: http://www.usa180.org
Email: Info@usa180.org
National Director Email: Dr.Taylor@USA180.org
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