USA Introduces Thought Crime HR 3131

The frog in water that is the American people is slowly being brought to the boil with the help of a new bill H.R. 313, the Drug Trafficking Safe Harbor Elimination Act of 2011.

It has far ranging power to chill liberties in the USA even further ;

“To amend the Controlled Substances Act to clarify that persons who enter into a conspiracy within the United States to possess or traffic illegal controlled substances outside the United States, or engage in conduct within the United States to aid or abet drug trafficking outside the United States, may be criminally prosecuted in the United States, and for other purposes. Whoever, within the United States, conspires with one or more persons, or aids or abets one or more persons, regardless of where such other persons are located, to engage in conduct at any place outside the United States that would constitute a violation of this title if committed within the United States, shall be subject to the same penalties that would apply to such conduct if it were to occur within the United States.”

Lawyers say that under this law, the U.S. government is claiming the power to strip US citizens of their liberty and their property simply for talking with someone else about events that might well be perfectly legal where those events would take place - The very threat of a vague, overbroad conspiracy charge is likely to have a profound effect on rights to free speech, assembly, and due process.

Read on.