[Lnc-business] HR 5611

[Caryn Ann Harlos]

This came through in a Facebook post with a call to phone in to
congressional reps. Does this seem accurate?

And are we doing anything with this?

This week, the U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on an
atrocious bill that violates the Constitution and abandons the Rule of Law.
#HR5611, the Homeland Safety and Security Act, contains a simple provision
with staggering implications: It permits the federal government to restrict
a constitutionally secured right—the right to keep and bear arms—based
merely on what the government predicts someone will do in the future.

Terrorists already can be arrested, charged, tried, and convicted under
current law—and denied gun rights. The real innovation of H.R. 5611 is to
grant the government power to target law-abiding Americans.

The bill allows the government to prohibit gun transfers to Americans who
have not been charged with—let alone convicted of—any criminal or terrorist
activities. Under the bill’s constitutionally inadequate process, the
targeted individual receives a basic hearing, not a jury trial, and the
judge can restrict the individual’s gun rights upon nothing more than a
showing of “probable cause to believe” that he or she will someday be a
terrorist.

If successful this week, H.R. 5611 will be among the most egregious gun
control measures ever to pass either house of Congress. If the bill becomes
law, it will mark a massive expansion of the government’s ability to
restrict gun rights on the basis of precrime—a crime not yet committed.
H.R. 5611 is the actualization of dystopian fiction.

The Rule of Law requires notice that particular actions will result in
penalties and restrictions of rights, but the bill enables a judge to
penalize a constellation of legal activities that the judge believes can
predict the individual’s future actions. Under this standard, there is no
way to be sure that you’re preserving your Second Amendment-secured rights;
you just have to live life in a way that hopefully a judge won’t someday
find suspicious.

Even if the government alleges that the individual has committed illegal
acts, H.R. 5611 may be used unconstitutionally to short-circuit due
process. To restrict someone’s fundamental rights based on illegal conduct,
due process requires that the individual be found guilty of the criminal
act beyond a reasonable doubt. This bill requires the government only to
show probable cause—a much lower burden of proof—to believe a claim that,
at the time of the hearing, cannot be indisputably proven or disproven
(that the individual “will” commit a future act of terrorism).

It's not even clear how this future behavior would be litigated. What must
the individual show to convince a judge that he or she will not commit an
act of terrorism in the indefinite future? Will the hearing simply devolve
into a dispute about the individual’s character? This would be hugely
unsettling—the prosecutor and the judge would have to discuss whether the
individual in front of them (perhaps a member of a religious or ethnic
minority), who hasn’t actually been found guilty of anything, is
nonetheless just so rotten that his or her capacity to make alternative
choices should be ignored. Free societies do not permit judges and
prosecutors to restrict your rights just because they don’t like you.

In addition, any hearing likely will focus on activities protected by the
First Amendment. After all, the only new targets of H.R. 5611 are Americans
who are not charged with or convicted of terrorism and who have not
committed a felony (terrorists and felons already can’t purchase guns).
Because the bill is aimed at law-abiding Americans, it’s inevitable that
the judge will feel compelled (in the absence of criminal factors) to make
a decision based partly on factors like the individual’s speech, religious
beliefs, and associations.

The bill also creates additional constitutional concerns because it does
not incorporate the various procedural safeguards in the Sixth Amendment.
And, of course, the entire process further supports the disposability of
the Second Amendment and Fifth Amendment.

Finally, passage of H.R. 5611 would support the belief that recent events
justify a re-evaluation of what kind of country the United States is. The
right to keep and bear arms, the right to due process, a commitment to the
Rule of Law—these are fundamental to the character of the United States,
and yet they, along with much of the rest of the Constitution, continue to
be called into question by your representatives and senators in Washington.
I swore an oath to stand against these efforts, and I ask you to join me in
opposing H.R. 5611.

-- 
*In Liberty,*
*Caryn Ann Harlos*
Region 1 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (Alaska, Arizona,
Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington) - Caryn.Ann.
Harlos at LP.org <Caryn.Ann.Harlos at LP.org>
Communications Director, Libertarian Party of Colorado
<http://www.lpcolorado.org>
Colorado State Coordinator, Libertarian Party Radical Caucus
<http://www.lpradicalcaucus.org>
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