Posted by
Woodgirl on Monday, April 06, 2009 2:03:54 PM
There will be Petitions for Redress at some of the teaparties on April the 15th. A Petition for Redress is defined as: "The right to petition the government is the freedom of individuals (and sometimes groups and corporations) to petition their government for a correction or repair of some form of injustice without fear of punishment for the same. Although often overlooked in favour of other more famous freedoms and sometimes taken for granted[1], many other civil liberties are enforceable against the government only by exercising this basic right,[2] making it a fundamental right in both representative democracies (to protect public participation)[1] and liberal democracies. " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_petition.
I began researching petitions for redress, just to understand how a petition for redress would work. I found an interesting measure that was passed by the Democrats in 2007, that would "" . . . require thousands of federal officials to report into a government database the names of persons who contact them attempting to "influence" government policies or actions. The prime sponsor of the bill is Congressman Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California. In the 110th Congress, the bill is designated H.R. 984.[1] It was approved, without dissent, by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform of the U.S. House of Representatives on February 14, 2007. The legislation has not yet been scheduled for action by the full House of Representatives. According to the Washington Post (March 6, 2007), "A spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says that she backs the measure . . . and that she expects it to get a vote in the House." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Branch_Reform_Act
This measure produced a firestorm of anger from groups such as American Family Radio. The fear was, of course, that the measure would be used to gag any grassroots movements. http://www.citizenlink.org/CLtopstories/A000004384.cfm. Even the Depart of Justice opposed the measure http://www.nrlc.org/FreeSpeech/DoJletteronHR984.pdf. The question is: can this database be used against an onslaught of outraged citizens who have awakened from their sleep and are exercising their rights as citizens to take them to task or, are they really looking after our freedoms? They refuse to listen to our elected representatives when they convey our anger. Could this measure be used in the form intimidation to prevent us from directly confronting them?