ThoughtCrime: Conservatives Moving To Remove Free Speech

I don't want to guess whose brainchild this is. Apparently the Parliamentary Committee of Public Safety and National Security would like Canada to make "Glorifying Terrorism a Crime.

I don't give a damn whether Britain, Spain or the United States have done this or not - it doesn't make it right. (and, as my Mother repeated often when I was growing up, just because they're doing it doesn't mean you have to!)

For starters, I'd like to see someone define what a phrase like "glorifying terrorism" even means. Among other things, it means starting with defining the term "terrorism" in a framework that is legally comprehensible. Too broad a definition, and any form of civil disobedience or organized protest suddenly becomes a criminal offense. If you try to put a legal definition around "glorifying" something, you run a similar risk. For example, a person advocating for Quebec autonomy may well make admiring reference to the FLQ - are they glorifying it? Is a blogger who speaks out against American occupation in Iraq - possibly going as far as calling for civil uprising against the "puppet government" - "glorifying" terrorism? Are they even advocating for terrorism?

One of the things that has never been defined intelligibly is just what is it that constitutes a "terrorist"? Try defining the term, and I think you will find that at some point or another a large number of otherwise harmless people would fall into whatever definition you create, and could be subjected to unjust prosecution under such a law.

One can certainly make the act of creating, or providing assistance to, a criminal endeavor a crime. In fact, we already do in many respects. Creating a bomb is a crime; detonating one is similarly a crime. So is discharging a firearm in public, or selling drugs or money laundering. Promoting violence against others is criminal in many different respects, and carrying it out is similarly a crime against the person.

Why do we need a law criminalizing "terrorism" - it seems to me that terrorists are already violating a lengthy list of existing statutes. Adding another class of crime - especially one so vaguely defined as "glorifying terrorism" to the books just creates another class of criminal - one that could just as easily be applied to this blog - or any other blog about current events - simply because the author spoke an opinion that somebody found politically "inconvenient".

Having political opinions, and expressing them, is not a crime.