redblueamerica.com

One of the darker ironies of American history was the existence, back in the early Cold War era, of the House Committee on Un-American Activities -- a deeply un-American institution that dragged private citizens into the spotlight to answer for their (often decades-old) political affiliations, with the not-infrequent result that those individuals were shunted off to professional blacklists and struggled to make a living thereafter.

There are now worries that a revival of  those bad old days is in the offing:

Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman is the Senate co-sponsor of a little-noticed domestic anti-terrorism bill that could carry us several steps closer to the good old days of the House Un-American Activities Committee and Joe McCarthy. The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act (S.1959) is currently in committee after passing the House last year with no media scrutiny and no real debate by a 404-6 margin. The primary sponsor of the Senate bill is fellow Republican Susan Collins of Maine.

The purpose of the measure is to create a permanent federal commission to scrutinize radicals and would-be terrorists, and to fund a series of university-based centers devoted to ferreting out and tracking the dangerous subversives among us. The latter would operate under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security. A handful of critics from the blogosphere and the legal world have called out the measure on grounds that it its vague mandate amounts to criminalizing dissent. But even in the civil liberties demi-monde, it seems to be making little impact.

Color me dubious. For one thing, Susan Collins doesn't exactly have a reputation as a right-wing firebrand, so I'm skeptical she'd back a witch hunt.  Plus, the wording of the bill is relatively benign , making it sound like the new commission would be the latest in a series of government commissions that work hard to produce a report that ends up gathering dust on a shelf somewhere; it's designed to make it look like the government is doing something. And there is this bit of language, designed to at least give lip service to civil liberties:

In carrying out this subtitle, the Secretary shall ensure that the efforts of the Department to prevent ideologically based violence and homegrown terrorism as described in this subtitle do not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights, and civil liberties of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents.

The act deserves the scrutiny of Americans. But, so far at least, it doesn't look like a threat to civil liberties.