Everyday I think that it is impossible for me to get shocked over anything this administration does. But this is just unreal.
How many of us here at Kos are going to be charged with sedition?
Is this happening because she works for the gov't or are all people subject to this?
"Here in Albuquerque, a local Veterans Affairs nurse has felt the crack down on civil liberties firsthand. In September, shortly after Hurricane Katrina struck, Laura Berg wrote a letter to the Alibi, a local newspaper, criticizing the Bush administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq war. Berg wrote, "as a VA nurse working with returning...vets, I know the public has no sense of the additional devastating human and financial costs of post-traumatic stress disorder." She urged readers to, "act forcefully to remove a government administration playing games of smoke and mirrors and vicious deceit."
The response to Berg's letter was harsh. Her office computer was seized. And the government announced it was investigating her for sedition - that's right, sedition.
V.A. human resources chief Mel Hooker wrote in a letter to Berg, "the Agency is bound by law to investigate and pursue any act which potentially represents sedition."
To date the VA has yet to issue a public apology to Berg. But pressure is building. In Washington, New Mexico Sen. Jeff Bingaman has asked Veterans Affairs Secretary James Nicholson to thoroughly investigate the VA's actions. Bingaman wrote "In a democracy, expressing disagreement with the government's actions does not amount to sedition or insurrection. It is, and must remain, protected speech." Democracy Now
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/02/148237
This is so hard to swallow. While people are plugging away consumed with their daily lives, this country is being turned into a fascist gov't.
Sedition is a deprecated term of law to refer to non-overt conduct such as speech and organization that is deemed by the legal authority as tending toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often included subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent (or resistance) to lawful authority. Sedition may include any commotion, though not aimed at direct and open violence against the laws.
Because "sedition" is typically considered the subvert act, the overt acts that may be prosecutable under "sedition" laws vary from one legal code to another. Where those legal codes have a traceable history, there is also a record of the change of definition for what constituted sedition at certain points in history. This overview has served to develop a sociological definition of sedition as well, within study of persecution.
The difference between sedition and treason consists primarily in the subjective ultimate object of the violation to the public peace. Sedition does not consist of levying war against a government nor of adhering to its enemies, giving enemies aid, and giving enemies comfort. Nor does it consist, in most representative democracies, of peaceful protest against a government, nor of attempting to change the government by democratic means (such as direct democracy or constitutional convention).
PRESENT USAGE - SEDITITON IS A PRETENSE COMMONLY USED BY OPPRESSIVE GOERNMENTS TO QUELL AN UNDESIRED PUBLIC MOVEMENT.
Wikipedia
Here is a copy of the sedition act.
http://www.law.ou.edu/...
I am so niave, I never knew this existed.