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ACLU* national legal director David Cole warns that this new piece of legislation is a serious problem to free speech. He says that just discussing the boycott of Israel could land you in prison for 20 years and fined $1 million.
The right to boycott has a long history in the United States, from the American Revolution to Martin Luther King Jr.'s Montgomery bus boycott to the campaign for divestment from businesses serving apartheid South Africa. Nowadays we celebrate those efforts. But precisely because boycotts are such a powerful form of expression, governments have long sought to interfere with them — from King George III to the police in Alabama, and now to the U.S. Congress.
The Israel Anti-Boycott Act, legislation introduced in the Senate by Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) and in the House by Peter J. Roskam (R-Ill.), would make it a crime to support or even furnish information about a boycott directed at Israel or its businesses called by the United Nations, the European Union or any other "international governmental organization." Violations would be punishable by civil and criminal penalties of up to $1 million and 20 years in prison. The American Civil Liberties Union, where we both work, takes no position for or against campaigns to boycott Israel or any other foreign country. But since our organization's founding in 1920, the ACLU has defended the right to collective action. This bill threatens that right.
As a European myself I find it very strange that such a law can ever be officially proposed. And in the US of all countries where the freedom of speech in codified in the constitution.
What do you make of it?
*American Civil Liberties Union
(Score: 3, Informative) by urza9814 on Wednesday July 26 2017, @09:52PM
Sanctuary cities don't violate that in any way.
First, the Constitution *doesn't* actually specify that the federal government is responsible for immigration, although as with everything else you could make an argument through the commerce clause.
But more importantly, the point of sanctuary cities isn't that they refuse federal attempts to enforce immigration; rather, it is that they won't enforce it themselves. As you said, immigration laws is a federal issue, not a city issue. Federal ICE agents can come through at any time and start trying to bust people for immigration offenses, and there's nothing the city can do to stop it. But there's no law that requires the city to use their own resources to enforce those federal laws -- if the feds are so concerned about it, they can assign their own agents. It's no different than when Obama deprioritized enforcement against "DREAMers" or medical marijuana...or even when a local cop pulls you over and lets you go with a warning. As long as they're not violating other laws in the process (ie, discrimination) the executive branch can freely decide which offenses to prosecute and which to ignore.
There's a VERY significant difference between having a constitutionally valid law that you choose not to enforce vs enforcing a law that has been found to be unconstitutional. And an even bigger difference when the first case is really a different government's constitutionally valid law.