ALERT. US Reps Gottheimer and Bacon are introducing the bipartisan Stopping Terrorists Online Presence and Holding Accountable Tech Entities Act, known as the STOP HATE Act, to help stop terrorism and disinformation on social media and online. This legislation is supported by ADL. Gottheimer and Bacon are also calling on the Department of Justice to require TikTok to register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). China is using TikTok as a propaganda machine to influence Americans and collect our data.
The Stop Hate Crimes Act of 2023 is a bill (HR 1091) that would amend the federal hate crime statute to clarify the causation element and to provide for enhanced penalties for hate crimes. The bill would also create a new grant program to help state and local law enforcement agencies investigate and prosecute hate crimes. If the Stop Hate Crimes Act of 2023 were to pass, it would have several basic effects:
· It would make it easier for prosecutors to convict people of hate crimes. The current law requires that the perpetrator's bias must be the "but-for" cause of the crime, meaning that the crime would not have occurred but for the perpetrator's bias.
· The Stop Hate Crimes Act would lower the standard to "a motivating factor," which means that the perpetrator's bias must have been one of the reasons for the crime, even if it was not the sole reason.
· It would increase the penalties for hate crimes. The current law allows for a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for a hate crime. The Stop Hate Crimes Act would increase the maximum sentence to life in prison for hate crimes that result in serious bodily injury or death.
· It would create a new grant program to help state and local law enforcement agencies investigate and prosecute hate crimes.
· The program would provide grants to law enforcement agencies to hire and train more hate crime investigators and prosecutors, to develop and implement hate crime prevention programs, and to improve the collection and reporting of hate crime data.