Five-dollar registration fee for persons planning to overthrow U.S. government.

COLUMBIA, South Carolina - February 6, 2010 - Terrorists who want to overthrow the United States government must now register with South Carolina's Secretary of State and declare their intentions - or face a $25,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison.

The state's Subversive Activities Registration Act passed last year and is now officially on the books. It states that "every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control, every foreign agent and every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States... shall register with the Secretary of State."

There's even a $5 filing fee.

By "subversive organization," the law means "every corporation, society, association, camp, group, bund, political party, assembly, body or organization, composed of two or more persons, which directly or indirectly advocates, advises, teaches or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States [or] of this State."

A PDF of the registration form can be found here, courtesy of FitsNews.

The law also gives subversive organizations "subject to foreign control" 30 days to register with the state after setting up shop in South Carolina.

While the intention of the law is apparently aimed at Islamic terrorists, it's unclear in the law's wording whether it can be applied to right-wing militias, some of which have reputedly called for the overthrow of the U.S. government. The law states that "fraternal" and "patriotic" groups are exempt from the law, but only if they don't "contemplate the overthrow of the government."

While the law is clearly redundant - there are plenty of statutes at the state and federal level through which terrorists can be prosecuted - it reflects a not-uncommon pattern in some states of "doubling down" against particular crimes.

For instance, South Carolina is among those states that require drug dealers to declare their illegal income or face additional criminal penalties on top of the already established penalties for buying, possessing and selling drugs.

The South Carolina blog FitsNews describes the new law as "bureaucracy for terrorists."

"In the long and storied history of utterly retarded legislation in South Carolina, we may have finally found the legal statute that takes the cake for sheer stupidity, which we think you’ll agree is saying something," the unsigned blog posting scathingly commented.

Ed. Note: In reality, this is a terrifying piece of trash legislation. It reminds me of the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts, which thankfully were repealed immediately after Thomas Jefferson became president. A free society does not pass laws against certain kinds of thoughts. Only a tyranny or would-be tyranny passes such laws. The Declaration of Independence established for all time that the people have the absolute right to alter or abolish their forms of government when those governments fail to protect their unalienable rights. Overthrow of government is fundamental to our Republic. Criminalizing thoughts of controlling, seizing or overthrowing our government is tantamount to criminalizing patriotism.