A senior Justice Department official opened the door to seeking new legislative authorities to pursue domestic terrorism, a move the Biden administration has yet to take since the January 6 uprising and something civil libertarians have warned against.
The prospect of expanded investigative and prosecuting tools emerged during a meeting on Friday with reporters, at which several Justice Department and FBI officials described a wide range of officials already available to them.
Although there is no domestic terrorism statute and US officials cannot designate a domestic sanction group as they do with a foreigner, a senior official acknowledged that legal definitions of domestic terrorism “expand many authorities that we can use” as a national survey. warrants, expanded law enforcement access to fiscal and educational records, and stricter sentences.
But on Friday, a senior Justice Department official suggested that the government would also consider pursuing a law against domestic terrorism.
“Obviously, this will be a policy issue for people who are coming” to the government, said the senior official. “I am sure that we will run a data-based process to see if we need additional legislative authorities in this area.”
This was a step that the new government has yet to take. On Tuesday, Senator Mark Warner, the Virginia Democrat who chairs the Senate intelligence committee, told the Daily Beast’s “New Abnormal” podcast that the FBI did not seek additional powers to face white supremacy or extreme violence. right. The FBI has not contested this characterization, telling The Daily Beast: “The FBI grants the Legislature to work with the Justice Department leadership on the need for additional legislation.”
The prospect of new counterterrorism powers has alarmed civil libertarians and others who fear that such authorities are unnecessary and frequent for abuse to criminalize extreme political views, rather than harassing people who planned or committed acts of violence. Pointing to the FBI’s excesses during the 20-year War on Terror, they also fear that expanding law enforcement, intelligence and prosecutorial powers will allow future presidents to use them against marginalized groups. Former President Donald Trump, for example, has slandered Black Lives Matter activists as terrorists.
“We must not lose sight of our disgust at the double standards employed against white and black protesters, or against Muslims and non-Muslims,” Deputy Ilhan Omar (D-MN) told the Daily Beast the week after the Capitol insurrection. “But at the same time, we must resist the human desire for revenge – simply to see the tools that oppressed blacks and browns expand … The answer is no longer laws expanding the state of surveillance and security.”
On the call, the acting deputy attorney general, John Carlin, promised that the Justice Department was “prioritizing the detection, disruption and deterrence of domestic terrorism and violent extremism in all its forms”. Carlin repeatedly referred to continuities in such prioritization with the post-9/11 search for jihadist terror at home, as an “intelligence-led” approach, “as we have been doing since 9/11.”
Across the government, and to include the next “comprehensive threat assessment” of domestic terrorism, by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, Carlin said the government was looking to expand information sharing to prevent radicalization and dismantle “extremist networks” . As many officials have done since 9/11, Carlin promised that the protection of civil liberties would remain a priority.
Carlin said the Department of Justice will soon issue guidelines ensuring that its National Security Division “has insights and can track all cases related to domestic terrorism” or violent extremism, in the hope of generating clues in cases in various jurisdictions.
“This approach recognizes that success is not the trial of a violent extremist or terrorist after the fact when families have lost loved ones and are in mourning,” said Carlin. “Success is a breakthrough before violence happens and that should always be the goal of our counterterrorism work.”