A senior Justice Department official opened the doors in search of new legislative authorities to prosecute domestic terrorism, a step the Biden administration has yet to understand since the Jan. 6 uprising and something that civil libertarians have warned.
The prospect of expanding investigative tools and processes emerged during a meeting Friday with reporters in which several Justice Department and FBI officials described a wide range of authorities already at their disposal.
While there is no statute on domestic terrorism and U.S. officials cannot designate a national group to sanction as a foreigner, a senior official acknowledged that the legal definitions of domestic terrorism “extend many authorities we can use.” such national search guarantees, expanded police access to tax and educational records and harsher sentences.
But on Friday, a senior Justice Department official suggested that the administration would also consider seeking domestic terrorism status.
“Viouslybviament, this will be a matter of policy for people entering” the administration, the senior official said. “I’m sure we’ll run a data-driven process to see if we need additional legislative authority in this area.”
This has been a step that the new administration has not yet taken. On Tuesday, Sen. Mark Warner, the Virginia Democrat who chairs the Senate intelligence committee, told The Daily Beast’s “New Abnormal” podcast that the FBI has not sought additional powers to deal with the violence of the white supremacist or the far right. The FBI did not challenge that characterization and told The Daily Beast, “The FBI relies on the legislative branch to work with the leadership of the Department of Justice on whether any additional legislation is needed.”
The prospect of new anti-terrorist powers has alarmed civil libertarians and others who fear these authorities are unnecessary and full of abuse to criminalize extreme political views, rather than persecute people who have planned or committed acts of violence. Pointing out the FBI’s excesses during the 20-year War of Terror, they also fear that expanding these police, intelligence and prosecutorial powers will allow future presidents to use them against marginalized groups. Former President Donald Trump, for example, slandered Black Lives Matter activists as terrorists.
“We should not lose sight of our disgust at the double standard used against white and black protesters, nor against Muslims and non-Muslims,” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) told The Daily Beast a week later. of the Capitol insurrection. . “But at the same time, we must resist our own human desire for revenge: to simply see expand the tools that have oppressed blacks and browns … The answer is no more laws that expand the state of surveillance and security.”
In the summons, Acting Deputy Attorney General John Carlin promised that the Justice Department “would prioritize the detection, disruption and deterrence of domestic terrorism and violent extremism in all its forms.” Carlin made repeated references to continuations in this prioritization with the pursuit of jihadist terrorism after 9/11 at home, such as adopting an “intelligence-led” approach, “as we have done since 9/11. September “.
Across the government, and to include the next “full assessment of the threats” of domestic terrorism, National Intelligence Director Avril Haines said Carlin said the administration was considering expanding the exchange of information, to prevent radicalization and disrupt “extremist networks”. As many officials have done since 9/11, Carlin promised that the protection of civil liberties would continue to be a priority.
Carlin said the Justice Department will soon issue guidelines to ensure its National Security Division “is aware of and can track all cases related to domestic terrorism” or violent extremism, in hopes of generating contacts in cases of jurisdictions.
“This approach recognizes that success is not the prosecution of a violent or terrorist extremist after the fact that families have lost their loved ones and are in grief,” Carlin said. “Success is an interruption before violence occurs and that must always be the goal of our work against terrorism.”