Tag: extremism

Here’s FBI Glossary for Flagging ‘Violent Extremism’

The FBI uses a “glossary of terms” to look for online that could indicate someone is involved with “violent extremism,” according to documents obtained by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project. 

The flagged terms include “redpilled,” first popularized by the 1999 film “The Matrix,” “based,” “looksmaxxing,” and the names “Chad” and “Stacey.”

The FBI also flags phrases that include “it’s over” and “just be first.” 

The documents were obtained by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project through a Freedom of Information Act request. (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s multimedia news organization.)

Such words and phrases have come to be code for certain extremists who communicate online with others like them, according to the FBI’s glossary of words indicating “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism” and a list of “key terms” about “involuntary celibate violent extremism.”

According to the FBI document, the word “cell” is short for incel, which in turn is short for “involuntary celibate,” or an online community of men who  think they can’t attract women even though they want to be in a relationship. 

“Docs we obtained show how @FBI equates protected online speech to violence,” the Oversight Project says in a tweet. “According to @FBI using the terms ‘based’ or ‘red pilled’ are signs of ‘Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremism.’”

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FBI documents associate internet slang like ‘based’ and ‘red pill’ with ‘extremism’

New documents released Monday warned that common internet lingo is being associated with “Violent Extremism” by the FBI.

The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project said it used a Freedom of Information Act request to expose FBI documents that include glossaries showing that common internet slang has been flagged as an indication of “Involuntary Celibate Violent Extremism” or “Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremism.”

Part of the document refers specifically to “incels,” or those “involuntary celibate,” whom the “threat overview” describes as possibly seeking to “commit violence in support of their beliefs that society unjustly denies them sexual or romantic attention, to which they believe they are entitled.”

The assessment notes, “While most incels do not engage in violence,” some have been involved in “at least five lethal attacks in the United States and Canada.”

Many of the terms mentioned in the FBI’s list of incel terminology are either widely used across the internet or innocuous in nature.

The one term in the glossary is “Red Pill,” which comes from the 1999 film “The Matrix” and has been used a metaphor for seeing hidden or politically incorrect truths about the modern world, particularly when it comes to politics or dating.

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‘Ministry of Truth’: Critics warn Washington extremism bill targets free speech

As the Washington State Attorney General’s Office continues work on a database for police use of force incidents, a House bill would set up a 13-member commission within that same office to develop a data collection process on incidents of “domestic violent extremism,” or DVE.

Although the term DVE is not defined in the bill, under State Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s description it would include noncriminal activities or speech.

HB 1333 sponsored by Rep. Bill Ramos, D-Issaquah, creates a Domestic Violent Extremism Commission to develop ways to combat “disinformation and misinformation,” though the two words are not defined in the bill. Also not defined is the term DVE.

The legislation is derived from a recommendation by the Attorney General’s Office own 2022 “Domestic Terrorism” study, which cautioned that “effective State intervention to address these threats has the potential to implicate speech or association that may be protected by the First Amendment, or the individual right to bear arms protected by the Second Amendment.”

Among the report’s recommended was the creation of a commission to explore not just data collection, but potentially adding a definition of DVE to state statue. State law already addresses hate crimes, and the FBI defines “domestic terrorism” within the context of actual crimes or intent to commit a crime.

However, the attorney general’s 2022 report argues that “rather than exclusively address ‘domestic terrorism’ per se, these recommendations seek to best support Washington State to respond to this panoply of challenges, which together combine to create the threat of—and indeed, are often precursors to—acts of domestic terrorism.”

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Is the FBI’s “Black Identity Extremist” Label Still in Use?

It’s been over five years since the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) “Black Identity Extremist” (BIE) report was leaked to Foreign Policy magazine in early October 2017. The August 3, 2017, report – which alleged that “perceptions of police brutality against African Americans spurred an increase in premeditated, retaliatory lethal violence against law enforcement” – drew a torrent of criticism from civil rights and civil liberties groups, as well as a backlash from Black House and Senate members. The fact that the FBI was employing overtly race-based criteria for investigating the political activities of Black Americans brought back ugly memories of the Bureau’s infamous Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) targeting the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Southern Christian Leadership Congress, NAACP, and a host of other prominent Black civil rights leaders and organizations from the mid-1950s through at least the late 1970s.

In the two years after the leak of the “BIE” report, FBI Director Chris Wray found himself constantly on the defensive over the report and the FBI’s use of the BIE term. In late July 2019, Wray told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Bureau had abandoned the use of the BIE phrase, with one other FBI official claiming the term had not been used by the FBI since 2018.

FBI documents obtained by the Cato Institute via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit appear to tell a somewhat different story.

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Meet the ‘Black Robe Regiment’ of Extremist Pastors Spreading Christian Nationalism

Days before the midterm elections, Pastor David MacLellan was ready to preach far-right politics through Bible verses to his small congregation. MacLellan, a hulking man with a long, grizzled black beard, isn’t an ordinary pastor. He proudly identifies himself as a far-right, extremist pastor and a Christian nationalist, someone who believes American politics should reflect fundamentalist Christian values. 

And he’s part of a growing national religious political movement called the Black Robe Regiment, a modern-day group inspired by a myth of a group of militant pastors during the American Revolution who took up arms to lead their flock into battle against the British. The movement, imbued with support from far-right political activists like Michael Flynn, wants pastors to play a central role in not only preaching politics from the pulpit but also actively getting their congregations to rise up and claim election fraud by weaving myths about the American Revolution together with modern-day conspiracy theories and hard-line Christianity. These pastors believe they’re saving democracy, though what they’re really doing is encouraging supporters to undermine the democratic process.

And MacLellan plans to take an active role: He’s convinced that the 2020 election was stolen and that fraud has already been committed in the 2022 midterms. He wants his congregants to fight back. 

“This Tuesday, I’ll be taking some of our seniors to the polling station,” MacLellan announced at the beginning of his service, held in the living room of his home in Mesa, Arizona. That day, he wore a tweed jacket over a black shirt, and a bolo tie. His hands are gnarled with faded tattoos—a nod, he says, to his Scottish heritage and a holdover from a past life when he played in punk bands in New York and was a “heathen biker.”

His sermon mixed Bible verses with remarks about evolution, made claims of violence against anti-abortion groups, and described Jewish people as a “wealthy group of people who didn’t believe in heaven or hell, didn’t believe in angels, and they had political control over everything.”

“Interesting, huh?” he said, as an aside to the congregation crowded into his living room, who responded with knowing sounds.

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German Domestic Intelligence Is Running 100s Of Fake Right-Wing Extremist Social Media Accounts

Hundreds of the radical Nazis and right-wing extremists online are actually German domestic intelligence agents, and many of them may even responsible for “inciting hatred” and even violence. These agents, who once needed to drink and directly socialize with members of the extreme right, are now running right-wing extremist accounts online in Germany.

Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) argues that these accounts are needed to gather information, but critics say that they may also be promoting and actively encouraging radicalism, according to a report from German newspaper Süddeutshce Zeitung.

“This is the future of information gathering,” an unnamed head of a relevant state office told Süddeutsche Zeitung.

According to research by the newspaper, the authority has invested heavily in “virtual agents” since 2019, which it finances with taxpayers’ money. Both the federal office and the federal states employ spies, who besides right-wing extremists, are also tasked with keeping an eye on the left-wing extremists, Islamists, and the “conspiracy-ideological” scene.

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DHS to spend almost $700,000 of taxpayers’ cash on studying “extremism” in video gaming

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has awarded researchers a $699,768 grant to investigate extremism in gaming.

As reported by VICE, the money will go to Logically, a company committed to the issue of “bad” online behavior, Middlebury Institute’s Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism (CTEC), and Take This, a nonprofit that specializes in mental health in video gaming.

“Over the past decade, video games have increasingly become focal points of social activity and identity creation for adolescents and young adults. Relationships made and fostered within game ecosystems routinely cross over into the real world and are impactful parts of local communities,” the grant announcement on the DHS website said. “Correspondingly, extremists have used video games and targeted video game communities for activities ranging from propaganda creation to terrorist mobilization and training.”

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Oath Keepers: Leaked membership list includes police and politicians

Hundreds of US public officials, police officers and soldiers are or have been involved with the far-right Oath Keepers militia, according to a report from an anti-extremism organisation.

The Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism compared the names from a leak of Oath Keepers membership rolls with public records and social media.

Some alleged members have denied any affiliation with the group.

Oath Keepers are accused of playing a key role in last year’s Capitol riots.

The report raises fresh concerns about the presence of extremist ideology in law enforcement and the military.

“The Oath Keepers are a virulently anti-government, violent extremist group,” Anti-Defamation League (ADL) chief executive Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement on Wednesday.

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Everything We Know About the 31 Patriot Front Members Arrested in a U-Haul

For years, many members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front have mostly managed to keep their identities under wraps. 

But now, the mask is off. Thirty-one members of the notoriously secretive, optics-obsessed group, including their leader, were arrested in Idaho over the weekend. And mugshots and names of all 31 arrestees were released by the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office. 

The group was traveling in the back of a U-Haul on Saturday, apparently headed to downtown Coeur d’Alene where an annual LGBTQ Pride event (and a far-right counter-event) was underway, when they were intercepted by local law enforcement. 

Coeur d’Alene police said that a “concerned citizen” called the cops when they noticed a group who resembled “a little like an army” clambering into the back of a U-Haul with shields. 

Video footage showed police rolling up the rear door to reveal men packed like sardines into the back of the truck. All the men were in Patriot Front uniform—khakis, navy jackets, sunglasses, caps, gloves, and white balaclavas covering their faces. 

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23 Different Types Of Violent Extremists And Counting — Will You Be Classified As One?

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wants Americans to believe since 2011, when the word “extremists” was just starting to take root in the public’s consciousness, there has been an explosion of violent extremism.

In 2011, DHS published the “Empowering Local Partners To Prevent Violent Extremism In The United States” report, while at the same time calls for ending America’s neverending war on terror started taking hold.

The DHS report made dubious claims like al-Qa‘ida was trying to recruit and radicalize Americans across the country, which coincidentally was also the 10th anniversary of 9/11. The report mentions extremists and violent extremists interchangeably during a time when Americans were beginning to question the war on terror.

In May 2011, National Public Radio wrote, “Why We Must End The War On Terror” and asked in September, “Is It Time To End The War On Terror?” Similar articles were being published across the country asking the same thing.

Fast forward eleven years to 2022, and the war on terror shows no signs of abating.

DHS, who could be mistaken for magicians if it were not so ironic, have convinced law enforcement that America now has at least twenty-three different types of extremists.

There does not appear to be a master list of American extremists published by DHS or the Department of Justice.

I used four sources to compile this list of twenty-two different types of violent extremists, but I fear that the government’s “official list” is far larger.

  1. Anti–government violent extremist
  2. Anti-war extremist
  3. Anti–authority violent extremist
  4. Anarchist violent extremist
  5. Domestic violent extremist
  6. Racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist
  7. Militia violent extremists
  8. Sovereign citizen violent extremist
  9. Individual violent extremist
  10. Involuntary celibate–violent extremist
  11. Abortion extremist
  12. Anti-abortion extremist
  13. Animal rights extremist
  14. Environmental extremist
  15. Right-wing extremist
  16. Left-wing extremist
  17. Christian Identity extremist
  18. Islamist extremist
  19. Muslim extremist
  20. Racist extremist
  21. Nativist extremist
  22. Schoolboard extremist

Sources: National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism,  A Schema of  Right-Wing Extremism in the United States,  Homegrown Violent Extremist Violent Indicators (2019) report and the National School Board.

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