Tag: terrorism

Senator Marco Rubio Introduces Bill To Suspend Gun Rights of Anyone Who Has Ever Been “Investigated” For Domestic Terrorism

Republican lawmaker Marco Rubio has reintroduced legislation that seeks to suspend the Second Amendment rights of any person who has been investigated for “terrorism” related offenses within 10 years of attempting a gun purchase.

The Senate bill, named the Terror Intelligence Improvement Act, was reentered last week in hopes of exploiting the hysteria surrounding the January 6th Capitol protests. The law intends to violate the civil liberties of American citizens who are not charged or convicted of a crime if somebody is deemed politically dangerous.

If passed, the law will grant the FBI and DNI the authority to draw up lists of US citizens arbitrarily labeled “domestic terrorists” and flag them during background checks. Those placed on the new watch list could be registered based solely on suspicion, even if an investigation fails to find evidence of criminal or “terrorist” wrongdoing. Federal courts that have examined the FBI’s various “terrorist watch lists” uncovered that the Bureau regularly places law-abiding citizens on them because they don’t like who they are or their political views. 

While Rubio’s bill does provide optional redress for those targeted to obtain counsel and fight their designation, it would require individuals not charged or convicted of a crime to have to spend enormous amounts of money and time and gamble on getting a judge that upholds the Constitution just so they can exercise their gun rights.

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Washington Examiner: Capitol Protesters Are ‘Terrorists’ Like Al Qaeda Who Must Be ‘Ruthlessly Hunted Down’

The Washington Examiner ran a hysterical column on Monday from “former” CIA officer Kevin Carroll calling for Americans who took part in the mostly peaceful protests at the Capitol to be “ruthlessly hunted down” and treated like Al Qaeda terrorists.

From The Washington Examiner, “How to fix our domestic terrorist problem”:

Democrats such as Attorney General-designate Merrick Garland and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer should use their executive and legislative power over the next 23 months to do the following five important things.

First, bring the heaviest felony charges possible on as many participants in the insurrection as the Justice Department can identify and believes it can confidently convict. We ruthlessly hunted down foreign terrorists after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and must do the same to their domestic equivalents. […]

Second, make fire and police departments that receive federal grants have their members sign commitments not to engage in acts to overthrow the government. Prosecute any who subsequently violate their oaths. We could also cut or suspend federal funding to departments that fail to introduce these measures. […]

Third, do not worry about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Rather than ban extremist chatter through government censorship or private de-platforming, use radical chat rooms as honeypots, as FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Forces have done with violent, radicalized Islamists since 2001. […]

Fourth, use the supremacy of federal law to ban “militias” beyond the National Guard. […]

Fifth, add domestic terrorism as a predicate to the material support for terrorism statute, including its civil liability provisions. This will provide new means of successful prosecutions and gradually increased deterrence against domestic terrorists. […]

Kevin Carroll served as senior counselor to the secretary of homeland security and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and as a CIA and Army officer in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen.

Carroll’s bio says he worked for a branch of The Lincoln Project.

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Noam Chomsky slams ‘liberal American intellectuals’ for refusing to admit US is a ‘leading terrorist state’

Although left-wing author Noam Chomsky was glad to see former President Donald Trump voted out of office in 2020, that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have some vehement criticisms of the Democratic Party and American liberalism — including Democratic views on foreign policy. And during a recent interview with progressive journalist/author Chris Hedges, Chomsky stressed that American liberals have a hard time admitting how bad U.S. foreign policy can be.

Chomsky, now 92, appeared on Hedges’ show, “On Contact,” which airs on RT America — the U.S. division of the Russian cable news outlet RT. Hedges, like Chomsky, has been extremely critical of the Democratic Party.”

Just as you can’t get the Republican mobs to admit that the election was lost,” Chomsky told Hedges, “you can’t get liberal American intellectuals to recognize that the United States is a leading terrorist state.”

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You can’t fight fascism by expanding the police state

In the coming days and weeks we are likely to see pundits and lawmakers call for things like passing a new domestic terrorism law, expanding mass surveillance programs, increasing funding for the FBI and law enforcement, installing backdoors in encrypted messaging apps, and arming police with more technology like facial recognition and social media monitoring software. We’re also likely to see renewed attempts by the government to curtail freedom of expression, including misguided attacks on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

This is the exact opposite of what we need to be doing. Expanding the U.S. government’s already bloated surveillance state will only bring more terror and harm to the same communities that Trump targeted with his racist policies and rhetoric. More money, weapons, and technology in the hands of the Department of Homeland Security—an agency complicit in human rights abuses long before Trump took office—won’t stop the rising threat of right-wing violence. Instead it will be used to suppress legitimate dissent, and disproportionately target Black and brown activists, Muslims, immigrant communities, and social movements that effectively challenge systemic injustice and corporate power.

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Biden Says Rioters Who Stormed Capitol Were Domestic Terrorists

President-elect Joe Biden characterized the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday as domestic terrorists, referring to the violence as “one of the darkest days in the history of our nation.”

“Don’t dare call them protesters,” Mr. Biden said in remarks from Wilmington, Del. “They were a riotous mob. Insurrectionists. Domestic terrorists. It’s that basic. It’s that simple.”

Mr. Biden blamed President Trump for inciting the violence, saying he had “unleashed an all-out assault on our institutions of democracy.” The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

“The past four years, we’ve had a president who’s made his contempt for our democracy, our Constitution and the rule of law clear in everything he has done,” the Democratic president-elect said during remarks in which he also formally introduced his pick for attorney general, Merrick Garland, and several choices for other top Justice Department jobs.

Mr. Biden has said he plans to make a priority of passing a law against domestic terrorism, and he has been urged to create a White House post overseeing the fight against ideologically inspired violent extremists and increasing funding to combat them.

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