This Wednesday, the House Homeland Security Committee held the second of a series of hearings on global terrorism entitled “Global Terrorism: Threats to the Homeland, Part II.” The invited witnesses were Kevin McAleenan, the Acting Secretary in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS); Christopher Wray, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); Russell Travers, the Acting Director of the National Counterterrorism Center; and David J. Glawe, the Under Secretary of the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis.
This hearing comes on the heels of several important developments over the past few months. Not only has debate roiled on Capitol Hill over legislation regarding white supremacist terrorism, but:
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- On July 23, 2019, Wray confirmed that white supremacist terrorism accounts for the vast majority of the FBI’s domestic terrorism arrests. The FBI has a demonstrated history of burying its internal analyses of white supremacy, and directing their counter-terror efforts to vulnerable and minority communities. Their prejudicial focus on the American Muslim community is well-documented.
- On September 16, 2019, DHS released its Strategic Framework for Countering Terrorism and Targeted Violence. Despite some flaws, which we analyzed here, the Strategic Framework committed to addressing white supremacist terrorism.
- On October 11, 2019, McAleenan announced his resignation from his position as Acting Secretary, effective this past Thursday. President Trump is attempting to replace McAleenan with Ken Cuccinelli, the Acting Director of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services department. Cuccinelli agrees with Trump more often he does not. Given that Trump has routinely downplayed the threat of white supremacy and McAleenan led the development of the Strategic Framework, this transition should raise serious questions over DHS’s ability to enact the Framework’s commitment to address white supremacy.
- Just last week, the FBI increased its crackdown on white supremacist terrorism. They arrested Kaleb J. Cole, the leader of Atomwaffen Division, a neo-Nazi group linked to a series of killings.
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These hearings offer a chance for federal agency representatives and lawmakers to exchange internal notes over the threat of white supremacist terrorism and brainstorm possible legislative fixes. The historical backdrop makes this particular hearing only more significant.
McAleenan, Wray, and the Committee members all spoke of white supremacist terrorism as the significant threat that it is. Given the lack of attention paid to white supremacy over the years, the shift in rhetoric among lawmakers and government agencies is a good sign. However, both McAleenan and Wray repeated several problematic ideas about white supremacist terrorism.
The first bad idea is that white supremacists borrow their online messaging tactics from organizations like ISIS and al-Qaeda. In fact, the online messaging tactics used by current white supremacist groups date back to the early 1980s. Back then, white supremacists from around the world organized through sites such as Stormfront, Liberty Net and Iron March. The FBI was actively engaged in counterterror efforts.
The second bad idea is that white supremacists only operate through lone actors who self-radicalized online. In fact, the reality is much more complicated. As we noted in our white paper, “The White Supremacist Threat to America,” the online presence of disparate white supremacist organizations allows extremists “to connect the dots between their causes and those of others” and create “a sort of informal movement” logic. In other words, white supremacists have organized in groups for decades.
During Wednesday’s hearing, law enforcement and legislators appeared united in their condemnation of white supremacist violence. They also displayed a lack of understanding regarding the nature of the white supremacist threat. Even if FBI and DHS mean well in trying to combat the white supremacist issue, the policies can still have an adverse impact on the American Muslim community. Their commitment is a positive, but their internal awareness is a cause for concern. These ideas may inform future legislation and are a reflection of DHS and FBI strategies.
Organizations like ours are responsible for ensuring that this commitment leads to policies that will protect the American Muslim community. We are doing just that. Through task forces in Los Angeles and with DHS, we have engaged government and civil society partners ensuring the protection of faith communities at their houses of worship. At the legislative level, we are working with congressional partners to improve hate crimes enforcement and pass legislation which assesses the threat of white supremacist violence, improves government agency mechanisms for data collection and reporting, and protects civil liberties and civil rights. Overall, we are working to reform the way government agencies adress domestic terrorism while maintining vital civil liberties and civil rights protections.
We are committed to working with government agencies, congress, and community to ensure that all vulnerable communities are protected from the threat of terrorism and targeted violence. We will continue to keep you updated as this process develops.
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