Law Enforcement Taking a Closer Look at Domestic Extremists
Via Spencer Ackerman, a nice scoop by Eli Lake about the Department of Homeland Security urging state and local law enforcement to be vigilant about the possibility of right-wing extremist violence fueled by the combination of Barack Obama and a grim economic situation:
The nine-page document was sent to police and sheriff’s departments across the United States on April 7 under the headline, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.” It says the federal government “will be working with its state and local partners over the next several months” to gather information on “rightwing extremist activity in the United States.”
I’ll say two things about this. One is that this seems like an eminently reasonable thing to be doing. If you don’t believe that, you need to see Dave Weigel’s reporting from the machine gun show this militia stuff and Dave Neiwert’s stuff.
At the same time, I think it’d be great if some non-insane conservatives were to be a bit bothered by this. Legitimate concerns about security really can serve as a cover for abuses or misconduct. This was the problem with the surveillance organized by the Bush administration, and it’s a very real problem even with Barack Obama in the White House. As long as Bush was president, folks on the right seemed curiously blasé about this whole thing.
53 Responses to “Law Enforcement Taking a Closer Look at Domestic Extremists”
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April 14th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Three guesses how this will be portrayed by the crazies.
April 14th, 2009 at 11:47 am
this will only rile them up even more.
i get all kinds of wacky wingnut fundraising mail since we had all the mail from my late father-in-law sent to our house. they’ve already got smoke coming out their ears over the “return of the fairness doctrine (how Obama will SILENCE his critics!!)” and the “blatant Marxism on display” and the “coming re-education camps”. now that this is out, i’m looking forward to the letters screaming about the “upcoming Waco II!” and “how Obama is using the power of the government to SILENCE HIS CRITICS and TAKE AWAY THEIR GUNS!!”
April 14th, 2009 at 11:48 am
“I think it’d be great if some non-insane conservatives…”
Where are we going to find them? They have all fled the GOP.
April 14th, 2009 at 11:48 am
Excellent! Can’t wait to see the TSA, state police, NYPD profiling pasty White guys.
April 14th, 2009 at 11:58 am
At the same time, I think it’d be great if some non-insane conservatives were to be a bit bothered by this.
Who could you be talking about?
April 14th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
It is getting a bit nutty out there. For example, some commissioners in a DFW Metroplex county got an earful when they banned shooting a gun on your lawn if the parcel was 10 acres or less. The crowd was protesting along the lines of “this is an example of government (Obama) trying to take away our guns.” I don’t think these people were militia types but Matt’s story is certainly going to feed their “fears.”
April 14th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Well I’m glad to see the left getting serious about surveillance. I’d say it puts the brou-ha-ha about surveillance of the left planning to disrupt the RNC convention last year, in perspective. Not to mention the Tea Party protests.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Well I’m glad to see the left getting serious about surveillance.
welcome to 2004 !
vote Kerry.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Shorter shooter: “I’m going to deliberately miss the point.”
April 14th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Because it was left-wing hippies that blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
The problem is, most “state and local law enforcement”
are in full solidarity with the gun nuts, anti-taxers, teabaggers, etc.
They are generally too stupid to make the connection between their own physical safety and not letting paranoiacs stockpile autmoatic weapons and rocket launchers.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
they’ve already got smoke coming out their ears over the “return of the fairness doctrine (how Obama will SILENCE his critics!!)”
I guess the 82-15 vote against the Fairness Doctrine that we had a month ago wasn’t enough proof of its current popularity. Clearly he’s just going to enact it anyway. I guess after Bush’s uses of executive power they figure Obama can do whatever he wants whether he’s allowed to or not.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Malkin has already seized on the DHS report for more RW nutjob fuel.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
This isn’t “the left”, this is the Department of Homeland Security.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
“non-insane conservatives”
They’re called RINOs, for short.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
The fun part is this:
Had Bush drawn such a broad brush in the other direction, it would have covered MoveOn – which would (correctly) be seen as ridiculous. It’s equally ridiculous to call second amendment activists and tea party protesters dangerous. The Feds need to be able to handle dissent from whatever part of the political spectrum it comes from.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Plenty of folks on the “right” were consistently critical of the assault on civil liberties and the growth of centralized power during the Bush years. For example, Chronicles, The American Conservative, LewRockwell.com, AntiWar.Com, and dozens of other websites and publications. Hundreds of articles and books have been published on such subjects. Liberals such as Bill Kauffman, Gore Vidal and Kirpatrick Sale, to name just a few, have also been speaking and publishing on Bush’s dismal record on civil liberties. Unfortunately, they are ignored or marginalized by the MSM, movement conservatives, and left wing blogs.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
I didn’t bother looking into it, but is MattY sure about who actually had the scoop? I thought it was StephenGordon or RodgerHedgecock. Maybe MattY should look into that since he might be making a false claim. Of course, not correcting a false claim is nothing he hasn’t done before, so carry on.
I’m just going to repost the comment I left on TWI:
I have to confess that I just did a find through the PDF, I didn’t read the whole thing. However, even doing just that I found more than Weigel ever could.
Namely, the report says prominent civil rights organizations have observed an increase in anti-Hispanic crimes over the past five years. That tracks misleading statements from a far-left group. And, compare the report to past false statements from Obama.
If Weigel were a real reporter, he’d take the excerpt I provided and find out from the DHS whether they were relying on the SPLC and if so why we should trust the rest of the report given the SPLC’s reputation.
Of course, Weigel won’t do that because he isn’t a real reporter.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
If several million conservatives and Republicans really were rounded up and put in guarded encampments wouldn’t several quality of life issues for the remaining free population escalate markedly? To say nothing of the median IQ of those left to rebuild the nation? Drug, alcohol and tobacco use and abuse would dwindle. Incest, pedophilia, corporate crime, homophobic/racist/misogynistic crimes and several other classes of misbehavior would fall. Hell, just the failure of NASCAR is reason enough to welcome the idea. Does Obama have a secret plan to round up unhinged wingnuts? Let’s hope so.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
oh, totally. completely ridiculous.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Perhaps if the U.S. government would mind its own business abroad, and shore up its economy and borders at home, there wouldn’t need to be any “Homeland Security” police agency. Just a thought.
This is what many sensible thinkers in history have thought leads to sound, peaceful, and secure government: Protect your own economic interests, be careful who you let into the country, avoid war, and try to keep the masses content.
I know, I know, it is very “extreme.” Genrally, if a government faces a variety of threats and is constantly paranoid, maybe that government is actually doing things wrong.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Of course, Lonewacko’s just pissed that no-one’s coming to his anti-immigration Dirty Sanchez party.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Wait a second. Does this mean that undergraduates who chain themselves to trees are no longer “Domestic Terra-ist Enemy Number One”?
April 14th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
The Feds need to be able to handle dissent from whatever part of the political spectrum it comes from.
That’s great. But when militant right-wing fringe groups start firing on law enforcement (e.g. Ruby Ridge, Waco, etc…) it’s time to give them the Somali pirate treatment…
Three shots, three kills.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Figures.
What a pathetic statement. I suppose trying to keep Americans safe from another 9/11, while the country is at war, was just overreaching on the part of the Bush administration? The only ones being “blasé” about terrorism are those on the left ready to retreat against a America’s real enemies at all times.
If I remember correctly, and I do, the Russian October Revolution consisted of a violent revolution conducted by those on the left. As well as the takeover of China by the Communists, the takeover of Cuba by Communists, the takeover of Vietnam by Communists, Afghanistan, North Korea, etc., etc., etc.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
I trust you’ll be following up that naked assertion with evidence that there has been ANY push from the White House to crack down on right-wing groups, comparable to the Bush White House’s media and political campaigns, as well as marching orders to executive departments, undertaken to bring about the invasion of Iraq.
And by “trust,” I mean “have absolutely no reason to expect that…”
April 14th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
“Had Bush drawn such a broad brush in the other direction, it would have covered MoveOn – which would (correctly) be seen as ridiculous.”
Bush drew a brush so broad that it covered the Quakers. And yes, it was considered by liberals to be ridiculous. But where were the conservatives on that one? Bush considered pacifists to be so violent and dangerous that they needed to be watched. What Obama is doing may go a little too far, but at least we are talking about watching people who actually advocate violence.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Get a grip, bedwetter. It’s been well-documented that the Bush administration carried out “counter-terrorism” domestic surveillance against such scary terrorist groups as pacifists and death penalty opponents. No, that is not remotely the same thing as keeping tabs on people who openly talk about staging an armed insurrection against their government.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Okay, then the U.S. government must immediately begin monitoring 1917 Russia to be on the lookout for leftist violence, as we are honor-bound to preserve the power and prestige of the Tsar. We could even help by invading and supporting pro-government forces, say, in Archangelsk, as some sort of Entente alliance.
Really? Is this an argument of some type? Responses to real citations of threats of right wing violence by quoting from the Black Book of Communism? Really?
April 14th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
SteveIL wrote:
Do you remember that these coups were only successful in massively failed states, just like the right-wing coups in Germany, Argentina, Chile, Pakistan, etc., that failed to make your list?
If you want to avoid a coup by the left or the right, you might want to focus less on internal policy dissent and much more on avoiding disastrous and self-destructive policy failures of the sort we experienced over the last eight years.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
joe from lowell:
You mean like Muslim charities fronting for terrorist groups?
The only paranoid bedwetters are those who were put in DHS by this administration, as well as those who write statements like this:
April 14th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Please note that SteveIL’s argument is that it is not a demonstrated propensity for violence, the stockpiling of arms, or the stated desire to engage in violent activity that makes a left/liberal group deserving of being spied upon as a potential terrorist/insurrectionist threat, but merely their left/liberal political beliefs.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
This actually broke over the weekend on fringe blogs, but Lake was smart enough to confirm the report with DHS and write a non-sensationalized report.
The first place that seemed to have this was Atlas Shrugs, whose line-by-line reading of the report is a terrific exercise in self-pwnage. Excerpt (no link):
Check out the word “perceived” – the fact that the government is doing nothing is beside the point, right? The reference “directed at specific immigration-related targets” refers to Binghamton — and my sources tell me, Binghamton was not a lone gunman — was not a guy who was pissed because he lost his job. My sources tell me there were supposed to me more. It was retaliation in that Muslim enclave.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Actually, I was thinking about organizations like the American Friends Service Committee, who were spied upon and had some of their members put on terrorist watch lists.
Go on, I dare you to admit that it was wrong to use Homeland Security personnel to spy on a group of Quaker pacifists. I double dare you. I double dog dare you.
I guess those police in Pittsburgh shouldn’t have been so paranoid. No no, that’s ok – I’m sure you can come up with your own examples of Quakers who’ve committed terrorist acts.
Any minute now. Yep, any minute now. Cue Jeopardy theme.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
By the way, I don’t think I need to be lectured on the threat of terrorism by followers of the right and the Republican Party, whose President completely blew off any tiny shred of responsibility of examining terrorist threats in his first 8 months in office, followed up by cheap and bullshit loudmouthing and invading a country that had absolutely squat to do with those whom Bush Jr. let attack us and which was, however evil and murderous a tyranny, no major sponsor of terrorism except for the drugged and deluded Hannitoids.
April 14th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
I guess those police in Pittsburgh shouldn’t have been so paranoid. No no, that’s ok – I’m sure you can come up with your own examples of Quakers who’ve committed terrorist acts.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Throughout man’s history those advocating peace are viewed as dangerous. They’re akin to terrorists. Peace is bad for a lot of people’s business. Powerful, important people’s business. If the Quakers held sway over the world there wouldn’t be much need for a police department or a military. See, they’re dangerous.
April 14th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
C’mon, SteveIL, you can do it:
“No, I’m not just singling out harmless groups on the left and letting dangerous ones on the right off scott free. It was absurd to monitor a Quaker pacifist group. The people who approved that were ridiculously paranoid.”
You can do it, d00d! I know you can!
Tap tap tap…anyone home?
April 14th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Shorter SteveIL:
WOLVERINES!!!
April 14th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Slightly longer SteveIL:
WOVERINES!!! And somebody keep an eye on those nuns.
April 14th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
joe from lowell:
I see. It’s not OK to spy on Quakers but it is OK to spy on half the country? Maybe all the paranoid bedwetters of the left believe there are 150 million Timothy McVeighs running around the country, at least that is what DHS seems to want to believe.
April 14th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
the paranoid bedwetters of the left
Says the man who invokes the Bolshevik Revolution as justification for spying on pacifist groups.
April 14th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
All those twitter updates being trasmitted via GPS-equipped-phones are sounding like a bad idea now, no?
April 14th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
FWIW a better link for Dave Niewert’s (lucid, original and extremely valuable) work is not the fdl one above but: http://www.dneiwert.blogspot.com/
April 14th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
“it does not keep tabs on who comes in. This is a safe haven, where guns can change hands without a lot of paperwork…”
Yeah – right to the ATF agents who I can assure you constituted fifty percent of the attendees.
Militias are run by idiots.
April 14th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
This was the problem with the surveillance organized by the Bush administration, and it’s a very real problem even with Barack Obama in the White House.
Maybe it’s late in the thread to be asking this, but can anyone give me any pointers to some books or something by people who thought about this balance in a serious way? It’s easy to point to specific abuses of power or specific missed opportunities to stop terrorism in hindsight. But is anyone offering up any systematic, rather than ad hoc case-by-case, reform of how and when we investigate folks on the political fringe, from either a libertarian or law-and-order perspective?
April 15th, 2009 at 9:07 am
Half the country?
Freaks like you couldn’t fill a high school basketball gym. You’re the Pauline Keal’s of our time, though.
April 15th, 2009 at 9:22 am
It is interesting, is it not, that SteveIL reads phrases like “violent extremists,” and “militia groups,” and “violent racists,” and thinks “Hey, he’s talking about ordinary Republicans.”
April 15th, 2009 at 9:35 am
Any similarity between left wing militia paranoia and the old right wing communist paranoia during the days of the “red scare?”
April 15th, 2009 at 9:44 am
I dunno – did American communists bomb any federal buildings or slaughter any police officers or shoot up any Unitarian churches in the 1950s?
April 15th, 2009 at 10:33 am
No, they just gave nuclear secrets to the Soviets.
COINTELPRO and McCarthyism were wrong, but Communists in America actually did commit espionage and treason. Where the government went wrong was that it went, fairly early on, from trying to stop espionage or background checking for security clearances to trying to disrupt any organization that questioned the status quo–everything from socialists to peace activists, civil rights leaders to Klan members.
Which is why it’s important not to get too hung up on whether the group being investigated is a militia, a mosque, or a chapter of the Communist Party. Because whatever tricks the government employs against one fringe group, they’ll soon apply to every fringe group. And sometimes the good guys are on the fringe.
What’s important is that the FBI, CIA, etc all understand that their job is to stop actual crimes, not thought crimes. It’s okay to think despicable things, it’s not okay to start make preparations to do despicable things. Investigators need to understand that they’ll be punished if they cross this line–if not in the current administration, than in future administrations.
Which is why the Obama precedent of ignoring the wrongdoing of the Bush Administration is so dangerous. It means that law enforcement under Obama has a reasonable expectation that future GOP administrations will be similarly forgiving of them.
Which is all to say that any conservative worried about Obama abusing domestic surveillance should be calling for more investigations of prior administrations.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
Hi, guys. Interesting that you don’t really have a grasp on the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s not to say the 90’s. Baring the late 60’s overlap by the very active “W” underground and SDS there were MANY other active groups from the left bombing Gubermint Building on a regular basis(and I do mean REGULAR) Example in the early 70’s the Black Panthers, The White Panthers and the later coalition of the two known as the “Rainbow Alliance”(much earlier than the poofta crew of today and not related)bombed the Federal Offices on several Campus sites in the midwest. Most notable was the Bombing of the FBI offices in Ann Arbor Michigan on South Main street which was hit 58 times in a 3 year period. Ambush shootings in Chicago using vans with side sliding doors was the norm and in any given year New York had up to 8,000 bombing incidents by those groups along with the FALN. The FALN leadership was mostly killed in a self inflicted bombing acident where they were asembling 10,000 pipe bombs and someone got careless with the operation. Blew the whole five story building down that they were in. The only survivor of the incident was the group leader who was reassembled (stitched back together)and then put into lock up in maximum security. He “escaped” the next day although he could not move on his own.(hmmmm,much strong juju)And the bombings continued into the middle 80’s. FALN laid claim to over 20,000 plus bombing in the New York and Chicago areas. They perpatrated and carried out one the most successful multiple timed bombings in US history in the Chicago area bombing 13 malls simultaneously. Government policy was to suppress information outside of regional news sevices but the level of the attacks were such that national coverage to a limited degree got out.(remember, only 3 major networks at the time) The ‘Young Trotski-ites” did their part in Ann Arbor, Lansing and Detroit and performed a multiple series of attacks to include shootings and bombings of churches and private residence. Underground papers, magazines and original FM underground radio(before anyone knew what FM was)documented and covered all of these actions. Best reference is to go through the local News papers during these periods and research them. Ann Arbor News (jokingly known as Pravda of Ann Arbor)covered the actions and incidents in the Ann Arbor area and related stories.(Note Ann Arbor News may be out of print by JUNE/JULY, going out of bussiness and its the only paper left in town) The books on subject have been sellectively “removed” from the libraries but original underground material is still out there. By the way, leftist ambushing police was a daily thing.
Those of us who lived in that era and didn’t use drugs still have a very good memory and library. 
The Patriot Act was first pushed by the Clintonistas in 1995 and it was squashed. The cassette(note I didn’t say disk because it was/is the same old shit)was reincerted by the Bushites. No one that is in POWER and is on their little POWER trip wants to drop the police state. HMMMMMMM, now ain’t that interesting. The party on the left, is now the party on the right. (They all got fooled again,LOL)Mark Gregory,, Koernke GDW!
April 16th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Could you help me. Only some people get what they want. Those are the people who show up to get it.
I am from Germany and learning to write in English, give please true I wrote the following sentence: “yahoo! Travel is a comprehensive online travel destination, where you can reserve cheap airline tickets, hotels, cars, cruises and vacation packages, all in one place.”
With respect
, Amethyst.
April 18th, 2009 at 7:22 am
[...] Yglesias at Think Progress sees D.H.S. as sensible and the right as hypocritical: I’ll say two things about this. One is that this seems like an eminently reasonable thing to be [...]