Bombings and White Terrorism

On January 6, 2021, participants in a Trump rally in Washington D.C. stormed the US Capitol during a joint session of Congress to ratify the electoral college victory of President-Elect Biden. His supporters, obviously disappointed by their electoral loss and the lack of success of the legal wrangling (we recall the Four Season Landscaping press conference) thought that stopping the certification or causing chaos during the certification was their last chance to hang onto power for their dear leader. Capitol police have been seen on video removing barricades and letting these domestic terrorists into the capitol building. Windows were broken and 4 people were injured and 2 people died.  For those of us who have studied terrorism on both sides of the aisles, this behavior was not unexpected although it was frightening to watch reporters standing on the grounds showing people breaking into the capitol and destroying the place. Congress would, at 3:45 in the morning, finally ratify the vote after objections were discussed regarding the certification of electoral votes in Pennsylvania. 

When you watch the videos, it is no surprise to see plenty of white faces, including the guy dressed in body paint and some kind of fur headdress. There’s also the picture of the guy carrying out a podium from the Speaker of the House’s office and waving at the camera as if the behavior is completely normal. There are also the people who decided to take a selfie with a torn off section of the sign over the office of the Speaker.  Although I was personally shaken by the footage and the whole scene, this is nothing new to American society. 

White Power Bombings

Terrorism coming from people who believe in a white ethnostate, white supremacy or other such ideologies is not new. Just in the last 4 years, multiple incidences of violence have been traced to these ideologies. Storming public buildings is not new either, protestors over Covid regulations in Michigan stormed the state capitol building and 10 men were charged with a kidnapping attempt on Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Stretching back farther, the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing was done by two men who had fallen into racist ideology through Soldier of Fortune magazine and other publications who take a less than favorable eye toward government and institutions. Timothy McVeigh planned that bombing to coincide on the same day at the burning of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas a year prior. This is not to say that terrorism doesn’t come from other groups, especially Greenpeace environmental groups and extreme racial groups. However, most of the public terror bombings originate from a specific group with a specific ideology. The increase of “militia” groups has only fueled the rise of this kind of terrorism. The Malheur brother seizing federal lands in Oregon and occupying them for months is an example of how dangerous it can be when regular citizens armed with the machines of war decide to lay siege to a location. Things get dangerous; this is part and parcel of American society. The difficulty is that is often not taken as seriously as it really should be and only just now is the phrase, “domestic terrorism” really being used to describe these actions. There is a subculture of this within society that is armed and dangerous.

Domestic Terrorism

In the aftermath of this bombing, many people are asking why the FBI and Capitol Police weren’t prepared. We don’t have the answers to that question yet, especially because the attack of January 6th was planned in the open. It doesn’t take sophisticated intelligence bureaus to figure out that something was going to happen. Anyone within ear-shot of the President could have listened to his speech and called for back-up. We will learn more about the fallout from the failures of law enforcement in time. However, when it comes to domestic terrorism the US is at a disadvantage when it comes to tracking down terrorists. Unlike Canada, the UK, and France, the US does not have a dedicated domestic terrorism agency. Instead, the FBI, a federal law enforcement arm is tasked with both enforcing federal law and trying to be a sort of domestic CIA (the CIA is not allowed to operate domestically). The flaw in this design is that as an organization, it cannot enforce laws and be an intelligence service. These are different functions and require a completely different ethic. Constitutionally, creating a domestic terrorism arm is virtually impossible. 

When it was found that the National Security Agency was collecting metadata of phone calls, it created a multi-year scandal and running jokes about the government listening to telephone calls or reading texts. Ultimately, the NSA stopped collecting this data but the damage was already done in terms of public trust and the popularity of domestic intelligence activities. To find and track terrorists you need to find and track people. Due to the 4th amendment, this cannot be done without a warrant but this process is long and difficult. It is hard to get the kind of warrant required (you’ve heard of this, it’s called FISA) and there has to be demonstrable evidence of a crime being committed or about to be committed. Intelligence gathering is rarely this cut and dried. Often, it is the phone call from one person to another person to yet another person and then tracking their movements that lead to a breakthrough of what is being planned and by whom. It’s hard to get a judge to go along with tapping the phones of 3 people who might not even be involved in the crime in question. However, something needs to be done. It is time to start taking domestic terrorism seriously.

Taking Terrorism Seriously

As a result of last week’s events, we need to take domestic terrorism far more seriously than we have in the past. For the past 4 years, many people have made excuses for language and actions that are all the precursors to terrorism. In the name of tolerance and free speech, this language and these overt actions have gone along and now people have died and the potential for a new civil war has cropped up. This is a major learning moment. This is when we need to take domestic terrorism seriously. This is not a left or right issue. This is an issue of lives. This is an issue of public safety. If we want to continue to live in a civilized society then we must act.