DHS/JUSTICE DEPARTMENT/RACISM/TERRORISM: “When an alleged white supremacist rammed a car into a crowd of people Saturday [8-12-17] in Charlottesville, Virginia, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and members of Congress from both parties were quick to call it an act of terrorism.
But U.S. law enforcement officials, who enjoy sweeping powers to investigate and prosecute suspected foreign terrorists on U.S. soil, face obstacles to charging the man, James Alex Fields Jr., as a terrorist. The Justice Department’s civil rights division is currently focused on whether Fields committed a hate crime.
Beyond Fields’ case is the urgent question of how law enforcement can prevent further violence at a time when radical white supremacist groups appear emboldened. U.S. officials are severely limited in their ability to crack down on domestic extremist groups—even those who spew hate-filled rhetoric, acquire arms and advocate violence.
The constraints are significant given that, over the past decade, suspects accused of extreme right-wing violence have accounted for far more attacks in the U.S. than those linked to foreign Islamic groups like al Qaeda and ISIS, according to multiple independent studies.
The FBI and Department of Homeland of security broadly track dozens of neo-Nazi, ‘sovereign’ and other white Christian militant groups in the U.S. But while federal officials have numerous legal tools to closely monitor and arrest a U.S. citizen or resident who shows support for a federally designated foreign terrorist organization like ISIS, American hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan have many more legal protections that make their members and sympathizers much harder targets.
The contrast results in part from legal safeguards created to prevent the U.S. government from abusing its power to surveil its own citizens.”
-Ali Watkins and Josh Meyer, “Domestic hate groups elude feds,” Politico, Aug. 15, 2017 01:04pm