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crickets

(25,896 posts)
12. Excellent article. It's unreal that DHS allows this to continue to fester.
Fri May 27, 2022, 11:14 AM
May 2022
DHS’s caution or avoidance, as its critics claim, may partly stem from worries that aggressive intelligence operations could be seen as civil liberties violations. A DHS official explained that “unlike international terrorism, there are no designated domestic terrorist groups. Subsequently, all the legal actions of an identified extremist group leading up to an act of violence are constitutionally protected and not reported on by DHS.”


There is a certain point past which the Constitution does not protect hate speech. Regarding the purported hesitance to monitor and report on these groups - oh, please. It's insulting to pretend there aren't umpteen government agencies monitoring and reporting the hell out of all of us.

https://www.lawyers.com/legal-info/criminal/does-the-first-amendment-protect-hate-speech.html

The First Amendment doesn’t give people the right to make direct, personal threats of immediate violence. This can include intimidating symbolic actions like burning a cross that are meant to make specific victims fear for their lives, even if the cross-burners don’t actually plan to carry through with the threat (Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343 (2003)). [snip]

As the law stands now, government (including public colleges and universities) generally can’t bar hate speech unless it’s direct, personal, and either truly threatening or violently provocative. At the same time, laws against hate crimes don’t violate the First Amendment, because they’re based on actions rather than expressions of an opinion (Wisconsin v. Mitchell, 508 U.S. 476 (1993)).


As for the lack of designated domestic terrorist groups, it's well past time to start designating them. The SPLC could help out with that.

https://www.splcenter.org/issues/hate-and-extremism

The SPLC is the premier U.S. organization monitoring the activities of domestic hate groups and other extremists – including the Ku Klux Klan, white nationalists, the neo-Nazi movement, antigovernment militias and others.

We track more than 1,600 extremist groups operating across the country. We publish investigative reports, train law enforcement officers and share key intelligence, and offer expert analysis to the media and public.

- Hate Map: There are 733 hate groups currently operating in the US. [snip]
- Extremist Files: A database on prominent extremist groups and individuals
- 100 Days in Trump's America: A report on white nationalists and their agenda to infiltrate the mainstream
- Terror From The Right: A synopsis of radical-right terrorist plots, conspiracies and racist rampages since the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. It includes a roster of murdered law enforcement officials.


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