1984: Thread

[grarpamp]

Your Speech and Protests Shall Be Banned,
and You will be Sent to the Re-Education Camps...



DHS Touts Counter-Domestic Extremism Plan; Rights Groups Cite Threats
To Civil Liberties

https://www.theepochtimes.com/dhs-touts-counter-domestic-extremism-plan-but-rights-groups-fear-threats-to-civil-liberties_4008214.html

https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/UnclassSummaryofDVEAssessment-17MAR21.pdf
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2021/05/11/dhs-creates-new-center-prevention-programs-and-partnerships-and-additional-efforts
https://papersplease.org/wp/2021/05/14/more-dhs-pre-crime-policing-but-still-no-real-precogs/
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/community-investment-not-criminalization
https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/2021-06/2021_06_DHS_Targeted_Prevention.pdf
https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/subcommittees/investigations/media/investigative-report-criticizes-counterterrorism-reporting-waste-at-state-and-local-intelligence-fusion-centers/
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/20-years-after-9-11-fusion-centers-have-done-little-n1278949



Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is
touting a raft of new programs aimed to combat domestic extremism—many
of which are raising red flags among interest groups across the
political spectrum.
Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas testifies before a
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing on terror
threats to the United States in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in
Washington on Sept. 21, 2021. (Jim Lo Scalzo-Pool/Getty Images)

The new DHS plans follow a March intelligence community report that
deems white supremacy and violent domestic extremism as the most
dangerous terror threat to the homeland. Mayorkas made similar
statements at a Sept. 21 Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on
counterterrorism.

    “Today, U.S.-based lone actors and small groups, including
homegrown violent extremists and domestic violent extremists—who are
inspired by a broad range of ideological motivations—pose the most
significant and persistent terrorism-related threat to our country,”
he said.

These “broad range of ideological motivations” include “racial bias,
perceived government overreach, conspiracy theories promoting
violence, and false narratives about unsubstantiated fraud in the 2020
presidential election,”

He didn’t elaborate on what he meant by “perceived government
overreach” or “conspiracy theories promoting violence.” He did,
however, assure lawmakers that his department is working hard to
combat these perceived threats.

One of the major programs touted by Mayorkas is the newly branded DHS
Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships (CP3), formerly known
as the Office for Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention. In
conjunction with that, the DHS is in the midst of a $77 million grant
program aimed to provide state and local institutions with tools to
counter extremism.

The DHS first announced CP3 in May along with a new dedicated domestic
terrorism branch within the Department’s Office of Intelligence &
Analysis (I&A). Mayorkas told the Homeland Security panel that CP3 is
helping expand the department’s ability to prevent terrorism and
targeted violence “through the development of local prevention
frameworks.”

    “Through CP3, we are leveraging community-based partnerships and
evidence-based tools to address early-risk factors and ensure
individuals receive help before they radicalize to violence,” he said.

However, Mayorkas didn’t offer details about other elements of
CP3—elements that various interest groups say pose a threat to
liberty.

Among the details that weren’t discussed are what CP3 says on its own
site—that it “leverages behavioral threat assessment and management
tools, and addresses early-risk factors that can lead to
radicalization to violence.”

According to human rights activist Ed Hasbrouck, consultant to the
nonprofit Identity Project, this mission amounts to a pre-crime
program.

    “CP3’s attempts to predict future crimes are to be based on
behavioral patterns— i.e., profiling—and on encouraging members of the
public to inform on their families, friends, and classmates,”
Hasbrouck wrote when CP3 was first announced.

    “The problem, of course, is that the law does not permit
prosecution based solely on patterns of lawful behavior,” he wrote.
“With good reason: ‘precrime’ prediction is a figment of the
imagination of the creators of a dystopian fantasy movie, ‘Minority
Report.’”

The Brennan Center for Justice has expressed similar concerns. Far
from a conservative group, the Brennan Center agrees with the DHS and
FBI that domestic extremism is a rising threat.

    “Over the past five years, from Charlottesville to Pittsburgh to
El Paso, attacks by people who reject our multiracial democracy have
shaken our country to its core and sparked conversation about how best
to address far-right violence,” the group stated in a June report.

    “The Trump administration, which stoked the flames of white
supremacy, ended with the ransacking of the U.S. Capitol as Congress
was certifying Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.”

But the Brennan Center said CP3 and the Biden administration’s overall
approach to countering domestic extremism—enhanced surveillance,
profiling, and the like—are the same draconian tactics government used
against Muslims post-9/11.

“At a time when jurisdictions around the country are considering how
to reduce law enforcement involvement in mental health and social
issues, CP3 prevention activities take the opposite approach. They
create structures to bring a broad range of concerns about mental
health and socioeconomic conditions to the attention of law
enforcement as indicators of criminality without normal safeguards,”
the Brennan Center stated in its June 69-page report on the issue.

Not only are the DHS-Biden plans a threat to civil liberties; they’re
also proven to be ineffective, the Brennan Center said.

The Brennan Center report paid particular focus to DHS “fusion
centers”—law enforcement compounds scattered throughout the United
States that seek to integrate federal, state, and local intelligence.
The goal of fusion centers is to create partnerships between varying
agencies and the private sector to share intelligence on threats to
public safety so law enforcement has the whole picture and can
“connect the dots.”

Citing congressional reports from 2012, the Brennan Center stated that
these fusion centers have proven to be ineffective. Those reports
found that the DHS spent $289 million to $1.4 billion in public funds
to support state and local fusion centers since 2003, with little
results to show.

    “Instead of looking for terrorist threats, fusion centers were
monitoring lawful political and religious activity. That year, the
Virginia Fusion Center described a Muslim get-out-the-vote campaign as
‘subversive,’” the Brennan Center stated in its June report. “In 2009,
the North Central Texas Fusion Center identified lobbying by Muslim
groups as a possible threat.”

Seemingly little has improved since then.

Earlier in September, NBC News revealed an investigation into fusion
centers. The report starts with an anecdote of Mike Sena, the
president of the National Fusion Center Association, bragging that the
Northern California Regional Intelligence Center (NCRIC) helped stop a
mall shooting attack in Santa Clara.

NBC News found that Sena was apparently stretching the extent to which
his fusion center helped.

    “We don’t have any information showing that NCRIC was involved,”
said Steven Aponte, a San Jose Police Department spokesperson.

The Brennan Center stated in its June report that the Biden
administration is inappropriately involving law enforcement in social
problems and should focus on “community investment, not
criminalization.”

“Communities around the United States should not need to sign up for a
counterterrorism program to get resources for their schools,
universities, places of worship, or social institutions,” the Brennan
Center stated.

“Government commitments should directly address these as social
problems rather than treat those experiencing them as potential
violent criminals, and should wall off programs addressing social ills
from law enforcement across levels of government.”