Domestic terrorism, a phenomenon formerly associated with left-wing groups such as the Weather Underground, Black Liberation Army, and Puerto Rican FALN separatists, has returned with blood in its eyes and on its hands.
We saw five dead in the Jan. 6 attempted coup d’etat. We saw possible assassination plots against both former Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. We saw coercion designed to prevent certification of President Biden’s Electoral College victory. We now see the Capitol necessarily secured behind razor wire. But we also see some Republican members of Congress trying to sneak guns onto the House floor. One has even called for violence. It is time to confront these putschists.
Democrats such as Attorney General-designate Merrick Garland and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer should use their executive and legislative power over the next 23 months to do the following five important things.
First, bring the heaviest felony charges possible on as many participants in the insurrection as the Justice Department can identify and believes it can confidently convict. We ruthlessly hunted down foreign terrorists after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and must do the same to their domestic equivalents. Further prosecution is possible under the federal felon-in-possession-of-a-firearm statute.
Second, make fire and police departments that receive federal grants have their members sign commitments not to engage in acts to overthrow the government. Prosecute any who subsequently violate their oaths. We could also cut or suspend federal funding to departments that fail to introduce these measures. It’s what we’re doing to universities that receive federal grant money and then, promises to the contrary, allow communist Chinese to walk off with export-controlled intellectual property paid for by American taxpayers.
Third, do not worry about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Rather than ban extremist chatter through government censorship or private de-platforming, use radical chat rooms as honeypots, as FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Forces have done with violent, radicalized Islamists since 2001. We need to draw out those of our fellow citizens who are willing to attack our nation.
Fourth, use the supremacy of federal law to ban “militias” beyond the National Guard. There is simply no longer any room for armed forces not answerable to the law.
Fifth, add domestic terrorism as a predicate to the material support for terrorism statute, including its civil liability provisions. This will provide new means of successful prosecutions and gradually increased deterrence against domestic terrorists.
I woke up in my Manhattan apartment as a Wall Street law firm associate on Sept. 12, 2001, worrying how America could stop the next attack. I woke up as a combat veteran in my suburban Washington, D.C., house on Jan. 7, 2021, equally worried. But I also remember what helped America last time. We defeated al Qaeda and can do the same to the fascist thugs who attacked our democracy last month. But only if we take similar hard measures against the enemy within.
Kevin Carroll served as senior counselor to the secretary of homeland security and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and as a CIA and Army officer in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen.
