Peters-led Senate panel continues investigation of domestic terrorism in America

U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, is continuing to lead a congressional investigation into the threat of domestic terrorism in America.

A Tuesday hearing, the first of two scheduled for this week, continues a months-long probe into the domestic terror and violent extremism in the United States partially inspired by the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee heard testimony from researchers and representatives of advocacy organizations for ethnic and religious groups.

“We need to get serious about taking on these heinous threats and the violence that stems from them,” Peters said. “In my view, we must change how the federal government approaches domestic terrorism. That will require not only improving the way government tracks the threat but also better understanding how these hateful ideologies spread across social media platforms and how that online transmission can lead to real-world violence.”

The Biden administration released a national strategy for countering domestic terrorism in June, which called the threat “persistent and evolving.” Domestic extremists hold a wide variety of motivations and beliefs, according to the report, including white supremacist ideology, anti-government and anti-capitalist sentiment, or issues related to abortion rights and the environment.

“Domestic terrorists have – particularly in recent years – often been lone actors or small groups of informally aligned individuals who mobilize to violence with little or no clear organizational structure or direction,” the report states. “Their ideologies can be fluid, evolving, and overlapping. And they can, in some instances, connect and intersect with conspiracy theories and other forms of disinformation and misinformation.”

Data presented to the Senate panel by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found domestic terrorist attacks and plots have steadily increased since 2006. CSIS recorded 110 attacks and plots in 2020, an increase of 45 incidents since 2019.

CSIS also found the U.S. government, military and law enforcement were increasingly targeted by domestic terrorists during the last five years. Last year, 38% of all domestic terrorist attacks targeted government or law enforcement agencies.

One explanation provided in the report states anti-fascist groups and white supremacist groups both view police as the enforcers of a repressive government.

While the number of attacks rose last year, fatalities from domestic terrorist attacks hit their lowest level since 2013. Five people were killed in terrorist attacks in 2020, according to the CSIS report, an 86% decrease from 2019, when 35 individuals died in terrorist attacks.

Attacks against Asian Americans are also on the rise, according to data from Asian Americans Advancing Justice. The nonprofit advocacy group reported 7,300 incidents of anti-Asian hate were collected through online platforms between February 2020 and March 2021.

Harassment and violence were sometimes inspired by racist narratives about the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the report. The group also pointed to a growing “xenophobic and racist backlash against immigrants.”

“Fear is what drives some of the extremism that we’ve seen,” said John Yang, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice.

Wade Henderson, interim president and chief executive officer for The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, drew a connection to America’s long history of racist violence against minority groups. Henderson also warned against expanding domestic terror laws out of concern that they could be used against minority communities instead.

“(Government) has the resources to address these issues, it does not have, at this point, the political will,” Henderson. “That is what I hope these hearings will help provide.”

Jewish communities and synagogues are also experiencing increased threats during the last several years, according to Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America. Fingerhut said a bloody war between Israel and Hamas inspired some attacks on Jewish Americans.

“I think there is no question that we have indeed witnessed a rise in violent extremism against the Jewish community in the last couple of months that coincided with the recent war in Israel,” Fingerhut said.

A second hearing is scheduled for Thursday, which will include testimony from representatives of the Arab American Institute, Anti-Defamation League, Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University and a former federal official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee also released a bipartisan report on Tuesday that outlined security vulnerabilities in key federal agencies that recently faced cyberattacks.