The world as we know today is at war. This war is not among countries but is a war of the people against their own people. Unlike its European counterparts, the United States was viewed as being relatively immune to “home grown” terrorism, which is an act of terrorism committed by its residents and citizens. Post the 9/11 era this mind-set has changed.

Even since the Home Grown Terrorism has phase-shifted from being a peripheral issue to a full-blown contemporary debate about the threats facing the United States. It’s shocking to observe, that one of the most striking elements of today’s threat picture is that American residents and citizens have active involvement in plots to attack America. This was also evident in the terrorism threat assessment for the 2020 issue by the Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness.

The threat level from violent, home grown extremists, and mainly white supremacists, was marked in red as the top category termed as high. The threat from the Islamic State, Al Qaeda, and others were demoted to third, in green as low. If you were to believe the terrorism experts, this holds true for the entire United States.

Deterrents

In a discussion at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, Mary McCord, a law professor at Georgetown University and a former senior Justice Department official for national security mentioned, “In the U.S., more people are killed by far-right extremists than by those who are adherents to Islamist extremism”. Amidst this growing menace from home grown extremists, law enforcement is battling on how to combat it. It is clear that the government needs to do more to counter the domestic terror threat and with new threats and attacks rising with an alarming frequency, it is time to explore new policy approaches to deter future hatemongers.

This has spawned a debate over whether the United States needs a new law to specifically criminalize domestic terrorism, or whether such a statute would threaten basic First Amendment rights. Terrorism, as defined by Federal laws, is a criminal attack intended to intimidate and constrain civilians in order to influence government policy or affect government conduct.

Enacting a domestic terrorism criminal offense is a first step that should be considered now, but thought should also be given on how to counter domestic groups that seem to utilize violent means as their primary purpose a philosophy for leveraging a political change. However, there are some concerns associated with the same. Designating a domestic organization as a terrorist organization would raise serious concerns about infringing on First Amendment rights and could lead to using the designated tool to wrongly target unpopular ideologies.

In the short term, a far more likely outcome than a new law is the State Department designating a foreign white supremacist group as a terrorist organization, allowing for law enforcement agencies to pursue any United States adherents for providing material support for terrorism.

The debate over a home grown terrorism law indicated just how complex the terrorist threat has become in the nearly two decades since Sept. 11