...With Americans still reeling from the January 6 Capitol riot, the Biden administration will begin its term amid a rapidly escalating "tough on domestic terror" mood.
That's never a good influence no matter which ruling party is in office, and perhaps especially bad in times of intense partisan conflict. There are a few things both Democrats and Republicans can almost always come together on, and limiting civil liberties in the name of national security is chief among them. But worse, Biden has never backed away from hysterical policy reactions to perceived crime and terror threats.
"Biden's career was built on the politics of panics," Reason's Jacob Sullum writes. "After 9/11, Biden did not just vote for the PATRIOT Act, which expanded the federal government's surveillance authority in the name of fighting terrorism. He bragged that it was essentially the same as legislation he had been pushing since 1994."
Now, "the Biden administration plans to make domestic terrorism a key focus of the National Security Council, transition officials tell @carolelee," tweeted Geoff Bennett, NBC's White House correspondent, on Monday. "Officials have been looking at ways to shift government resources previously used for counterterrorism, to combating domestic terrorism."
...Since the Capitol riot, people have been calling for crackdowns on social media tech companies, under the rationale that some folks involved organized or posted about their plans online and/or received misinformation on digital platforms that led them to riot. (And, once again, people pretending that people will stop communicating disfavored ideas if they lose a few venues to do so are finding themselves sorely wrong, as folks move from Facebook, Twitter, and Parler to encrypted messaging apps and other forms of communication.)
..."Already, a bill has been introduced to empower federal law enforcement to better monitor and stop domestic extremist violence," notes The Daily Beast
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