Even though white supremacists have become the largest threat facing the United States as a form of domestic terrorism according to the FBI, two Republican Senators introduced a nonbinding resolution to label antifascists as "domestic terrorists," according to Salon.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) released a statement on Tuesday which called Antifa "terrorists" who are "violent masked bullies who ‘fight fascism’ with actual fascism, protected by Liberal privilege. Bullies get their way until someone says no. Elected officials must have courage, not cowardice, to prevent terror.”
The resolution, which is co-sponsored by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), would not change any laws, but still wants to designate anyone who identifies as an antifascist as a domestic terrorist.
However, antifa isn't a monolith and is a cluster of different activists, protesters, and regular citizens.
The New York Times said the membership count of antifa was "impossible to know," since the group traces its ideological roots to Germany in World War I and II.
Hina Shamsi, director of the national security project at the American Civil Liberties Union, told The Washington Post the ACLU opposes naming protest groups as domestic terrorists.
“It is dangerous and overly broad to use labels that are disconnected [from] actual individual conduct,” Shamsi said. “And as we’ve seen how ‘terrorism’ has been used already in this country, any such scheme raises significant due process, equal protection and First Amendment constitutional concerns.”
But conservatives have claimed antifa activists are the real danger, even though they are often present to protest white supremacist organizations including the Proud Boys and the KKK.
That anger has been partially fueled by conservative media, especially Fox News contributors such as Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson who have referred to antifa as a destructive and corrosive force.
But many have supported antifa activists since they often try to protect people from potentially violent far-right groups gathering in public, such as in Charlottesville in 2017, when a white nationalist drove his car through a crowd of counter-protesters at the Unite The Right rally, killing Heather Heyer.
The FBI classifies domestic terrorism into four categories: anti-government, racially motivated, environmental, or abortion-related, while domestic terrorism itself is not a specific federal crime, but relies on charging people using individual laws.
If the FBI or Justice Department designate antifa as a domestic terrorist organization, it would expand law enforcement's ability to investigate it, which Neal Katyal, a Georgetown University law professor and former national security adviser, said means the police can look into any groups an individual accused of being an antifa member belongs to.
The Anti-Defamation League, an organization which works to oppose anti-Semitism, said the lack of a central government system for antifa increases the risk of applying the label to anyone who protests against white supremacists.
The ADL warned that mislabeling could violate the civil rights of peaceful protesters and even though they view the black bloc's tactics as wrong when they resort to violence, antifa and white supremacists are still not comparable.
Far-right extremists have killed hundreds of people in the past decade, the ADL said, while there have been no known antifa-related killings.
“The antifa reject racism but use unacceptable tactics,” the ADL wrote. “White supremacists use even more extreme violence to spread their ideologies of hate, to intimidate ethnic minorities, and undermine democratic norms.”
-WN.com, Maureen Foody
Photo:
AP / John Rudoff
