While federal law prohibits international terrorism, it defines but does not yet prohibit domestic terrorism. In the absence of congressional authorization, the FBI and Justice Department simply have not had the resources to address the increasing frequency of white supremacist violence over the last decade.
Fortunately, most states filled the gap after 9/11. The first wave of state laws in 2002 closely followed the federal Patriot Act of 2001 in focusing on threats such as the use of “weapons of mass destruction.” And in the past five years, many states updated their anti-terrorism statutes to cover racially and religiously motivated domestic hate crimes.
Unfortunately, some states have also been using their anti-terrorism statutes to combat progressive activism. The most recent example is in Atlanta, where Georgia’s anti-terrorism statute, despite containing a provision protecting free speech, is being wielded against 42 individuals who have been protesting the building of a public safety training center known as “Cop City” in the Weelaunee Forest. Their “terrorist” crimes include attending a music event sponsored by environmental activists, marching in downtown Atlanta and tree-sitting. And to compound the injustice, the Atlanta Police Department apparently didn’t make the effort to find probable cause against all of the defendants, according to reporting by The Guardian.
