The American Intelligence Community has always be a ‘looking outward’ group….
Actually ?
Congress has passed laws forbidding ‘looking inward’….
That job is shared by the FBI and Homeland Security Dept. which has had its mission pointed at undocumented immigration by the Trump admin….
Domestic intel actions by the government tend to become politically toxic in the media and among a good amount of Americans….
It continues to be ignored within days of shooting deaths, violent protests and political actions which result from home-grown actions…
President Biden will have a tough time on this….
But something DOES need to be done as the FBI breaks over 200 investigations into the ‘protestors’ that mounted an assault on the American legislative branch with goal of violently stopping from doing their jobs…
As president, he’ll have to figure out how to address it with deeds and not just words — a difficult task, as the Biden team is now learning. Congress may have a hard time delineating just who qualifies as a domestic terrorist, too — and what new legal tools, if any, to authorize, interviews with influential lawmakers make clear.
People close to the transition say the Capitol insurrection drove home the acuteness of the threat for the new administration, which has already decided to elevate the issue by making it a top priority for the National Security Council.
New personnel with expertise in domestic extremism will be brought on to support the counterterrorism directorate and homeland security advisers, the sources said, likely within the next few weeks.
The increased emphasis reflects President Biden and his team’s alarm at what the Jan. 6 assault on Congress revealed about the country they are now tasked with leading. “Don’t you dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob. Insurrectionists. Domestic terrorists,” as Biden put it in remarks the next day.
The shift is unlikely to be drastic, or even instant. The new NSC and Justice Department teams won’t be able to reorient toward countering domestic terrorism until they are fully settled in and briefed on the latest intelligence….
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A source close to the White House said the need for urgency will dictate Biden’s early decisions. “This is a day one problem, so in responding to this, the new administration will use the tools it inherits on day one,” the person said. “Whether more can be done with more tools like domestic terrorism legislation is an urgent question and that will be considered.”
On the Hill, Democrats in the Senate and House are looking for a complete 180 in how the country handles homeland terrorists. Speier, who serves on the Intelligence and Oversight Committees, is preparing a letter to Biden and his Defense secretary nominee, Gen. Lloyd Austin, urging them to examine social media of recruits before they receive security clearances – a move that she thinks can be done through a regulation or executive order….