DHS Warns That Domestic Terrorism Could Spring from Resistance to COVID Policies
Do you have a problem with the current state of affairs in this country? Are you upset over reinstated COVID-19 restrictions or attacks on free speech? Do you have questions about the COVID-19 vaccine, the origin of the virus, or the outcome of the 2020 election?
Do you post and share about these ideas online?
Well, my friend, welcome to your new life as a potential domestic terrorist. That is, according to the Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security in 2021.
And yes — they’re keeping an eye on you and asking your friends and neighbors to do the same.
I’m sure many of you are old enough to remember If You See Something, Say Something, right? Well, this now applies to your Facebook posts firmly stating you do not believe Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election or that you won’t be getting any vaccines anytime soon.
The DHS, which was formed by President George W. Bush in 2002 following the September 11 terror attacks on the United States the previous year, has issued an advisory leading up to the 20th anniversary of the attacks, an advisory that has many Americans stunned to find that the “false narratives” they share online about things such as COVID-19 or election fraud could contribute to terrorist attacks.
If you’ve been even casually following Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong’s civil liberties over the past few years and how the new national security law defines “anti-government activities,” our own federal government’s apparent definition of the same on our soil should make you angry.
In an advisory issued Friday, DHS wrote, “The Homeland continues to face a diverse and challenging threat environment leading up to and following the 20th Anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks as well religious holidays we assess could serve as a catalyst for acts of targeted violence.”
“These threats include those posed by domestic terrorists, individuals and groups engaged in grievance-based violence, and those inspired or motivated by foreign terrorists and other malign foreign influences.
“These actors are increasingly exploiting online forums to influence and spread violent extremist narratives and promote violent activity. Such threats are also exacerbated by impacts of the ongoing global pandemic, including grievances over public health safety measures and perceived government restrictions,” the advisory’s overview concludes.
Did you catch the “perceived government restrictions” part? Yes, apparently that refers to all those mask mandates and vaccine passports you’re so worried about, ones fabricated in your imagination.
The advisory continues to note that through the remainder of this year, that “racially- or ethnically-motivated violent extremists (RMVEs) and anti-government/anti-authority violent extremists will remain a national threat priority for the United States.”
“These extremists may seek to exploit the emergence of COVID-19 variants by viewing the potential re-establishment of public health restrictions across the United States as a rationale to conduct attacks. Pandemic-related stressors have contributed to increased societal strains and tensions, driving several plots by domestic violent extremists, and they may contribute to more violence this year,” the advisory explains.
It also notes that “Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula recently released its first English-language copy of Inspire magazine in over four years, which demonstrates that foreign terrorist organizations continue efforts to inspire U.S.-based individuals susceptible to violent extremist influences,” which was the only reference to a named terrorist organization in the advisory.
Very troublingly, the DHS did not describe any ideology that could drive potential domestic terror threats in any great detail other than grievances with public health mandates and objections to the election.
Otherwise, the just-described general anti-government or race-based grievances that were so vague, they could be applied to either left, right, or otherwise fringe ideologies.
The agency clearly stated that “There are also continued, non-specific calls for violence on multiple online platforms associated with DVE ideologies or conspiracy theories on perceived election fraud and alleged reinstatement, and responses to anticipated restrictions relating to the increasing COVID cases.” (The bold-face here is ours.)
Now, to be entirely fair, while the Capitol Hill incursion on Jan. 6 wasn’t nearly as violent as the average “mostly peaceful protest” of the 2020 Summer of Rage, it was targeted at official government proceedings and took place in the middle of a protest against the outcome of a political election.
Yet the left-wing rioters and looters, while certainly bolstered by a great number of gleeful opportunists who probably just wanted a TV or a pair of Nikes, are not only highly ideological, they are supported by ideas that undermine and directly call for the destruction of our entire government system.
I hate defending the Jan. 6 protesters who entered the Capitol Building as though what they did was innocent, but we must be honest that the majority of them really just wanted Mike Pence to stop the count so that Sydney Powell and Rudy Giuliani could try a little harder to get the results overturned.
To say nothing of the ideology behind radical Islamic terrorism …why didn’t DHS specify the grievance that al-Qaida or the sundry other like-minded militants are driven by, the same ideology that undoubtedly has motivated some of the most prolific terrorists in the world today?
No, the only beliefs that the DHS’ national terrorism advisory bulletin specified were the quite common idea that COVID-19 restrictions are getting way out of hand and that the election might be stolen. And we all know that the vast majority of people who feel this way are not antifa agitators, Black Lives Matter-inspired rioters or Islamic terrorists.
The really scary thing is that the latter groups have significantly more apologists in establishment, mainstream society while the former are routinely characterized as nutjobs and psychopaths by the same set.
CNN jumped on the opportunity to spin this already seemingly political bulletin, describing it as “part of a concerted effort by DHS to address the issues that led up to January 6 and the beginning of an effort by the department to educate the public about how these false narratives and conspiracy theories ‘are not just confusing but dangerous,’ according to a source familiar.”
Indeed, the DHS bulletin itself states that the agency is “advancing authoritative sources of information to debunk and, when possible, preempt false narratives and intentional disinformation, and providing educational materials to promote resilience to the risks associated with interacting with and spreading disinformation, conspiracy theories and false narratives.”
The agency also called on the public to “report suspicious activity,” which by their description, as we’ve learned, would include much of the content shared online by your average consternated conservative.
What is truly dangerous is not people who resist further government COVID-19 restrictions or perpetuate conspiracy theories that the election was stolen, but the people who tell us that the state and the official powers that be know better than we do.
Whether it’s the CDC or the DHS, the idea that the taxpayer-funded institutions of our constitutional republic have a right to tell us what to think and have so aggressively combated our “dangerous” ideas by shutting them down (with ample help from Big Tech) poses far more of a threat to our long-term peace and stability.
The government has seized so much power over the past year and a half that, as many of us have amply warned, it is determined not to give it back.
And now it has come to this.
If the government is looking to disseminate conspiracy theories that our nation is heading down the path of totalitarian, ideological control, this Orwellian advisory isn’t going to quell them.
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