Critics fault FBI over domestic terrorist threats

WASHINGTON — The FBI counterterrorism division’s identification of a movement it calls “black identity extremists” is the latest addition to the list of protesters and dissidents the agency puts under the “domestic terrorism” umbrella.

But many national security experts say the designation doesn’t describe a movement at all, let alone a terrorism threat. It’s simply a label that allows the FBI to conduct additional surveillance on “basically anyone who’s black and politically active,” said Michael German, who left the FBI in 2004 and did undercover domestic terrorism work.

Critics are concerned that increasingly, it appears to be minorities and environmental protesters who are being targeted.

While the practice of labeling certain protest groups as domestic terrorists is not unique to President Trump’s administration, Hina Shamsi, national security project director at the American Civil Liberties Union, said there’s concern that “abusive and unjustified investigations” by the FBI are rising.

“We are worried that protesters are increasingly being labeled as terrorism threats,” Shamsi said.

The problem, Shamsi said, is partly in the overly broad definition of domestic terrorism in the Patriot Act as a violation of the criminal laws of a state or the United States that is “dangerous to human life” and appears to be intended to “influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion.”

Eighty-four members of Congress cited that intention to intimidate or coerce in a letter to the Justice Department last week that asked whether the department had labeled Dakota Access Pipeline protesters domestic terrorists. The Justice Department did not respond to questions about the letter.

The FBI report that focused on black identity extremists, which was published in August and leaked to Foreign Policy in October, had interest groups questioning whether the designation has been used to single out members of Black Lives Matter, though it never specifically mentions the group.

The report identified six attacks against police as examples of black identity extremism, but German said the logic in the report is deeply flawed.

“If you look at three of those cases, there’s no ideology connecting them at all,” German said. “The only commonality is that they’re black.”