The New York Times - 06.08.2019

A14 0 N THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONALTUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 2019

El Paso and Dayton Shootings

pledged to give federal law en-

forcement authorities “whatever

they need” to combat domestic

terrorism. The motive for the sec-

ond attack of the weekend, in Day-

ton, Ohio, remains unknown. But

even before the shootings, which

left at least 31 people dead, offi-

cials said that preventing attacks

from white supremacists and na-

tionalists would require adopting

the same type of broad and ag-

gressive approach used to battle

international extremism.

“We need to catch them and in-

carcerate them before they act on

their plans,” Rod Rosenstein, the

former deputy attorney general,

said in an email interview. “We

need to be proactive by identifying

and disrupting potential terrorists

before they strike, and we can ac-

complish that by monitoring ter-

rorist propaganda and communi-

cations.”

Under current federal law, that

is difficult. Federal officials have

broad powers to disrupt foreign

terrorist plots, given to them as

part of the Patriot Act passed after

the 2001 attacks. They can take

preventive action, for example, by

wiretapping or using an under-

cover online persona to talk to peo-

ple anonymously in chat rooms to

search for jihadis.

But domestically, federal offi-

cials have far fewer options. A fed-

eral statute defines domestic ter-

rorism but carries no penalties.

The First Amendment, which pro-

tects freedom of speech, makes

stopping terrorist acts committed

by Americans before they happen

more challenging. No government

agency is responsible for desig-

nating domestic terrorism organi-

zations. And individuals who are

considered domestic terrorists are

charged under laws governing

hate crimes, guns and conspiracy,

not terrorism.

“It’s a big blank spot,” said Mary

McCord, a former top national se-

curity prosecutor who has drafted

a proposed statute to criminalize

domestic terrorism not covered by

existing laws. This would include

criminalizing the stockpiling of

weapons intended to be used in a

domestic terrorist attack.

The issue is urgent. Right-wing

extremists killed more people in

2018 than in any year since 1995,

the year of Timothy McVeigh’s

bomb attack on the Oklahoma City

federal building, according to the

Anti-Defamation League. And the

attack in El Paso and an April

shooting in a synagogue in Poway,

Calif., alone have claimed as many

lives as all extremist homicides “of

any stripe” in 2018, according to

the Center for the Study of Hate

and Extremism at California State

University, San Bernardino.

The F.B.I. field office in Phoenix

recently issued a report that said

conspiracy theories — often with

racial overtones and fueled by dis-

semination online — had become a

growing national security threat.

Mr. Rosenstein said that law en-

forcement needs to model its do-

mestic terrorism response after

the international counterterror-

ism efforts undertaken in the wake

of the 9/11 attacks.

“In the same way that hon-

orable members of mosques re-

port people who express violent

designs, so, too, should people re-

port violent white nationalists to

the police,” he said.

The First Amendment’s protec-

tion of citizens’ rights to engage in

hateful speech makes it difficult to

track down attacks before they

happen.

“From the perspective of the

courts, white supremacy is a hate-

ful but protected form of speech,”

said Jonathan Turley, a constitu-

tional law expert at George Wash-

ington University. “What courts

resist are efforts to classify whole

movements as violent as a result

of the actions of some of its mem-

bers.”

The problem touches every as-

pect of American life — politics,

civil liberties and business — and

involves complicated new ques-

tions around the issue of technol-

ogy. How much will technology

and communications companies,

including the big social media plat-

forms, be willing to share informa-

tion about domestic customers

with law enforcement agencies?

On the internet, white nationalists

can align with other radicals, be-

come inspired and find the re-

sources they need to act alone — a

process that has also helped for-

eign extremists become terrorists.

Perhaps most important, a new

focus on white-supremacist vio-

lence would test whether Ameri-

cans are as accepting of ag-

gressive law enforcement tactics

when the targets aren’t Muslims,

but white Americans.

“If they did the same thing that

they did with the Muslims, they’d

say every white guy is a potential

terrorist,” said Martin R. Stolar, a

New York civil rights lawyer. “You

can’t do that with white people.

The blowback would be out-

rageous.”

The rise in the white suprema-

cist threat has paralleled an in-

creasing racialization and divi-

siveness in the nation’s immigra-

tion debate. Mr. Trump has used

ethnonationalist language that his

opponents argue is arousing politi-

cal extremists. Even in past years,

some political leaders have been

slow to recognize the existence of

domestic terrorism: After the Ok-

lahoma City bombing, Newt Ging-

rich, at the time the speaker of the

House, refused to hold hearings on

white nationalist terrorism.

In the years since, the nature of

white supremacism has changed.

It used to be that white suprema-

cists, for the most part, operated in

groups, often living in the same

area, said Brian H. Levin, director

of the Center for the Study of Hate

and Extremism. The chapters had

some control over the timing and

choice of targets. He cited as ex-

amples Aryan Nations, the Ku

Klux Klan and local Nazi skinhead

groups.

“The top-down hierarchies of

the past have been increasingly

supplanted by a more democra-

tized and a geographically dis-

persed set of erratic do-it-yourself-

ers,” he said. “Now, so-called lone

wolves are turbocharged by a

fragmented and hate-filled dark

web which has become a modern-

day, virtual neo-Nazi bootcamp

available 24-7 anywhere in the

world with an internet connec-

tion.”

Examples of these kinds of ac-

tors are the attackers in the Poway

synagogue shooting, the mass

shooting at a synagogue in Pitts-

burgh last fall and now, according

to the authorities, El Paso.

While these men often act alone,

the F.B.I. says that technology has

allowed American terrorists to

plug into a global community of

terrorists who espouse similarly

hateful ideologies. Domestic ter-

rorists are increasingly citing ter-

rorists overseas in their killings.

In his manifesto, the suspected El

Paso gunman said that he agreed

with the terrorists who attacked

two mosques in Christchurch,

New Zealand. The suspect in New

Zealand said in the manifesto he is

believed to have written that he

had been inspired by Dylann Roof,

who murdered nine people at the

Emanuel African Methodist Epis-

copal Church in Charleston, S.C.

Ali Soufan, a former F.B.I. spe-

cial agent and the author of “Anat-

omy of Terror,” said he had been

struck by how much white su-

premacists resemble the jihadis

he spent so many years fighting.

“There is a striking resem-

blance between jihadists and

white supremacists, and it goes

way beyond just utilizing social

media in order to spread ideology,”

he said.

Both use violence to reshape so-

ciety in their own image. Both use

recruitment videos that empha-

size a lifestyle of “purity,” mili-

tancy and physical fitness. Jihadis

share beheading videos, while

right-wing extremists share the

live stream of the attack in New

Zealand. He said Ukraine was now

a global gathering place for white

supremacists, much as Afghani-

stan was for jihadis in the 1980s.

“This is becoming a global net-

work in so many different ways,

just like we’ve seen with the ji-

hadis before them,” he said.

Federal investigators have also

found white supremacist elements

flourishing in prisons. In March,

federal prosecutors in Alaska an-

nounced that an investigation had

resulted in charges against 18

members and associates of a white

supremacist gang known as the

1488s. In May, a federal grand jury

indicted members of an Aryan

Knights prison gang that had op-

erated in Idaho.

The indictment in the Alaska

case described the 1488s as a gang

with dozens of members operating

in Alaska and elsewhere.

David Neiwert, who has long re-

ported on extremism in the North-

west and has worked with the

Southern Poverty Law Center,

said he sees the threat of the

Northwest’s racist groups return-

ing to levels of the 1980s, when

neo-Nazi elements around the

country had moved into the North-

west in a bid to create a white eth-

nostate. In the 1990s and 2000s,

those groups lost much of their

power and subsided.

Mr. Neiwert said people with ex-

tremist sympathies were now or-

ganizing online and attaching

themselves to groups that aren’t

as explicit about white suprema-

cist notions.

“Local agencies in particular

should be better equipped,” Mr.

Neiwert said. “On the other hand,

the F.B.I. and the Justice Depart-

ment could probably do a better

job of equipping local law enforce-

ment.”

As the international terrorism

threat evolved to include more

lone actors, radicalized online

rather than in terrorist cells

abroad, the F.B.I. sought to enlist

technology companies in its ef-

forts to combat the threat. But

companies have been slow to re-

spond — and have been shielded,

in part, by the First Amendment.

“It’s been a very long few years

of getting platform companies to

understand the role that digital

media plays in spreading hate

speech, harassment and incite-

ment to violence,” said Joan Dono-

van, director of the Technology

and Social Change project at the

Harvard Kennedy School’s Shor-

enstein Center. “Generally, a piece

of content is only reviewed if

someone else has flagged it first.”

Under intense criticism for their

delayed reaction to disinformation

and hateful content after the 2016

presidential election, technology

companies have started to take a

more proactive approach to disin-

formation and hate speech. In

most cases, spokeswomen for

Google and Facebook said the

companies report white suprema-

cist content only when it poses an

imminent threat to life, or when

they are complying with valid le-

gal requests.

In May, Facebook evicted seven

of its most controversial users, in-

cluding Alex Jones, the conspiracy

theorist and founder of Infowars,

and Laura Loomer, a far-right ac-

tivist.

But critics say that is not

enough. “White supremacy, at

least at Facebook, was seen as a

political ideology that one could

hold,” said Jessie Daniels, a sociol-

ogy professor at the City Univer-

sity of New York and the author of

a forthcoming book on white su-

premacy. “It’s only recently that

they’ve said they recognize white

supremacy as an ideology of vio-

lence.”

Ms. Daniels said there was an

important lesson in what hap-

pened to Milo Yiannopoulos, the

right-wing provocateur, after he

was banned from using Twitter

and Facebook.

“Milo has ceded from view since

that happened. I really think that’s

an argument in favor of this strat-

egy,” she said. “He lost a book deal.

He’s bankrupt. It showed ‘deplat-

forming’ is a useful tool and we

need to find more ways to adopt it

in the U.S.”

Ms. Daniels and others say the

companies’ own algorithms for de-

ciding what constitutes far-right

extremist content are insufficient

in tackling the threat. Often they

rely on users, and in many cases

names and content that percolate

in the media, to decide what con-

tent and accounts should be taken

down.

“We’ve reached this position

where these companies have

scaled beyond their capacity for

safety. We don’t know what the

next steps should be,” Ms. Daniels

said. “We’re in a pretty significant

bind now that we have a very large

tech industry we all depend on,

and we don’t feel we can trust

them to keep us safe.”

Battling Domestic Terror

With No Clear Road Map

From Page A

F.B.I. agents at the El Paso shooting site. One expert said the bureau could do better at helping local police agencies identify threats.

IVAN PIERRE AGUIRRE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Reporting was contributed by

Serge F. Kovaleski, Audra Burch,

William K. Rashbaum and Mike

Baker.

Free-speech rules can

hamper efforts to act

on hate speech.

WASHINGTON — For two dec-
ades, through Columbine, Virginia
Tech, Newtown, Orlando, Las Ve-
gas and the rest, mass shootings
have provoked only scant action
in Congress. Now, after horrific
back-to-back massacres this
weekend, people in both parties
agree that one man could change
that: Senator Mitch McConnell.
As President Trump urged na-
tional unity in the face of “racist
hate” without endorsing broad
gun control measures, Democrats
and a handful of Republicans
called on Monday for Mr. McCon-
nell, the majority leader, to bring
up legislation to require gun buy-
ers — including those on the inter-
net and at gun shows — to go
through background checks.
Mr. McConnell, nursing a frac-
tured shoulder from a weekend
fall at home in Kentucky, made no
commitments. After consulting
with advisers and fellow Republi-
cans, he issued a statement Mon-
day saying that he had asked
three top committee chairmen “to
engage in bipartisan discussions”
about how to address gun violence
“without infringing on Americans’
constitutional rights.”
“Senate Republicans are pre-
pared to do our part,” he said.
But just what “our part” is, was
unclear. One of Mr. McConnell’s
longtime advisers, J. Scott Jen-
nings, said Monday that Mr. Mc-
Connell was positioned to lead a
process in Congress that could
“achieve a solution that, at a min-
imum, comforts the nation.”
“People want something to hap-
pen,” he said. “I don’t think people

want mass confiscation of guns,

but they do want something to

show responsiveness.”

With Congress in recess,

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sena-

tor Chuck Schumer, the Demo-

cratic leader, demanded that Mr.

McConnell bring back the Senate

— something he is highly unlikely

to do — to consider a House back-

ground checks bill, which passed

in February.

While some House Democrats

want Ms. Pelosi to call back the

House to consider additional leg-

islation, such as an assault weap-

ons ban, Democratic leaders want

to keep the pressure on Mr. Trump

and Mr. McConnell. After a confer-

ence call with House Democrats

on Monday, Ms. Pelosi sent them a

“Dear Colleague” letter saying

two committees would hold hear-

ings on domestic terrorism and

gun violence.

“The president and Mitch Mc-

Connell have to feel the public sen-

timent on this,” Ms. Pelosi told

Democrats during the call, ac-

cording to an aide. “We have a

golden opportunity to save lives.”

In the Senate, some of Mr. Mc-

Connell’s Republican colleagues

were speaking up.

Senator Susan Collins of Maine,

who faces a tough re-election race

next year if she runs again, said

she had “long supported closing

loopholes in background checks.”

Senator Mike Braun, a fresh-

man from Indiana, said any bipar-

tisan legislation to address gun vi-

olence must include stronger

background checks and “red flag”

laws, which were cited by Mr.

Trump and would allow the tem-

porary confiscation of firearms

from people deemed a danger to

themselves or others.

Senator Lamar Alexander of

Tennessee, one of the committee

chairmen called into action by the

majority leader, vowed, “I am

ready to do more, especially on

background checks, to identify

those who shouldn’t have guns.”

And Senator Patrick J. Toomey

of Pennsylvania convened a con-

ference call with reporters to an-

nounce that he was reviving his

background check measure,

which failed in the Senate in 2013.

He said he spoke Monday morn-

ing to Mr. Trump, who expressed

“a very constructive willingness

to engage on this issue,” and also

to Mr. McConnell, whose com-

ments he would not characterize.

“My view is, if we have enough

support in the Senate, then we

ought to have a vote, and I intend

to do everything I can to persuade

Senator McConnell if that’s neces-

sary,” he said.

At 77, Mr. McConnell, who is

running for re-election in 2020,

has cast himself as the “grim

reaper” for liberal legislation. Ms.

Pelosi and Mr. Schumer have re-

peatedly called the Senate a “leg-

islative graveyard,” and around

the country, Mr. McConnell has

become a target for liberals — as

reviled by the left as Ms. Pelosi is

on the right.

On Monday, he was being pillo-

ried on social media with the hash-

tag #MassacreMitch — a twist on

#MoscowMitch, the moniker that

critics used to assail him for block-

ing election security legislation.

His campaign came under at-

tack on two fronts. Representative

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Demo-

crat of New York, demanded an

explanation for a photograph that

appeared on Twitter of young men

wearing “Team Mitch” T-shirts

appearing to choke a life-size

cardboard cutout of her.

And Amy McGrath, Mr. McCon-

nell’s likely Democratic opponent,

complained that the campaign

had tweeted a photograph of a

mock graveyard depicting tomb-

stones with her name and the

name of Merrick B. Garland,

whose Supreme Court nomination

Mr. McConnell blocked.

The McConnell campaign said

it did not produce the grave-

stones, which were photographed

at Fancy Farm, a Kentucky politi-

cal picnic, as a spoof of a newspa-

per cartoon that Ms. McGrath her-

self had circulated. But Ms. Mc-

Grath upbraided the campaign for

“nasty and personal” attacks — a

message that was picked up by

Gabrielle Giffords, the former

congresswoman who was griev-

ously wounded in a mass shooting

in Tucson in 2011, and is now an ad-

vocate for gun safety laws.

“I am appalled that in this divi-

sive political climate — a climate

where gun violence fueled by hate

is on the rise — Mitch McConnell

is joking about the death of his

current and former opponents

and a federal judge,” Ms. Giffords

said in a statement. “The nation is

turning to Leader McConnell

right now for leadership, and this

is the furthest thing from it.”

Gun violence — and how to ad-

dress it — has been one of the

most intractable and divisive is-

sues in Washington; the last time

the lawmakers voted to restrict

gun ownership was 1994, when

Congress passed an assault weap-

ons ban.

Even gun control advocates ac-

knowledge that this weekend’s

mass shootings are unlikely to

produce quick congressional ac-

tion. Still, some Republican strat-

egists say they sense a shift in

sentiment in their party.

“There clearly seems to be a

consensus developing on both

sides of the aisle for universal

mandatory background checks,”

said Whit Ayres, a Republican

strategist. “And the door may be

opening a bit more for a ban on

military-style assault weapons

and magazines.”

With the National Rifle Associa-

tion, the nation’s most powerful

gun lobby, in disarray amid a

string of lawsuits and internal up-

heaval, some Republicans who fa-

vor tightening gun laws say now is

the time to act.

But Mr. McConnell, who wants

to maintain the Republican major-

ity in the Senate, is well aware that

voters in rural hunting states —

including his own — would not

look kindly on any restrictions on

gun rights. Al Cross, the director

of the Institute for Rural Journal-

ism and Community Issues at the

University of Kentucky, said Mr.

McConnell was unlikely to push

for them.

“Six words,” Mr. Cross declared.

“We love our guns in Kentucky.”

And Mr. McConnell is unlikely

to act without the approval of Mr.

Trump, whose own statements on

gun violence have been all over

the place. In an early morning

tweet on Monday, Mr. Trump

called for “strong background

checks,” but tied them to an immi-

gration law overhaul. In a speech

from the White House a few hours

later, he did not mention back-

ground checks, but instead called

for red flag laws.

Washington’s Eyes Turn to McConnell for Response to Gun Violence

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

“Senate Republicans are prepared to do our part,” Senator Mitch

McConnell said of plans to address the spate of mass shootings.

ERIN SCHAFF/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Bipartisan sentiment

grows for some form

of background checks.

Nicholas Fandos and Emily Coch-
rane contributed reporting.