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The State Department said they were making the designations as “part of a broader U.S. government effort to address the transnational dimensions of the threat posed by REMVE actors and reflect the Biden-Harris Administration’s continued commitment to countering domestic terrorism (DT), which includes REMVE.”
Great. They specifically said "domestic" in that. Now do the American neo-Nazi groups.
I think Proud Boys, 3%'ers, oath keepers, etc....should all be added.
IANAL but my understanding is that there would have to be a change in the law to allow designating domestic terror groups and it’d be tough to make it constitutional. Like, international groups don’t have any constitutional protections so the State Department can make a list. For domestic groups, we have hate crime laws and the FBI can infiltrate groups and foil plots but no government agency makes a list (so it falls to non-profits like the SPLC and others).
"Peaceful protesters" is an officially designated domestic terrorist group since Occupy Wall Street.
Might be a different kind of designation?
Yeah, the big thing about the designation (at least how the article describes it being applied here) is that is denies the designees access to the US financial system. Imagine the Proud Boys et al suddenly cut off from their finances. SPLC can designate any group anything they like, but without the backing of the government, it's like me saying "I'm writing your name down on a list": ultimately meaningless.
But yeah, like you said, there are probably constitutional considerations working against taking similar measures for domestic problems. Just wish they'd...do more, I guess. Seems like things are ramping up and getting worse every day (confirmation biases, aside).
Relevant bit from the article:
Friday’s designation will deny NRM members from accessing the US financial system, with the intention of making it more challenging for them to move money through the international system and fund their efforts.
Who needs traditional banks if there is crypto?..
They can't.
We need American Neo-Nazi groups to be our cops who attack the actual terrorists, "peaceful protesters".
No, please don't expand the horrific practice of labeling of people as terrorists to use as a scarlet letter and help the FBI/DOJ get around those peski civil liberties.
The equitable answer isn't to expand the War on Terror to include more whites, it's to end it and repeal the unconstitutional laws that passed to support it.
That may be harder with the boundary between them, the Republican Party and much of the judiciary being so porous. This designation relies largely on the MTGs of today not going to bat for an obscure Swedish far-right group.
This is one of the nazi organizations connected to the current government far-right party in Finland
This is the best summary I could come up with:
NRM is a transnational neo-Nazi organization founded in Sweden in 1997, with branches in Norway, Denmark, Iceland, and Finland, according to the State Department.
The designation of NRM comes as US officials have warned that White supremacist terror groups continue to pose a threat at home and abroad.
The 2024 Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community found that the “transnational racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (RMVE) movement, in particular motivated by white supremacy, will continue to foment violence across Europe, South America, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand inspiring the lone actor or small-cell attacks that pose a significant threat to U.S. persons.”
“The group’s members and leaders have carried out violent attacks against political opponents, protestors, journalists, and other perceived adversaries.”
“NRM members have also taken steps to collect and prepare weapons and explosive materials, including on behalf of the group and in furtherance of its goals,” Miller continued.
In remarks Wednesday, a top State Department counterterrorism official warned that “transnational linkages” were increasing, “with individuals and groups communicating both online and in-person, radicalizing individuals—frequently young people—to violence, recruiting, and sharing tactical training, including sharing instructions for making weapons.”
The original article contains 556 words, the summary contains 188 words. Saved 66%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!