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Domestic Terrorism to Skirt Sweeping 9/11-Style Law in Congress  (Shaun Courtney, Bloomberg)
Domestic White-supremacist extremism is the greatest threat to U.S. security, President Joe Biden’s top homeland security official told Congress — in the same way Islamist extremists were cast as the greatest threat before and after the 9/11 attacks two decades ago. But unlike after 9/11, when Congress enacted broad measures to combat Islamist terrorism — ranging from a new airport security regime to warrantless wiretapping — key homeland security lawmakers aren’t likely to pursue expanded powers to fight the domestic threat any time soon. Some lawmakers believe the solutions to domestic violent extremism can be found in current rules and better resource allocation. There’s also the reality that passing legislation could prove impossible in a political climate in which the definition of domestic terrorism is contested and highly charged. For example, 12 Republicans opposed a bill to award Congressional Gold Medals to Capitol Police officers who died from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol because the lawmakers disputed the bill’s characterization of the attack as an “insurrection.

Bill Aims to Tackle Rising Extremism in France. Some Say It’s an Infringement of Rights  (Yasmine Salam, NBC News)
A draft law being debated in the French Senate this week aimed at strengthening the country and stamping out extremism has unwittingly revealed just how divided the country is. Proponents of the controversial bill put forward by President Emmanuel Macron’s government say it is simply intended to reinforce the nation’s “republican values” — liberty, equality and fraternity. France defends state neutrality through its distinct secularist model known as “laïcité.” To crack down on extremist tendencies in the wake of a slew of terrorist attacks, the legislation would require community groups to sign a charter on those national principles and cap the funding the groups receive from abroad. “What the French government right now is trying to tackle is what they see and what a majority of the French population sees as rising radicalism in certain neighborhoods,” said Benjamin Haddad, director of the Europe Center at the Atlantic Council think tank. “It’s obvious that some of that conversation is being hijacked by populist movements,” he said, noting that Macron’s moves have been criticized not only for pandering to right-wing voters, but also for being too soft on radicalism.

An Alternative to Impeachment: New Bill Helps Enforce Accountability for Capitol Riots  (Jonathan Aron and Sara Chimene-Weiss, Just Security)
“Former President Trump’s actions preceding the riot were a disgraceful dereliction of duty,” said Senator Mitch McConnell on the last day of President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial. “There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day.”
McConnell spoke these words while acquitting Trump on procedural grounds for his involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection. Many Republican senators have similarly acknowledged that Trump bears responsibility for the attack. Yet most refused to convict the former president during his impeachment trial, claiming — against the weight of scholarship and precedent to the contrary — that they thought the Senate did not have jurisdiction to try a former officeholder. Without a clear procedure for holding Trump and other powerful officials accountable for engaging in the Jan. 6 insurrection, the U.S. government can only prosecute their followers who were physically at the Capitol.
The problem with prosecuting only those physical crimes is the resulting lack of consequences for officials who fully engaged in the insurrection, but who did not literally storm the Capitol. Those present at the invasion may receive prison time, but their powerful government enablers will continue operating just underneath the threshold for arrest. They have come away from this attack confident that their powerful positions are safe as long as their supporters take the fall for them. Without a slate of proportional responses to conduct like Trump’s — including disqualification from office, rather than criminal penalties alone — the U.S. incentivizes the next crop of insurrectionist officials.
Fortunately, a perfectly tailored deterrent already exists in the Constitution: Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment. Section Three bars from office anyone who engages in insurrection or rebellion after taking an oath to support the U.S. Constitution. In this way, it defines an unequivocal requirement for office, one which governs the behavior of current and former officials alike. While there is debate over whether Section Three requires an enabling statute—in other words, whether it is enforceable on its own—there is no doubt that Congress can choose to legislate a specific process for enforcing it.

The Christchurch Report Points to Better Avenues for Internet Reform  (Jacob Schulz, Justin Sherman, Lawfare)
Two years ago last week, a white supremacist walked into two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, and began spraying bullets upon worshippers, killing 51 people. The attack brought into public view a particular brand of 21st century extremism, making it tough to ignore the enduring strength of white extremist ideas, and the ineffectiveness of Western governments in stamping them out. And the shooter—whose manifesto overflowed with internet jokes, and who livestreamed the shooting “as if it were a first-person shooter video game”—forced the general public to come face-to-face with an idea longwell-established among extremism researchers: There’s a whole lot of dangerous stuff online, and it will seep out of the four corners of the internet and into the real world.