On the day that Joe Biden was inaugurated as president, former CIA chief John Brennan announced on television that federal intelligence agencies "are moving in laser-like fashion to try to uncover as much as they can about" various suspect groups, specifically mentioning libertarians.
Libertarians are in the federal crosshairs. Six or seven years ago, there was a lot of prattle about how "the libertarian moment has arrived." I always knew that was hokum. Since then, there has been a huge increase in hostility to libertarians in Washington DC and elsewhere around the country.
Many libertarians assume they have nothing to fear because they are not engaged in seeking to violently overthrow the government. But the feds will be able to find many other pretexts to target peaceful citizens with supposedly subversive ideas. Federal law already defines "domestic terrorism" far more broadly than most people realize. As the Oregonian recently noted, "Cases categorized as domestic terrorism include allegations of…knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted [government] building or grounds…civil disorders and making threatening communications." FBI chief Christopher Wray told a Senate Committee that the FBI has 2,000 ongoing domestic terrorism investigations. Wray recognizes the terrorist peril as the ticket to a bigger budget: "We need more agents; we need more analysts."
The Biden administration is itching for a broad new domestic terrorism law to enable even more crackdowns. Libertarians need to recognize how that definition of terrorism has already mushroomed. Capitol Police acting chief Yogananda Pittman, testifying to Congress, described the January 6 clash at the Capitol as "a terrorist attack by tens of thousands of insurrectionists." Apparently, anyone who tromped from Trump’s raging speech to the Capitol that day was a terrorist, or at least an "insurrectionist" (“terrorist” spelled with more letters?).
After the clash at the Capitol on January 6, the de facto definition of terrorism seems to be "anything that frightens politicians." Will we find out too late that the new de facto definition of "domestic terrorist" is "individuals who distrust the feds and own two guns and more than 100 bullets"?
Another codeword for who the feds will target is "extremists." The Washington Post in January portrayed "domestic extremists" as "a disease that seems to have taken hold in the nation’s nervous system." Last fall, FBI boss Wray told Congress that among the "underlying drivers for domestic violent extremism" are "perceptions of government or law enforcement overreach." Libertarians are practically defined by their perception of government as overreaching. After the January 6 clash, Wray portrayed more busts as proof of FBI triumphs: "The more of the arrests that you see, well, that’s obviously good news for everybody that we’re arresting people who need to be arrested."
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