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Proposed new terrorism law would exclude jihadists

As part of its response to the Capitol riot, the Biden administration has proposed a new domestic terrorism law that would shift the focus overwhelmingly towards "white supremacist" groups. According to former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, who led the prosecution of the "blind sheik" who organized the earlier attack on the World Trade Center, the new law would effectively exclude jihadist terror from its ambit.

According to McCarthy, the law would break new ground by specifically addressing offences already well covered by existing federal and state laws. However it is highly selective in its targeting of "domestic terrorists", focusing on white supremacists and neo-Nazis, what the Democrats regard as right-wing  terrorism, including Trump-inspired insurrections in the wake of the Capitol riot.

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Section 2 provides a definition for “domestic terrorism.” Sounds sensible . . . until you remember that federal law already has a definition of domestic terrorism. The term is codified by Section 2331(5) of the criminal code. It’s been there for a long time, and it’s perfectly fine. So why would we need another one?

Obviously, Democrats are not defining but redefining. The point is not to clarify what is already clear about domestic terrorism. It is to carve out an exemption from the definition — specifically, to create a new safe haven for a very specific category of terrorist.

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