White House Releases First National Strategy to Fight Domestic Terrorism

Earlier this week the White House published the National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism, the first such document for the U.S. It defines domestic terrorism as “activities that involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.” It notes that various ideologies motivate domestic extremism today, including “racial or ethnic bigotry and hatred as well as anti–government or anti–authority sentiment” and observes the threat involves both “lone actors and small groups of informally aligned individuals, to networks exhorting and targeting violence toward specific communities, to violent self–proclaimed ‘militias’.” The strategy is divided into four pillars: 1) understand and share domestic terrorism-related information; 2) prevent domestic terrorism recruitments and mobilization to violence; 3) disrupt and deter domestic terrorism activity; 4) and confront long-term contributors to domestic terrorism.