Journalist Glenn Greenwald, a co-founder of The Intercept, argued on Monday that media censorship had overstepped a line in its attempts to prevent domestic terrorism.
Appearing on Hill.TV’s “Rising” on Monday, Greenwald opined that the proposed legislative response to the deadly Capitol riot on Jan. 6 was not necessary as the legal infrastructure to combat it already existed in the U.S.
Greenwald pointed to the response after the 9/11 terrorist attack where several laws expanded the definition of supporting terrorism. People, particularly Muslims, who disagreed on U.S. foreign policy and expressed support for people who resisted such policies often faced scrutiny and legal prosecution.
“You were prosecuted for materially supporting terrorist organizations. What this law does that Adam Schiff proposed is to simply take the existing war on terror law that is devoted to foreign terrorist groups, and just amend it to say, ‘and domestic terror groups as well,’ which means criminalizing all kinds of protests, associational and even speech activities.”
Rep. Adam Schiff (R-Calif.), Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, in 2019 introduced legislation that reclassified certain domestic crimes as terrorism. The bill has so far remained stagnant in the House.
Greenwald argued that since the actions at the Jan. 6 Capitol riot are already crimes according to U.S. law, designating them as domestic terrorism would actually be an action to “really regulate core political activity.”
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