2009 report shows the path to deterring hate crimes — and we desperately need deterrence
Todd Blodgett, Iowa View contributor
Why domestic terrorism is so hard to classify
Replay Video
UP NEXT
On Nov. 16, the New York Times reported that hate crimes in the United States rose in 2019 to a level not reached in over a decade, "while more murders motivated by hate were recorded than ever before.” But it didn’t have to be this way.
In 2009, national security analysts at the Joint Terrorism Task Force, working with experts from the FBI and CIA, submitted an analysis, complete with sound policy recommendations, regarding violence inspired and perpetrated by individuals affiliated with, or sympathetic to, organized hate. However, because of pressure from congressional Republicans, that report was spurned, repudiated, and then deep-sixed by the Obama Department of Homeland Security. To be sure, many GOP objections were valid; groups like the National Rifle Association, the tea party, Gun Owners of America and others, didn’t, and don’t, foment, advocate or condone illicit violence.