Danger Room Blog August 7, 2012 by Spencer Ackerman

DHS Crushed This Analyst for Warning About Far-Right Terror

Daryl Johnson had a sinking feeling when he started seeing TV reports on Sunday about a shooting in a Wisconsin temple. “I told my wife, ‘This is likely a hate crime perpetrated by a white supremacist who may have had military experience,’” Johnson recalls.

 

It was anything but a lucky guess on Johnson’s part. He spent 15 years studying domestic terrorist groups — particularly white supremacists and neo-Nazis — as a government counterterrorism analyst, the last six of them at the Department of Homeland Security. There, he even homebrewed his own database on far-right extremist groups on an Oracle platform, allowing his analysts to compile and sift reporting in the media and other law-enforcement agencies on radical and potentially violent groups.

 

But Johnson’s career took an unexpected turn in 2009, when an analysis he wrote on the rise of “Right-Wing Extremism” (.pdf) sparked a political controversy. Under pressure from conservatives, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) repudiated Johnson’s paper — an especially bitter pill for him to swallow now that Wade Michael Page, a suspected white supremacist, killed at least six people at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. For Johnson, the shooting was a reminder that the government’s counterterrorism efforts are almost exclusively focused on al-Qaida, even as non-Islamist groups threaten Americans domestically.

 

“DHS is scoffing at the mission of doing domestic counterterrorism, as is Congress,” Johnson tells Danger Room. “There’ve been no hearings about the rising white supremacist threat, but there’s been a long list of attacks over the last few years. But they still hold hearings about Muslim extremism. It’s out of balance.” But even if that balance was reset, he concedes, that doesn’t necessarily mean the feds could have found Page before Sunday’s rampage.

It appears that both Ackerman and Johnson have an agenda, and it doesn't include 9/11, Fort Hood, the Little Rock Army Recruiter shooting, the Lackawanna Six, the Fort Dix conspiracy, or the Times Square Bomber, etc.  The terrorist threat is from neo-Nazis and the Klan.  Islam is a religion of peace and no evidence to the contrary is allowed.

But in a small way they are correct.  There are neo-Nazis/racists out there who are willing and able to commit terrorism.  And since the shooting at the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin, it has been pointed out by Peter Brimelow and others that the FBI or others were watching Wade Michael Page.  Which is interesting, as he clearly fit a profile of a neo-Nazi killer.  And since it is clear from reading between the lines that the FBI or others profiled Page based on nothing other than his racist views, his internet use, and his singing career, it is evident proof that profiling works. 

Of course, in this instance there was nothing that the FBI could do, as we don't have preventive detention  for those accused of racism, yet.  Obviously law enforcement cannot follow around 24/7 everyone they profile; profiles have  limitations. 

However, it does tell us that the initial reaction after 9/11 by the United States government to profile, through a Special Registration program, every male alien between certain ages from certain countries, the countries basically being an indicator of Muslims, and requiring those persons to appear in person to be fingerprinted and interviewed, was correct.  Profiles work. 

Unlike profiling U.S. citizens, of whom not much can be done if they fit a profile, profiled aliens can be arrested and deported.  Interestingly, most of the special registrants after 9/11 were illegal aliens, but few were actually deported.  For most special registration was a boon, as most received green cards afterward.

Of course similar profiling would work more effectively by refusing entry or deporting those aliens who fit the Muslim terrorist profile. But that is not the point.  The point is that the profiling works, on neo-Nazis and on Muslim terrorists.  It also works on drug dealers, drug mules, and illegal aliens.

Even more concerning, though: why would DHS be concerned about domestic terrorism?  DHS' mission is the protection of America through border control and interior immigration enforcement.  The neo-Nazi crowd is basically American citizens with no issues regarding customs or immigration law. 

DHS, Johnson and Ackerman are out of line foisting domestic terrorism investigations on DHS' already over-crowded investigative plate.  It should however be very concerned about Muslim terrorism, since most are aliens, well within the jurisdiction of DHS' investigative arm, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations.  But it is not concerned.  And in the end, the FBI is tasked by law with preventing and investigating all types of terrorism, domestic and international.  DHS needs to concern itself with its responsibilities, customs and immigration law enforcement. 

Leave terrorism to the FBI and get out of the business of slandering every gun owner, veteran, Christian, Caucasian, and Paulista.  There are 20 million illegal aliens to arrest.  Get started. 

They won't deport themselves without a little help from a friend, perhaps someone like Joseph "Jumping Joe" Swing.