The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security are ramping up electronic surveillance of so-called “domestic terror” subjects to include those out of sympathy with COVID mandates and those who oppose vaccinations, said Yahoo News.
“The online posts discussing targeting politicians, migrants and mass transit systems in response to vaccination mandates, were flagged by the Department of Homeland Security and sent to law enforcement for further investigation, according to internal intelligence reports obtained by Yahoo News,” said the online news publisher.
Yahoo said that they became aware of the change after DHS issued a regular bulletin that said that while DHS was not aware on any concrete plans for attacks, domestic terrorists “will continue to exploit online forums to influence and spread violent extremist narratives and promote violent activity. The ongoing global pandemic continues to exacerbate these threats,” according to the text.
Leftists have been advocating for an expanded definition of domestic terrorism to include those who oppose mandates and vaccinations.
In February, the Washington Post ran an editorial from California state Sen. Richard Pan, a pediatrician, who called Americans who did not get the vaccine ‘domestic terrorists’ for simply opting out of vaccination.
Opinion: Anti-vaccine extremism is akin to domestic terrorism https://t.co/bMpMya2lsR
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 1, 2021
“Getting vaccinated is a patriotic act,” Pan said.
“So is speaking up to support public health efforts,” he added. “Let’s not allow extremism, division or fear to slow the efforts to end this deadly chapter in our nation’s history.”
Yahoo said that internal intelligence reports show that law enforcement is monitoring online message boards for messages of violence against the government, for crypto-based fundraising to support violent groups, and plans to attack infrastructure targets like an Amazon warehouse facility in Virginia.
In a previous bulletin, DHS said that Russia, China and Iran have exploited domestic terrorists to amplify “conspiracy theories concerning the origins of COVID-19 and effectiveness of vaccines” and election fraud and warned about violence from those “engaged in grievance-based violence.”
It comes as Democrats face growing backlash and resistance on a variety of fronts for their attempts at vast governmental overreach, often in flagrant violation of the US Constitution and other norms.
Attorney General Merrick Garland recently designated concerned parents protesting school board meetings as “domestic terrorists” for objecting to indoctrinary instruction on subjects such as Critical Race Theory.
Meanwhile, Democrats in control of Congress have used the mostly peaceful Jan. 6 uprising at the US Capitol to claim unprecedented new procedures in investigating and detaining political dissidents, holding them without due process for months on end in secret gulags and using a secret congressional tribunal to subpoena documents and political adversaries for irrelevant purposes.
