 I want to have a somewhat complicated discussion about the implications of the January 6th coup attempt. I mean, I think it's obvious to say that I want every single individual who was a part of it to be held accountable and any lawmaker or, you know, far-right pundit who was involved who instigated that riot, they should be held accountable, both legally and politically. But it's not the end and there's going to be more of this happening at least according to the FBI who is warning about more incidents leading up to the inauguration of Joe Biden and there's even a warning that there's going to be protests at capitals across the country. So this is really, it's a serious issue and this is likely to be an ongoing issue. You know, far-right violence according to the FBI has been a threat for quite some time. The question is, what do we do about it? And that's where we get into really shaky territory because after 9-11 we all saw what happened. We saw that we didn't actually effectively take on terrorism itself. We waged a war on terror that led to death, destruction and our own civil liberties being violated through the Patriot Act. So now having the knowledge that we didn't have once 9-11 took place, we have to tread very cautiously here because while accountability and calling for us to take drastic action to stop white supremacist and far-right terrorism is necessary and important, we can get down a very dangerous path if we're not careful and Ilhan Omar warns against this. Now, Daily Beast writer Spencer Ackerman shared some wise words from Ilhan Omar warning against the possible domestic war on terror. Quote, we should not lose sight of our disgust at the double standards employed against white protesters and black ones or against Muslims and non-Muslims, Omar told the Daily Beast. But at the same time, we must resist the very human desire for revenge to simply see the tools that have oppressed black and brown people expanding. And she's absolutely right. And the reason why this is so important is because the incoming administration has already stated that they intend to prioritize new laws taking on domestic terrorism. This is what Joe Biden says he wants to do. Now, if this were Bernie Sanders saying that we're going to tackle domestic terrorism and authorize different government entities to study it, I would be less worried because Bernie Sanders has spoken out against the Patriot Act. But when it comes to Joe Biden, someone who used terrorism to crack down on American civil liberties, we have to be very worried about what this could turn into because we could very well be walking into a trap and Americans could inadvertently give Joe Biden permission to crack down on their civil liberties even more. And I think that writer Luke Savage of Jacobin, he really put it best in an article where he argues we should be very worried about Joe Biden's domestic terrorism bill. Joe Biden used to brag that he practically wrote the Patriot Act, the Bush era law that massively increased government surveillance powers. Now he's hoping to pass a further domestic terrorism law once in office. The danger is real that the January 6th Capitol attack will be used as an excuse to severely curtail our civil liberties. So if we, collectively as a country being horrified at the January 6th event, did Joe Biden a mandate to crack down on domestic terrorism, what is this going to turn into? And I want to explore Luke Savage's argument a little bit more because he echoes the same sentiment that Ilhan Omar said. This can very easily be used against us. In other words, the terrorists can win again because rather than cracking down on the domestic terrorists, we could end up taking away our own civil liberties if we in fact allow Joe Biden to do this. So Savage continues, nearly two decades since its initial passage in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks, the Patriot Act has continued to linger in our collective memory. Though few Americans probably remember much about its provisions or specifics, the Bush era legislation long ago entered into general usage as a synonym for heavy-handed domestic surveillance and institutional overreach. The words Patriot Act now being practically synonymous with secrecy, eavesdropping, and the rolling back of civil liberties under the intentionally broad guise of national security. Given the law's contents and implications in practice, this reputation is well deserved. Passing the Senate with only a single dissenting vote, the Patriot Act dramatically expanded the power of federal authorities to spy on ordinary Americans with minimal oversight, enabling the FBI to obtain detailed information about citizens' banking history and personal communications without having to seek judicial approval and even allowing sneak and peek searches of homes and offices. The Patriot Act, in the rather blunt words of a brief prepared by the ACLU, turned regular citizens into suspects. Ahead of the nearly unanimous October 25, 2001 Senate vote on the Patriot Act, Joe Biden was regularly claiming the law as his own, boasting in an interview with the New Republic I drafted a terrorism bill after the Oklahoma City bombing and the bill John Ashcroft sent up was my bill. Biden wasn't wrong, in fact, key parts of the Bush administration's signature national security law were drawn from provisions contained in Biden's own 1995 anti-terrorism bill. This particular episode aside, Biden's career and voting history suggests a decidedly dodgy record on civil liberties. In 1996, he voted for Bob Dole's Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, deemed by legal scholar Lincoln Kaplan to be one of the worst statutes ever passed by Congress thanks to its undermining of habeas corpus. Though he eventually took to criticizing the administration's surveillance programs once they became unpopular, Biden's positions later in the Bush era often earned him only middling ratings from the ACLU. Given his history and recent events, Biden's purported plan to introduce a new domestic terrorism law gives us plenty of reason to worry. And he is absolutely correct, we cannot allow history to repeat itself. We can't let that happen. Now we should have learned from our mistakes. We should have learned that our lawmakers took advantage of us. They capitalized on a terror attack to clamp down on our civil liberties and we can't allow that to happen again. We can't allow fear to override logic and rationale. And certainly I expect the government to do something about far-right extremism if they are in fact taking it seriously. But any widespread law that allows them more authority to crack down on civil liberties and, you know, violate our constitutional rights as Americans, we can't allow that to happen. Now we don't necessarily know what Joe Biden has planned in particular, but given his history and given that he wants a new domestic terrorism bill, and he's very explicitly calling for that, we have more than enough ammunition to be worried about this and to put maximum pressure on him to make sure that this doesn't become the Patriot Act 2.0. So look, we've got to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Of course, we want to make sure that lives aren't lost due to far-right extremism in this country. But we're also in the process not going to allow government officials to impede on our civil liberties. We just can't let that happen because once you lose civil liberties, it's very difficult to get them back in America. So be very cautious. Proceed forward knowing what you're getting into if you're calling for some sort of sweeping law to crack down on domestic terror because it could very easily turn against you as an American citizen.