Tulsi Gabbard Tears Into New Domestic Terrorism Proposals: 'We Don’t Have to Guess...Where This Goes'

Alex Parker reporting for RedState

Are you ready to fight domestic terrorism?

In the battle against such, a former presidential candidate has questions.

Erstwhile Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard appeared on Fox News Primetime Friday to talk about a new era’s America-protectin’ moves.

Namely: a proposed bill to topple terrorism.

Of the domestic kind, that is.

To hear Tulsi tell it, looming legislation seems downright dastardly.

Host Brian Kilmeade asked the peculiar politician — a Democrat who opposes censorship and introduced legislation to protect abortion survivors — her opinion of “extra surveillance on would-be domestic terror” being pushed by the Powers That Be.

Tulsi’s troubled:

“It’s so dangerous…as you guys have been talking about, this is an issue that all Democrats, Republicans, independents, Libertarians should be extremely concerned about. Especially because we don’t have to guess about where this goes or how this ends.”

Could it go to some less-than-liberty-friendly places?

She surmises Si:

“When you have people like former CIA Director John Brennan openly talking about how he’s spoken with — or heard from — appointees and nominees in the Biden administration who are already starting to look across our country for these types of movements similar to the insurgencies they’ve seen overseas, that in his words, he says make up this unholy alliance of religious extremists, racists, bigots. He lists a few others and adds at the end, even libertarians.”

What qualifies as extreme? And will such a definition lean toward one side of the political aisle?

“[W]hat characteristics are we looking for as we’re building this profile of a potential extremist? What are we talking about? Religious extremists, are we talking about Christians — evangelical Christians? What is a religious extremist? Is it somebody who’s pro-life? Where do you take this?”

A further breakdown:

“You start looking at…obviously, have to be a white person, obviously likely male, libertarians, well, if anyone who loves freedom, liberty, maybe has an American flag outside their house, or people who, you know, attended a Trump rally.”

As noted by National Review, the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2021 was served up after January 6th’s chaos at the Capitol.

In a press release, Democratic Rep. Brad Schneider put it thusly:

“Following the terrifying attack on the Capitol this month, which left five dead and many injured, the entire nation has been seized by the potential threat of more terrorist attacks in Washington and around the country. Unlike after 9/11, the threat that reared its ugly head on January 6th is from domestic terror groups and extremists, often racially-motivated violent individuals. America must be vigilant to combat those radicalized to violence, and the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act gives our government the tools to identify, monitor and thwart their illegal activities. Combatting the threat of domestic terrorism and white supremacy is not a Democratic or Republican issue, not left versus right or urban versus rural. Domestic Terrorism is an American issue, a serious threat that we can and must address together.”

But there’s certainly concern, from multiple sectors.

On January 15th, ACLU National Security Project Director Hina Shamsi, and Senior Legislative and Advocacy Counsel
Manar Waheed offered the following:

[B]y using the “domestic terrorism” label to promote more criminal statutes and police authorities, our country’s leaders are invoking systems that have been — and will continue to be — used to target and harm Black and brown people. … It’s a predictably misguided part of a decades-long pattern. When white supremacist violence escalates, politicians often look to give law enforcement agencies more authority — whether it was President Bill Clinton in response to the Oklahoma City bombing or Biden today.

Back to Tulsi, she bottom-lined things to Brian:

“[It leads to] a very dangerous undermining of our civil liberties, our freedoms in our Constitution, and a targeting of almost half of the country.”