US Senator Gary Peters said the Department of Homeland Secuirty has not adequately monitored white supremacy and its link to domestic terrorism.
At a hearing this week the Senator said he’d requested information from the Department in May - including the ideological makeup of domestic terrorists and a list of the resources dedicated to fighting domestic terrorists based on ideology.
Peters said he was frustrated by the Department’s response.
“The frustrating thing is the Department came back and said they don’t have that kind of information and said they were not able to provide it,” he said. “That’s stunning, to be quite frank.”
Specifically, Peters linked the El Paso shooting, Christchurch mosque attack, and the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting to “white supremacist ideaology.”
The Department of Homeland Security released a report last week citing the rise in “white supremacist violent extremism” but Peters said that’s not enough.
He said the department needs to actually track the data so that informed decisions can be made.
“Other organizations are able to do it - we need to demand that the department of homeland security does the same,” Peters said.
A report from Yahoo News in August appeared to show the department does have that data - but hadn’t released it.
Senator Peters said he doesn’t know why the department wouldn’t release that information.
“I don’t know if there is a reluctance on their part, there shouldn’t be,” he said. “This is public information that needs to be made available. We’re going to be sure it gets out.”
Peters said Congress may take action to require the tracking or release of numbers on how ideology is linked to various acts of domestic terrorism.