January 21, 2021–Due Process Institute joined a bipartisan coalition of over 20 national and local groups calling on Congressional lawmakers to not create a new crime of “domestic terrorism” and to not give additional power to surveillance agencies in response to the assault on the Capitol on January 6th, 2021.
A new domestic terrorism law would allow for harmful future investigations based on political affiliation, mainly targeting marginalized communities, while law enforcement already has sufficient legal authority to charge these incidents. Furthermore, expanding surveillance was not necessary to prevent the events at the Capitol as information regarding the attack was available in the public domain and publicly on social media. Greater surveillance powers would only lead to more invasive, unreliable, and unconstitutional methods of collecting data.
In this letter, we urge the members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees to not allow the security failures that permitted the attack to be the basis for expanded police surveillance authority or for expansion of prosecutorial authority.