States are using anti-terrorism laws against protesters

While federal law prohibits international terrorism, it defines but does not yet prohibit domestic terrorism. In the absence of congressional authorization, the FBI and Justice Department simply have not had the resources to address the increasing frequency of white supremacist violence over the last decade. Fortunately, most states filled the gap after 9/11. The first wave of state laws in 2002 closely followed the federal Patriot Act of 2001 in focusing on threats such as the use of “weapons of mass destruction.” And in the past five years, many states updated their anti-terrorism statutes t...