An MSNBC anchor appeared to make a stunning suggestion to a former FBI official about tracking “white extremists” online.
NBC News correspondent Katy Tur discussed the FBI tracking of “young kids or young men” in false flag investigations related to ISIS or radical Islamic terrorism during a recent interview with former FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Frank Figliuzzi.
The adults are talking https://t.co/Js7xJnqIu0
— Scott Greer (@ScottMGreer) February 23, 2020
“When you’re looking at ISIS or you’re looking at radical Islamic terrorism, I covered a number of stories where the FBI would track young kids or young men and they would talk to them online and say ‘you know, here’s how you build a bomb,’ or ‘here’s where you get your bomb making materials,’” Tur said.
“And they track that person as that person radicalized and then arrested them before they could do anything bad,” she explained.
“Why is the same not being done for white extremists or is the same being done and we just don’t know about it?” Tur asked Figliuzzi.
“No, it’s time, it’s time to seriously ask that question and to wrestle with it because politics does enter in,” the 25 year FBI veteran replied.
“And as you’ve said, as soon as you mention even the need for a domestic terrorism statute, right, that addresses this, you’ll hear people start screaming, ‘This is the thought police. You’re trying to suppress thought,'” he added.
My answer to that is: This is not about thought. This is about verbalizing an intention to commit violence. That’s what we’re talking about,” Figliuzzi said.
He went on to call for action in the face of President Trump’s “bully pulpit” which he claimed is responsible for a “fresh daily content of radicalization.”
“It’s time to hit it head on and do it in partnership between law enforcement and providers… And if we don’t get out in front of it, it will just keep happening because the President represents a bully pulpit where there is fresh daily content of radicalization,” Figliuzzi said.
“The same goes for a state-subsidized news network that refuses to denounce this kind of thing. Radical Islamists would give their right arm to have that kind of fresh daily content,” he added.
Earlier this month, FBI Director Christopher Wray announced a “national threat priority” designation for racially-motivated violent extremism, effectively putting white nationalists and neo-Nazis “on the same footing” as threats by foreign terrorist organizations like ISIS.
“Not only is the terror threat diverse — it’s unrelenting,” Wray said before the House Judiciary Committee.
A report from New Jersey’s annual Terrorism Threat Assessment saw white supremacist extremists posing a “high threat” in 2020 “as supporters of this ideology demonstrate their willingness and capability to carry out attacks, direct and inspire sympathizers online, and attempt to network globally.”
The recent warnings of white Americans being described as an ISIS-level terror threat will likely cause more discussion like that between Tur and Figliuzzi. Last week, MSNBC contributor Jason Johnson claimed that Sen. Bernie Sanders is supported by “racist liberal whites.”
Jason Johnson mask off.
“The man cares nothing for intersectionality and I don’t care how many people from the island of misfit black girls you throw out to defend you on a regular basis, it doesn’t mean your campaign is serious.”
— Lumumba Mentality ??♂️?? (@TheHipsterRebbe) February 21, 2020
“I do find it fascinating that racist, liberal whites seem to love them some Bernie Sanders. [They] consistently and always have a problem with any person of color who doesn’t want to follow the orthodoxy of their lord and savior, Bernie Sanders. The man cares nothing for intersectionality. I don’t care how many people from the island of misfit black girls you throw out there to defend you on a regular basis, it doesn’t mean your campaign is serious,” Johnson said.
He later apologized after being slammed on social media.
Earlier this week in a conversation about the Sanders campaign and the behavior of his staff and supporters I referred to his campaign spokesperson as coming from the Island of Misfit Black Girls. It was a harmful and unnecessary comment and I apologize.
— Jason Johnson (@DrJasonJohnson) February 22, 2020
Twitter reactions were no less outraged after Tur’s comments about the FBI and radicalized young men.
“Why aren’t we framing people”
— Shade ? (@AnonShader) February 23, 2020
Entrapment is illegal. Baiting young minds is immoral. Clearly they don’t care.
— Dang Nab It (@dang_nab) February 23, 2020
These are not serious people with expertise or knowledge about what right wing radicals are thinking. They’re just political hacks who are using them as a pretext to call for the removal of Trump’s twitter account.
— tom (@TomGlasnow) February 23, 2020
This is wrong for so many reasons. The first is the people’s right to speech and freedom of expression. We don’t have to like or approve of it but we should accept it as part of our freedoms. And second, why focus on the Right? Why not call out all extremism equally?
— BurchBeer (@BeerBurch) February 23, 2020
The call for oppression here is unbelievable
— Tommy the troll (@weetommy66) February 24, 2020
WTF? Then every registered Democrat who is a member of a race/identity caucus should be tracked the same since they’re they’re all racist/bigoted supremacy caucuses.
Democrats founded the KKK. They never switched their model, just the disfavored race from black to white.
— ??Nationalism beat Nazi Socialists (@Roxanna_Watrous) February 23, 2020
EVERYTHING GOES BACK TO ORANGE MAN BAD
My brain hurts.— 快楽の色 (@Indigowavve) February 23, 2020
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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida where she has been writing for the BizPacReview team since 2015.
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