Your Weekly Constitutional

“Domestic terrorism” has been in the news a lot lately. Many of the mass shootings we’ve recently experienced seem to have been motivated, at least in part, by white supremacist ideology, perhaps with the intent to provoke widespread terror. This has prompted at least one proposal in Congress to create a domestic terrorism statute mirroring laws already in place to fight international terrorism. Doug McKechnie, our First Amendment Guy, discusses some of the constitutional issues such a statute would create, including not only concerns about free speech and association, but also about wiretaps and other forms of government surveillance. And, anyway, are such laws even necessary? Aren’t there already statutes on the books that criminalize murder, assault, damage to property, and conspiracy? Is this a road we want to go down?