CHR - Opponents Of Covid Mandates Labeled "Domestic Violent Extremists"

TOP LINE

Newly declassified intelligence reports provide more detail about the Biden administration’s efforts to marginalize those who opposed the vaccine mandates. Critics call it a far-ranging abuse of government power.

The “Domestic Violent Extremist” designation infringed on the First Amendment and opened the door to investigating Americans for vaccine mandate skepticism, former FBI agents told us.

The term “Domestic Violent Extremist” was typically used to describe radicalized Americans who joined terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS.

DEEP DIVE

The Biden Administration labeled Americans who opposed the COVID-19 vaccination and mask mandates as “Domestic Violent Extremists,” or DVEs, according to newly declassified intelligence records obtained by our team.

The designation created an “articulable purpose” for FBI or other government agents to open an “assessment” of individuals, which is often the first step toward a formal investigation, a former FBI agent told us.  

The report was declassified by the nation’s top intelligence official, the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. It states that “anti government or anti authority violent extremists,” specifically militias, “characterize COVID-19 vaccination and mask mandates as evidence of government overreach.”  The report uses a law enforcement acronym “AGAAVEs.”

The FBI, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) coauthored the December 13, 2021 intelligence product whose title reads, “DVEs and Foreign Analogues May React Violently to COVID-19 Mitigation Mandates.”

The report cites criticism of COVID mandates as “prominent narratives” related to violent extremism. These narratives “include the belief that COVID-19 vaccines are unsafe, especially for children, are part of a government or global conspiracy to deprive individuals of their civil liberties and livelihoods, or are designed to start a new social or political order.“ 

“It’s a way they could go to social media companies and say, ‘You don’t want to propagate domestic terrorism so you should take down this content,’” said former FBI agent Steve Friend.

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At the same time, the report urges federal agents not to violate the First Amendment. “Some DVEs employ a number of techniques,” the document says, “some of which may be criminal, whereas others may constitute the exercise of rights protected by the US Constitution.”

But, Friend emphasized to our team, “The only way they could become aware that you were engaged in wrongthink, as they define it by their own definition of ‘Anti Government and Anti Authority Violent Extremism,’ is to monitor your First Amendment activities.” 

The document may have been timed to coincide with the end of the 75-day grace period the Biden administration gave government agencies and large private sector employers to implement the vaccine mandate.   It is said to have impacted 10s of millions of Americans, including private-sector employees, healthcare workers, and federal contractors. 

The report suggests the Biden administration’s political goals, such as full compliance with the COVID vaccine mandates, drove intelligence collection requirements so that the raw data would reinforce and not undercut the policy. This contrasts with a neutral approach to intelligence collection that seeks the ground truth to inform government officials who then make policy decisions.  It does not seek a predetermined outcome.

There are scant references to original source data in these newly declassified DVE reports. It appears to be based on news accounts and

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