- The Department has issued binding guidance to ensure that investigations and prosecutions with a domestic terrorism nexus are better tracked, and that the appropriate components in the Department have visibility into these matters.
- The Department has reinvigorated and expanded the Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee (“DTEC”). Originally created in the aftermath of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the DTEC includes representatives from the U.S. Attorney’s Offices, the National Security Division, other divisions of Main Justice, the FBI, DHS, and other law enforcement agencies. It provides a national-level forum for information-sharing at the leadership level on domestic terrorism matters.
- The Department and the FBI have taken steps to increase the domestic terrorism threat information provided to SLTT partners and to enhance the training available to those partners. For example, the Department will incorporate information specifically related to domestic terrorism — including information on iconography, symbology and phraseology — into existing resources, including the Joint Counterterrorism Assessment Team’s First Responder’s Toolbox, and the Department’s State and Local Anti-Terrorism Training Handbook on Law Enforcement Intelligence. Additionally, the FBI has recently held multiple regional law enforcement conferences — in Denver, Louisville, and San Francisco — with over 100 SLTT law enforcement agencies, and additional conferences are scheduled in the coming months. These conferences are designed to increase SLTT partners’ understanding of federal civil rights and hate crimes laws, including those that may apply to acts of domestic terrorism; encourage reporting of hate crimes and incidents; and provide best practices on ways to strengthen relationships between law enforcement agencies and the diverse communities they serve.
- The Department’s grant-making components are dedicating additional resources to helping States, localities, and others focus on the domestic terrorism threat. The Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, for example, is including combatting hate crimes and domestic violent extremism as an area of special consideration in the 2021 Community Policing Development (“CPD”) Microgrants Program solicitation. CPD Microgrants Program funds are used to develop the capacity of law enforcement to implement community policing strategies. The Department’s Bureau of Justice Assistance administers the State and Local Anti-Terrorism Training (“SLATT”) Program, which offers training to SLTT law enforcement officers. The SLATT Program is currently undergoing a curriculum revitalization to enhance training on identifying what terrorism looks like, understanding how to report it to the FBI, and, should the need arise, preparing to respond to an incident. As part of the revitalization effort, on-site training courses are being developed to provide content tailored to different roles: law enforcement, emergency managers, crime analysts, and intelligence analysts. Additionally, for nearly a decade, the Department’s National Institute of Justice (“NIJ”) has
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