{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.peters.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/icymi-peters-investigative-report-shows-dhs-and-fbi-are-not-adequately-addressing-domestic-terrorism-threat", "ICYMI: Peters Investigative Report Shows DHS and FBI Are Not Adequately Addressing Domestic Terrorism Threat", "2022-11-18", "2022", "2022-11", "Democrat", "Senate", "MI", "Gary C. Peters", "P000595", "www.peters.senate.gov", "garypeters", "https://www.peters.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, DC \u2013 U.S. Senator Gary Peters (D-MI), Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, released a new report detailing the results of his investigation into the rise of domestic terrorism, including white supremacist and anti-government violence. The report found that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have failed to effectively track and report data on the domestic terrorism threat despite being required to do so by a 2019 law spearheaded by Peters. The investigation also found that while independent experts and national security officials call white supremacist and anti-government violence the most significant terrorist threat facing our nation today, this lack of data has limited Congress\u2019 ability to determine whether counterterrorism agencies are allocating resources to effectively address the growing threat posed by domestic terrorism. The investigation also found that social media companies\u2019 current business models are designed to prioritize engagement and profits and \u2013 as a result \u2013 platforms end up amplifying dangerous and radicalizing extremist content, including white supremacist and anti-government content.\n\nYahoo News: New Senate report finds FBI, DHS failing to address threat of domestic terrorism\n\n\u201cMore than two decades after 9/11, the federal government is struggling to address the most significant terrorist threat currently facing the nation. That is the crux of a new report released Wednesday by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee\u2019s Democratic majority.\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2018Certainly, I\u2019m concerned that their inability to provide this information basically indicates that the FBI and DHS have not been effectively tracking incidents as a result,\u2019 Peters said. \u2018If they\u2019re not tracking it, they\u2019re not prioritizing our counterterrorism resources to effectively tackle this threat.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cThe Senate committee\u2019s investigation also examined the role of social media \u2014 specifically, Meta, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube \u2014 in accelerating the threat of domestic terrorism and concluded that \u2018terrorist and extremist content permeates social media platforms in part because these platforms\u2019 business models are designed to maximize user engagement, which has the effect of promoting increasingly extreme content.\u2019\u201d\n\nNBC News: FBI, DHS and social media firms like Meta, TikTok aren't adequately addressing threat of domestic extremists, Senate report says\n\n\u201cAn investigation by the Senate Homeland Security Committee alleges that the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and leading social media companies are not adequately addressing the growing threat of domestic terrorism, especially white supremacist and anti-government extremists.\u201d\n\n\u201cPeters added in a phone call with reporters: \u2018The FBI and DHS must do a better job\u2019 monitoring threat information on social media. Before the Jan. 6 attack, he said, \u2018There was a lot of open-source material that was out there indicating that people were planning to come to the Capitol and engage in violent acts. \u2026 These agencies have to be quicker on their feet.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cThe investigation also found that social media companies \u2018have failed to meaningfully address the growing presence of extremism on their platforms\u2019 and that the business models of four leading social media outlets \u2014 Meta, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube \u2014 are based on maximizing user engagement, growth, and profits, which incentivizes increasingly extreme content.\u201d\n\nAssociated Press: Feds, tech fall short on watching extremists, Senate says\n\n\u201cThe FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are failing to adequately monitor domestic extremists, according to a new Senate report that also faulted social media platforms for encouraging the spread of violent and antigovernment content.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe report recommends creating new definitions for extremism that are shared between agencies, improved reporting on crimes linked to white supremacy and antigovernment groups, and better use of social media in an effort to prevent violence, said Sen. Gary Peters, the Michigan Democrat who chairs the committee.\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2018The rise in domestic terrorism can be partially attributed to the proliferation of extremist content on social media platforms and the failure of companies to effectively limit it in favor of action that increase engagement on their platforms,\u2019\u201d the report concluded.\n\nABC News: Social media companies prioritizing profit over harmful content: Senate report\n\n\u201cU.S. social media companies are prioritizing making a profit over taking down harmful rhetoric that leads to violent extremists perpetuating the ideology, according to a Senate Homeland Security Committee report released on Wednesday.\u201d\n\n\u201c[Peters] said social media companies have gotten better about taking the harmful content down. \u2018The problem with that is that once the content is out, particularly if it's particularly provocative, it can spread very quickly,\" he said. \u2018Once the genies out of the bottle sometimes you can't put it back in.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2018Domestic terrorism, and in particular white supremacist and anti-government extremists, continues to pose a persistent and lethal threat to homeland security,\u2019 the report said. \u2018This investigation found that the federal government \u2013 specifically DHS and FBI \u2013 is not adequately addressing this growing threat.\u2019\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-08T03:24:37Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.peters.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/icymi-peters-investigative-report-shows-dhs-and-fbi-are-not-adequately-addressing-domestic-terrorism-threat"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.271277131512761, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}