The Los Angeles Times reported on the latest FBI arrest of one of the domestic terrorists who participated in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol:
A UCLA student who posted white supremacist views online and founded an ultra-right campus organization has been charged with federal crimes for his alleged role in the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection.
The student, Christian Secor, was captured on video sitting in the chair that Vice President Mike Pence had hastily vacated after a pro-Trump mob broke into the Capitol, according to the FBI.
FBI agents, assisted by a SWAT team, arrested Secor, 22, at his Costa Mesa home Tuesday morning after searching the residence, said Laura Eimiller, an FBI spokeswoman.
Federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., have charged Secor with assaulting or resisting a police officer, violent entry and remaining on restricted grounds, civil disorder and obstructing an official proceeding.
During an appearance in federal court in Orange County on Tuesday, a U.S. magistrate ordered that Secor be held without bail.
Secor was captured on both video and still images in a red Make America Great Again hat occupying the chair where Pence had sat while presiding over the Senate’s certification of electoral college votes, according to an affidavit by FBI Special Agent Benjamin Elliott.
At least 11 tipsters identified Secor as the man in the video and still images either standing on the Senate floor or on the dais sitting in Pence’s chair…
After video of the scene surfaced on the New Yorker’s website, investigators obtained security camera video of Secor in the hallways, Rotunda area and Senate floor, the affidavit said.
Moments earlier, Secor was with a mob forcing his way past at least three police officers and through a set of double doors into the Capitol, Elliott said in the sworn statement.
“As a result of Secor and others pushing on the double doors … the doors opened and dozens of additional rioters flooded into the building,” Elliott wrote. “The Capitol Police officers were shoved by the crowd, at times trapped between the doors and the crowd, and eventually pushed out of the way of the oncoming mob.”
Agents also found that Secor had broadcast live from the Capitol using DLive, a videostreaming service built on blockchain technology.
In the livestream, Secor uses the moniker Scuffed Elliot Rodger, an apparent reference to the man who killed six people in Isla Vista, Calif., in 2014 and became a hero to “incels” — a fringe group of sexually frustrated men who blame women for their misery and often advocate for violence against them.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
We should be very careful with the “domestic terrorism” label. It will only be used by those in power to advance the interests of the powerful and silence and intimidate already marginalized communities. There are already plenty of laws on the books to deal with what happened on January 6. We don’t need to import our GITMO/Abu Ghraib style “terrorism” offensive to this country with a Patriot Act 2.0, which is exactly what January 6 is being used to manufacture support for, just like September 11 was used to manufacture consent for the original Patriot Act.
“Ramzi Kassem has long been a vocal critic of the “terrorist” label. Kassem runs a legal clinic at the City University of New York School of Law called CLEAR, where students and staff represent people who, according to Kassem, find themselves on the receiving end of the sprawling security state in the United States.
“”If the FBI shows up at your home asking you questions about your organizing circle or what’s being said at your mosque, CLEAR will represent you,” Kassem says.
“Kassem understands the urge to call last week’s mob “terrorists.” But instead of addressing an inequity, he says that could easily create the opposite effect: “It only serves to further empower those who are already in power, and it helps them expand their budgets to spy on, over-police and over-prosecute people of color.”
“Kassem cites historical examples of this, notably the aftermath of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. He says there’s no disputing who was responsible: a white, right-wing man named Timothy McVeigh. Kassem says, “The very next year, there’s a legislative response, and there are two laws that are passed: The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, and an immigration law called IIRA-IRA. Those laws have been used primarily against Black and immigrant folks in this country.” ”
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2021/01/14/956881738/what-does-it-mean-to-call-the-capitol-rioters-terrorists
Anyone who broke into the U.S. Capitol on January 6 to disrupt a Constitutionally required process and prevent the Congress from doing its duty was a domestic terrorist. Many were armed with bats, clubs, stun guns, bear mace. Scores of police officers were injured. One died. Two committed suicide. You may say that the insurrectionists were trying to carry out a coup on behalf of Trump. I call them interchangeably “insurrectionists” and “domestic terrorists.”
You may prefer to call them something else. Tourists?
Thanks, Diane.
Good one … Tourists?
And they will be lodged in the best “hotels” the law can find for them/
So what should the groups of white supremacists who are fomenting violence and actually taking violent actions that kills people be called?
I have no idea what your point is except to say “be careful” never to call the white supremacist groups who are calling for violence and attacks on our government and whose actions have actually killed people “domestic terrorists” because that could be a very bad thing for people who aren’t terrorists and don’t benefit from white privilege.
We treat white supremacist terrorist organizations with kid gloves because we are worried that if we don’t, it might hurt people who don’t have white privilege?
Why normalize and legitimize these hate-filled, violent groups? You really think that’s the way to help people without privilege whose lives have been made so much worse because the hateful, racist, xenophobic Republican agenda has been normalized? It is the normalization of these groups that has made things so much worse.
The laws in response to the Oklahoma City bombing isn’t why this country is in so much trouble. People believing the false Republican narratives is why this country is in so much trouble.
Maybe you haven’t noticed, but the Black Lives Matters movement was all about laws that had nothing to do with the Patriot Act being misused against people who don’t have white privilege. The normalization of violent white terrorist groups — and the normalization of the far right radical agenda of the Republican Party – makes this worse.
A law may be good or bad or misused or applied fairly, but the bigger issue is the cultural belief that white people can act violently and it is justified and the way to stop that cultural belief is to stop treating white terrorists – and the Republicans – with kid gloves and normalizing the most reprehensible actions. “Don’t call them terrorists” isn’t really going to help those who were hurt by the Patriot Act.
The better solution is to empower those who would not pass and misuse laws to target those who don’t have power, rather than to help defeat them to empower the party that rationalizes targeting those laws against their perceived enemies – anyone who threatens Republican power.
Dienne, I understand the concern. But the Patriot Act as is could/ can/ already has been used indiscriminately to harass whoever’s on the govtl s***tlist du jour. It has been out there for 20 yrs, long enough to lull what should be citizen outrage at its curb on civil rights. Section 215 alone is chilling: the FBI can force anyone at all to turn over records on clients or customers– doctors, lawyers, bookstores, universities, internet service providers. The ACLU has a good summary suggesting it was simply a longstanding law-enforcement wish list that was pushed through Congress with no analysis as to whether surveillance failures led to 9/11 or whether changes made would help prevent further attacks.
And hey, it’s not like the FBI ever had any trouble surveilling whoever they pleased, sans terrorist sobriquet or Patriot Act – 9/11 just meant they didn’t have to hide it any more.
For those reasons (in my opinion) the horses have long been out of the barn, and worrying about who we call ‘terrorist’ is beside the point.
Everyone should go to the link above posted by the resident Trump normalizer who comments here to see how much she is selectively quoting only the parts of the article that serve her narrative. And that narrative just happens to be very good for normalizing violent white supremacist groups and limiting criticism of them. No matter what awful thing those white supremacists do, their enablers always want change the subject to how the real danger is people like Diane Ravitch calling them terrorists! That’s what we need to focus on! Stop talking about the terrible and dangerous actions of white supremacists and change the subject to how dangerous and wrong Diane Ravitch is for calling them terrorists!
This kind of propaganda is insidious and powerful. Probably no one who read the comment noticed that our resident Trump normalizer NEVER wrote a single word that was negative or critical about the white supremacist groups nor was there even a small acknowledgement that the UCLA student was wrong! She wrote a long reply in response to Diane Ravitch’s post about a UCLA student participating in a violent insurrection and the ONLY focus of her criticism was Diane Ravitch! Isn’t that odd?
This is from the same article from which she selective quotes:
“What do you call the people who violently stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6? Rioters? Insurrectionists? Terrorists? Since the attack, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has used all three labels.
Linda Sarsour, a Muslim, Palestinian American activist with a huge social media following, tweeted, “This is domestic terrorism. Period,”
…..
“I’m flexible,” says Melina Abdullah, the Black Lives Matter organizer. “If somebody comes up with a term better than terrorism, great.”
Until then, Abdullah says she’ll continue to use “white supremacist terrorism” to refer to the events at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Because, to her, that’s the most accurate language to describe what went down in Washington, D.C., that day.
She says words do matter, but that’s not where she wants to leave this conversation.
“What we saw is how pervasive white supremacy is in this country. If we don’t come up with our own systems, solutions, and our own re-imagined future and begin building toward that — I don’t know if everybody heard this newly elected congresswoman who saw fit to quote Hitler — that’s going to be what’s ushered in.”
How do you describe the acts of those who continually attack Nancy Pelosi for her take on those who attacked the Capitol?: “Tearherrearism.”.
Nycpsp, IMO you focus too much on Trump-normalizing and the Republican party in this & above post. The Patriot Act itself was a just a normalization of long-standing scurrilous FBI behavior used at least since the ’30’s against Italians, Jews, Hollywood, ban-the-bomb & civil rights & anti-VNWar protestors & lots more since [I’ll say it again: the govtl s***tlist du jour). Plenty of Dem admins along the way. This is not precisely a partisan issue. I think it’s better described as a tension between civil liberties and law enforcement that’s built into democracy, to which citizens can never relax vigilance.
the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 still protects Americans from political intimidation today. When it is used by a party in power that believes in democracy.
This isn’t a post praising the Patriot Act, it is a post in which Diane Ravitch was outraged about what this Trump-supporting UCLA student did.
Our favorite Trump defender expressed no outrage at all about the violent white supremacist. Please cite one word of direct criticism she has of these Trump supporters in her post? You can’t.
Her criticism is limited to being critical of Diane Ravitch and she selectively quoted from an article that leaves out all the people concerned with civil rights and criminal justice who believe terrorist is an appropriate word to use here.
If she had first expressed how reprehensible these law breaking Trump supporters are and loudly condemned these Trump supporters’ reprehensible violence and disregard for democracy, you might be right. But instead it is just like the pre-election posts. She would never actually condemn Trump’s actions as being illegal or anti-democratic but would always condemn Trump’s critics for some perceived horror they committed in their criticism.
With respect, Diane was posting a news article, not expressing outrage, and people are going to tend to respond with whatever related issues strike them. That’s what makes her so terrific at kicking off a multi-layered discussion. Outrage is appropriate, but we’ve all expressed plenty of that since Jan 6, and just because one doesn’t say it again doesn’t mean they don’t feel it.
Frankly my very first reaction was the utter incongruity of “A UCLA student who posted white supremacist views online…” It gives me cognitive dissonance. But not worth mentioning, I just have to come to terms with university students as white supremacists; there it is.
I tried to expand Dienne’s narrow focus on the potential downside of calling Capitol insurrectionists ‘domestic terrorists’: the problem she raises is how the law is [already] enforced, and dancing around terms won’t change that. Homeland Security spokesmen have been clear that domestic terrorism threatens national security far more than intl terrorism, so call it what it is.
In my response to you I was trying to get off animus and onto issues. Thank you for taking me up on it here: “ the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 still protects Americans from political intimidation today. When it is used by a party in power that believes in democracy.” Not sure Dems get credit for House Committee on Homeland Security’s lawsuit: Chair & Ranking Member switch seats when House majority switches; the committee is bipartisan and at least acc to wiki, “passes almost all of its legislation out of the Committee unanimously.” Would love to give Dems a pass on decades of bad-faith FBI surveillance of citizenry, but they haven’t earned it. We can at least count on current Dem majorities to give this lawsuit the support it deserves.
bethree5,
You make some excellent points, thank you.
However, Diane Ravitch’s referring to people using terror to achieve a political end they could not achieve democratically as terrorists was perfectly fine. And the fact that someone would read this and decide to make Diane’s use of the word “terrorist” the main issue by selectively quoting an article in which the majority of people devoted to civil rights and equal justice agree with Diane speaks for itself.
When AOC criticizes Joe Biden I take it seriously. When Ted Cruz criticizes Joe Biden, I know he’s just desperate to find something to advance his own political interests. And that is because AOC has not made it her singular mission to demonize Biden and demonize all Trump critics. Ted Cruz has.
AOC’s past actions demonstrate that her motives are not attacking Democrats. Ted Cruz past actions demonstrate that his motives are about finding anything to attack Democrats with. And no matter what Ted Cruz says, I will never take him seriously when cites some higher motive when he tries to defend violent white supremacists against mean old Democrats, and that is because Ted Cruz has a long history of demonizing Democrats and attacking Trump critics.
I understand why you replied as you did, and you made good points. But I think you are naive to think you are talking to someone who is any more likely to respond thoughtfully to them than Ted Cruz would. I’ve read your intelligent and thoughtful replies to this person in the past, and I don’t recall even one time where anything you said seemed to remotely get through to her. Just like I would not expect any response you had to Ted Cruz to get through to him.
But I would expect AOC and Bernie to thoughtfully respond because their purpose is not to push propaganda, but to help push this country toward a progressive future honestly.
That MAGA freak deserves the maximum sentence the law calls for, and he should serve those years in Guantanamo because he is a terrorist.
I wonder if the laws as they are written would allow the courts to strip him of his citizenship and throw him out of the country for life.
This young man should learn the hard way that “if you do the crime, you do the time.”
The clean-up continues nationwide. Meanwhile, with their new immigration bill, President Biden and VP Harris are in contention to become the country’s greatest leaders since F.D.R.
Bless them!
The battle lines are drawn: the party of racism versus the party of the American Dream.
Fox “News” is really struggling to find bad things to say about Joe Biden. Tucker Carlson (go ahead, spell that first name with an F) is claiming that his love for his wife is PR, on no grounds whatsoever. Fox is running pieces about his skinny dipping in the pool at the VP mansion back during the Obama presidency and his building fires in the fireplace in the Oval Office. Because those are really urgent matters. LMAO.
You go, Joe! I can see you now, rockin’ those aviator sunglasses in your altogether after a dip in that pool. In the new presidential vernacular, unlike the Toddler English used by “the former guy,” good on you, man!
Who’s more dangerous to America’s future as a whole, a small fish like Secor or Bozell (recently arrested)?
The Bozell family (L. Brent Bozell Wikipedia entry) is in the inner circle of well-established conservative policy influencers, similar to the late William F. Buckley. Bozell founded the conservative Media Research Council.
Brent Bozell III and the Koch-funded Paul Weyrich, co-founder of ALEC, the religious right, the Heritage Foundation and the National Council on Policy were the subjects of an article, “Architects and Foot Soldiers: The Catholic Influence within the New Christian Right” (Surface, Syracuse University, 5-1-2007). The article author credits them with creating “a religious conservatism”.
The push for vouchers fulfills Weyrich’s call for parallel schools, a plan cited at Theocracy Watch.
Religious conservatism works against secularism and collectivism which Charlie Kirk connected to higher taxes in his Newsweek op-ed, “I’m an evangelical fighting for the Catholic school system”, 5-1-2020. Kirk advised, “God’s truth is over that of the state’s”.
The religious Lifesite News organization was reportedly banned from a social media site for posting false info. abut Covid 19. “God’s truth over the state’s” poses a danger to Americans- to their physical health and their democracy.
Bozell IV was charged with minor offenses compared to Secor. As a 41yo girls basketball coach at a small parochial school in PA, he looks to be a teeny splinter off the old block, perhaps even less of a “big fish.” Hopefully embarrassing for the family, though!