We all know that white supremacist violence is a grave threat. But the Biden administration’s approach to addressing white supremacist violence leaves much to be desired. Its tactics aren’t anything new: the CP3 program resurrects debunked CVE strategies. Far from tackling white supremacist violence, the new domestic extremism strategy will propagate white supremacy while suppressing dissent.

On Wednesday, July 14, DRAD was joined by Harsha Panduranga of the Brennan Center to discuss what the CVE/CP3 program is and dismantling the myth of the “path to violence” theory used to justify some of the programs more notorious – and unconstitutional – practices and strategies.

Harsha Panduranga is counsel at the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program. While at the Brennan Center, he’s researched how the government targets Muslim communities under the guise of counterterrorism. Recently, he’s put out an excellent report explaining why President Biden’s new domestic terrorism strategy stands little chance of helping to address white supremacist violence. The Biden administration recycled the playbook from the War on Terror to target white supremacists, but those strategies never worked in the first place. Problems with ideological policing, speculative surveillance, and stigmatization of mental health conditions remain, and, as Harsha explains in his report, there is every chance that the new plan will continue to target communities of color. Harsha joined us to give a rundown of the newest iteration of CVE and to explain why the CVE counterterrorism model doesn’t work.