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‘Terrorgram’ Charges Show US Has Had Tools to Crack Down on Far-Right Terrorism All Along
The federal indictment of two alleged members of the Terrorgram Collective, a far-right cell accused of inspiring “lone wolf” attacks, reveals the US is now using a “forgotten” legal strategy.
On Monday, United States prosecutors in Sacramento unveiled a 15-count indictment accusing Dallas Erin Humber, 34, and Matthew Robert Allison, 37, of serving as core members of a virulent neo-Nazi propaganda network that solicited attacks on federal officials, power infrastructure, people of color, and material support for acts of terrorism both within the US and overseas. While the arrests are not the first targeting the Terrorgram Collective—Slovakian Pavol ‘SlovakBro’ Beňadik and former Atomwaffen Division founder Brandon Russell hold that honor—the charges against Humber and Allison represent a major change from how the FBI and US Department of Justice approach diffuse “accelerationist” terrorism—the nihilist brand of neo-fascism that seeks to speed up societal collapse and the ascent of a Fourth Reich through mass shootings, bombings, and other acts of terrorism by “lone wolf” actors. The the role of undercover agents in at least two of the Terrorgram federal prosecutions, DOJ’s repeated citation of the group’s outlawed status in Great Britain as basis for labeling it a transnational terrorism organization, and the alleged targeting of power infrastructure by participants in the propaganda network, Hughes says, all point to US law enforcement taking a new approach to tackling violent right wing extremism.
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