While the Patriot Act in 2001 expanded the types of conduct that may be investigated as domestic terrorism, it did not make domestic terrorism a crime. The law defined domestic terrorism as acts “dangerous to human life” that “(i) intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping.”
Thomas Brzozowski, the Justice Department’s domestic counterterrorism coordinator, said there is a “considerable amount of ambiguity over domestic terrorism, what it means precisely, and how it’s charged.”
President-elect Biden has renewed calls to pass a law against domestic terrorism following the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Congressional efforts to pass a law in 2019 did not progress.