Based on a cursory google search, domestic extremism results in ~40 deaths per year.[0]
With that in mind, I'd like to pose a related question; would you be cool if the government monitored our speech to help end the scourge of death by lawn mower? Probably not, because it's not a serious threat, right? And yet, you're 20x more likely to be killed by a lawn mower than to be killed by a domestic extremist.
This isn't a matter of precision, it's a matter of scope. And given that these people are, collectively, 95% less deadly than the fearsome lawnmower, I'd say the appropriate scope is zero.
That seems like a fair point. No doubt the news cycle distorts the importance of these things. If the capitol hill security were capable of repelling LARPers we probably wouldn’t be having this debate (though no doubt some equally silly debate would have ensued).
With that in mind, I'd like to pose a related question; would you be cool if the government monitored our speech to help end the scourge of death by lawn mower? Probably not, because it's not a serious threat, right? And yet, you're 20x more likely to be killed by a lawn mower than to be killed by a domestic extremist.
This isn't a matter of precision, it's a matter of scope. And given that these people are, collectively, 95% less deadly than the fearsome lawnmower, I'd say the appropriate scope is zero.
[0]https://www.adl.org/media/12480/download [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_strike#Epidemiology