February 17, 2021 • 20 mins
On Thursday, NASA is in for seven minutes of terror. The new Mars rover, Perseverance, will be landing, and everything has to be perfect for the mission to be a success. The entry, descent, and landing requires a heat shield, a parachute, rockets thrusters and a sky crane that will lower the rover on to the Martian surface. After that, the real mission starts as the rover will collect soil samples and also launch an autonomous helicopter. Christian Davenport, space reporter at the Washington Post, joins us for how it will all play out.
Next, the Department of Homeland Security, which was founded in response to 9/11 is beginning a pivot from focusing on foreign threats to a growing concern in the U.S., domestic terrorism. While the FBI usually looks into terrorism and extremists, the latest threat assessments from the DHS have pointed to increased activity by these groups and needs to reorient itself to these current threats. As always there are concerns of civil liberty violations and politicization of the department. Nick Miroff, reporter for The Washington Post, joins us for more.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Wednesday, February. I'm Oscar Ramirez in Los Angeles and
this is the daily dive. On Thursday, NASA is in
for seven minutes of terror. The new Mars Rover Perseverance
will be landing and everything has to be perfect for
the mission to be a success. The entry, descent, and
(00:22):
landing requires a heat shield, parachute, rocket thrusters, and a
skycrane that will lower the rover onto the Martian surface.
After that, the real mission starts, as the rover will
collect soil samples and also launch an autonomous helicopter. Christian Davenport,
space reporter at the Washington Post joins us for how
it will all play out next. Department of Homeland Security,
(00:44):
which was founded in response to nine eleven, is beginning
a pivot from focusing on foreign threats to a growing
concern in the US domestic terrorism. While the FBI usually
looks into terrorism and extremists, the latest threat assessments from
the DHS have pointed to increase activity by these groups
and needs to re orient itself to these current threats.
As always, there are concerns of civil liberty violations and
(01:07):
politicization of the Department. Nick Merov, reporter for the Washington Post,
joins us for more. It's news without the noise. Let's
dive in the Perseverance chooses that that targets and then
UM and that all happens in the two point four
(01:27):
seconds it takes for Perseverance to send commands for us
to separate from the backshell and start a free fall.
Joining us now is Christian Davenport, space reporter at the
Washington Post and author of the Space Barons. Thanks for
joining us, Christian, Yeah, thanks for having me. As usual,
we've got a lot of space news going on, and
Thursday is going to be an interesting day. NASA's Mars
(01:48):
rover Perseverance is gonna be landing on Mars. They call
the whole process from when it gets into the right
position to the landing, they call it seven minutes of terror.
And you know, it's one of these situations of scientific
and engineering feet that is really unmatched anywhere else. It
takes so much planning, Everything has to go right to
(02:10):
the smallest detail for something like this to be pulled off.
And that's why they call it seven minutes of terror.
And so we're expecting this to happen on Thursday. So
Christians start us off, what are we looking at with
this Mars rover landing. It's a big deal, And you're right,
it is seven minutes of terror. Of course, they're set
communication delay of about eleven minutes or so, so they're
(02:30):
just sitting there waiting and getting the signals back from
the spacecraft. But everything they're finding out it's already happened.
But there's Mars. It doesn't have a thick atmosphere like
we have here on Earth, but it has just enough
of an atmosphere that it can cause a problem. So
it actually they meet still a heat shield because as
it's going through it really really fast, like twelve thousand
miles per hour, that is going to generate a lot
(02:53):
of heat. And then there is enough though for it
to deploy the parachute and touch down, but they still
have to fly are those retro rocket the slow the
spacecraft down propulsively, And then if you remember from they
used the same thing in Curiosity. They call it the skycrane,
where there's a sort of spacecraft above the rover that
lowers the rover down with these cables onto the surface
(03:17):
of Mars. And it's just crazy if you if you
think about it. The Earth is moving in orbit around
the Sun, Mars is moving in orbit around the Sun.
The spacecraft it's going to travel like three hundred million
miles to hit a target in this crater that's four
point eight miles wide. And my colleague did the map
and basically calculated that that's the equivalent of if you
(03:39):
threw a dart from Washington, d C. And we're aiming
at a bull's eye that is about an inch in diameter,
the dart would travel from d C to hit the
bull's eye in Dallas. That's how precise you would have
to be. We've done this before with Mars. Obviously, we've
have a rover out there and everything already. But what's
different about this mission. There's a couple of different major
(04:02):
differences for it. So it's going to a place on
Mars called Jezero Crater, which is fascinating because if you
look at the images of it, I mean, even as
a lay person, you look at and you're like, this clear,
there was water there. I mean, it looks like in
my backyard in a way after a big rainstorm. You
can see where the water sort of runs through the
surface of the Earth and leaves those current marks and
(04:25):
they're sort of adulta there, and that is a great
place to go to look for signs of path of
ancient microbial life. So it's going to do that. It also,
and this is pretty cool, it's gonna have a microphone,
so scientists will actually be able to listen to Mars.
I mean, clearly, the other rovers have taken lots of
pictures of Mars. We have a sense of what it
(04:46):
looks like, what the topography is like. We've got a
lot of orbiters imaging Mars as well. This will be
the first time we'll be able to listen to it.
And there's something super cool that Perseverance has tucked under
its belly. It's got this time any little helicopter called
Ingenuity that's going to try to do a powered flight
on Mars. So it truly is like a Right Brothers
(05:08):
moment on another planet. Would be the first powered flight
on Mars. So that would be really cool too. And
that's a detective demo that we've never seen before. You
mentioned how the topography of the whole thing and you know,
craters and cliffs and all that. I mean, obviously that
adds to the difficulty of landing since it's all being
done remotely, but it's also using this new system. It
(05:29):
has a bunch of artificial intelligence on it, basically scoping
out the terrain so it could help pick the right
place to land. So, as I said, it's so much
that goes into it, this is just another layer of difficulty.
It's doing that totally autonomously. It's not like there's somebody.
They're flying it remotely. I mean, they just can't do
that given the great, great distance, the spacecraft has to
(05:52):
be able to do that on its own. I mean.
One of the analogies we use in our coverage of
this is when Neil Armstrong was landing the Lunar module
on the Moon's surface, the landing site where they wanted
to put it down. Initially they realized there were too
many craters and rocks, and Neil Armstrong had to fly
the spacecraft to find a better spot that was safer
for landing, and he was like famously running out of
(06:14):
fuel in those final minutes. Was he going to be
able to find a clear spot? Well, here there is
no Neil Armstrong or the Neil Armstrong. It's a spacecraft
itself that's going to be doing that sensing. But the
technology has come a long way in that regard. And
now for the actual mission, I mean, these are just
the difficulties of it landing. What the actual mission is,
It's going to collect samples. This could be part of
(06:35):
a three mission campaign to return those samples, soil samples
back to Earth. That in and of itself is another difficulty.
So what is it going to be doing while it's there?
That you know, could be a really cool part of
the mission if it's able to land successfully and fingers
crossed that it does, and it's able to take these
samples from Mars and then essentially catch them store them
(06:56):
on places on the surface where then on a previous
MISSI a spacecraft could come and retrieve them and bring
that back. Now, that wouldn't happen for many years to come,
and there were you know, there's going to have to
be a whole other program design for that sample return mission,
But that could be a really big deal for scientists
to actually get those artifacts back. Today, when we talk
(07:17):
about the Apollo program, there are scientists who are studying
the rocks and regulars that were brought back from the Moon,
you know, in the late sixties and the seventies. That's
provided a lot of science. Imagine for how many years,
how many decades scientists would be studying those samples from Mars.
That would be incredible. The last wrinkle to all of
(07:37):
this is that it's a crowded scene there. The United
States is not the only game in town. China and
the United Arab Emirates also are in the neighborhood right now. Yeah,
I mean, it's like there's a traffic jam right now
around Mars. And that's caused because Mars and Earth are
on the same side of the Sun once every twenty
(07:59):
six months or so, so that's when the orbits line
up that you could get to Mars quickly and efficiently.
And we had that window this past summer. That's when
a lot of these missions were launched. So you've got
the China mission and the U A mission. Is really
fascinating me. This is the first time an Arab country
has sent a spacecraft into deep space into Mars, and
(08:20):
that's going to orbit Mars and study the atmosphere. The
Chinese mission is also in orbit around Mars. It will
eventually descend a rover onto the Martian Service sometime in
the spring. Initially they were talking April. Now it's maybe maybe,
we don't know exactly when that would happen, but that's
a big step for China, which, as you remember, a
(08:41):
couple of years ago, landed a spacecraft on the far
side of the Moon, which had never been done before.
So they've got a lot of ambitions as well. So yeah,
a lot of missions going to Mars right about now. Well,
very hopeful for a successful mission. Christian Davenport, space reporter
at the Washington Post and author of the Space Barons,
Thank you very much for joining us. Thanks for having
(09:10):
you have to make sure that never again, could you know,
domestic terrorism groups attack our institutions of government, and that's
going to mean, you know, scrugging out and stripping down
to the studs any white nationalist groups in our country.
Joining us now is Nick Mirov, reporter at the Washington
Post covering the Department of Homeland Security. Thanks for joining us, Nick,
(09:30):
good to be with you. Oster. We've been seeing this
kind of pivot for the Department of Homeland Security. Obviously,
it was founded in response to nine eleven and looking
into foreign threats, and over the years it's kind of
had to start looking inward more too, domestic threats. Obviously,
we see a lot of extremist groups, white supremacy groups,
(09:50):
and we've seen the attacks that they've done here in
the United States, and so right now, even after the
Capitol Hill riots, there's even more emphasis now for the
depart Homeland Security to look towards these domestic threats. So Nick,
tell us what we're seeing with this, Well, this is
something that has been building for quite some time, you know,
as you know, the perceived threat from al Qaeda and
(10:13):
even ISIS started to fade. Over the last few years.
We had a series of very horrific, high profile domestic incidents.
I'm thinking of the Las Vegas shooting, the attack on
the Tree of Life Synagogue, and then came Neo Passo shooting,
which was the deadliest attack on Hispanic Americans in modern
U S history, and a very obvious example of a
(10:35):
white supremacist carrying out an act of targeted violence and
frankly terrorism. And so this had started to really awaken
folks I think at DHS towards this threat, and there
was also pressure coming from some lawmakers, particularly Democrats, saying well,
what is the biggest threat that faces the homeland today
and it's these domestic violent extremists and white supremacists. Now,
(10:59):
that effort, which was already starting to make some progress
at DHS kind of as an agency but not necessarily
getting picked up but with a lot of attention at
the White House under Trump, that was really thrown into
overdrive by the attack on the Capitol in January six
and since then what we've seen are even louder calls
for DHS to really make a hard pivot towards these
(11:22):
groups and see what can this big internal security agency
do to better protect Americans. The problem is that the
path ahead is not entirely clear the purview of you know,
monitoring extremist groups, terrorism, all that stuff usually fell under
the FBI. So what kind of infrastructure does DHS have
(11:43):
does the FBI have to do this now? Because I know,
you know, in reading through your piece, a lot of
this also has to do. You know, we need good
coordination with our state and local officials too, because this
is where this is brewing up. So the big agencies
need to coordinate with them. But so what does the
infrastructure look like right now? Well, that's a great question
because a lot of people have this sort of false impression,
(12:03):
maybe from television. You know that there are such things
as a kind of standing contingent of homeland security officers
ready to spring into action when the reality is is
not that you're right. The FBI is going to remain
the primary investigative and prostratorial arm, you know, of the
Justice Department to really monitor criminal terrorists and arrest them
(12:25):
and go after them. What DHS can do is both
more limited but also has the potential for more expansion
because DHS is so big. It's got nearly ten times
as many employees overall, if you add up all of
DHS as different agencies. The main things that DHS can
do one would be through this new office that's been
specifically set up to look at this challenge. It's called
(12:48):
the Office of Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention, and its
work is primarily preventative. It's started to hire regional coordinators
around the country who are supposed to work with state
and local officials to identify kind of at risk individuals
or groups and try to stage interventions with them, but
also to collect information and distribute it to state and
(13:11):
local authorities. And as you said, that is one of dhs'
biggest assets that it's forged all these relationships around the
country with state and local police departments to help be
vigilant against foreign terrorist threats. Well, now it could potentially
apply some of those relationships in a more domestic space.
The other big thing is the Office of Intelligence and Analysis,
(13:33):
which is kind of the DHS Intelligence Arm. It has
had a number of stumbles in recent years, and when
it was gathering intelligence on the sort of on the
threat from radical anarchist groups and others in Portland, it
was binged a little bit, especially by Democrats, and kind
of stepped back. But there's going to be I think
we're going to see more pressure on that agency to
(13:54):
be a more active player in the intelligence space. And
then lastly, I would just say DHS does have the
Immigration and Customs Enforcements Homeland Security Investigations Arm, which was
created after nine eleven to be kind of like another FBI,
you know, an armed um investigative body, and what they've
done primarily until now has gone after drug traffickers and
(14:15):
human smugglers and so forth. But they have thousands of
agents of HSI agents around the country who, if oriented
more towards this type of threat, could potentially play a role.
Balance is always a very important thing, especially when you
have these big agencies and there's concerns. So one concern
is the splitting of attention the Department of Homeland Security.
(14:36):
People are concerned, you know, you shouldn't completely turn away
from foreign threats, that's one, and then to just concerns
about civil liberties. You know, now we're looking more into
people here in our own homeland, and so there's always
groups that are concerned about surveillance and different things like that.
I mean, you think about, you know, some of the
anxieties that came with the creation of this thing with
(14:58):
this kind of Orwellian name, right that the Ppartment of
Homeland Security and it's focus until now has been almost
entirely on exterior threats. And what DHS is especially good
at is finding out who is trying to enter the country,
who they are, what their story is, and potentially stopping them.
So the idea that this very large and potentially powerful
(15:20):
security agency that has access to so much information could
potentially plan more active role monitoring Americans is going to
be you know, a major issue going forward. That said,
when we've had several we've seen several hearings since the
January sixth attack, and it's notable that there is seems
to be real bipartisan energy behind some kind of new
(15:41):
domestic terrorism authorities that would potentially, you know, give both
the Department of Justice more latitude to charge people. But
also I think you'll see DHS taking a more active
role in this space. There are other folks, particularly who
are part of the early days of the Department Homeland
Security and its founding and are highly aware of its
founding mission, who say, you know, don't take your eye
(16:04):
off the ball. It's very important for DHS to remain
focused on external trends. But I do think that that's
something that DHS, given its size and it's broad mandate,
would have the ability to do. It's not like U S.
Customs and Border Protection, which is very focused on, you know,
who's trying to enter the country. It's not like they're
necessarily going to play a big role in in this
new space. But there are other DHS components that could
(16:28):
um potentially do more. Now obviously there's a big government agency.
How does politics play into this? What do lawmakers want
to do and how do they want to punish these people?
I saw I mentioned I saw in the article you
mentioned something about you know, sanctions things like that for
people that provide support to these types of groups. So
how are lawmakers getting involved in in this kind of
(16:48):
pivot for the Department of Homeland Security. Well, I think
that's where some of the controversy will start to come in.
You know, I think we're still in this phase where
people remain shocked and disgusted by what happened on January six,
and they want to do something. They want to do
something in a bipartisan spirit. One of the things they
have talked about are and you know, enhancing some of
these laws so that for example, providing material to support
(17:09):
to domestic terrorists and white supremacists who commit violent acts
that could be a crime. But once we get into
the kind of nitty or gritty of how of how
these agencies will function and what potentially expanded roles they'll
take on, I do think we'll start to see some pushback,
particularly from Republicans right now, who are worried about this
idea that these agencies could be used to disproportionately spy
(17:31):
on the party that's not in power, or by naming
you know, white supremacists and domestic extremists, that these federal
agents will become somewhat skewed towards groups with a certain ideology.
That said, all of the statistics show and when when
DHS produced its first Homeland Threat assessment last October, the
(17:51):
numbers clearly show that more Americans have been killed by
white supremacists and domestic extremists than foreign actors, and most
of those are right wing leaning groups. And obviously those
numbers are very skewed by the tragedy and passive. As
you mentioned, you know, some of these reports and threat
assessments that have been put out by DHS point to
(18:11):
this being kind of the emerging threat for US at
least here domestically. But still it would take maybe five
to ten years or something for the DHS to really
build out this effort a little bit more. One thing
that we could potentially imagine is that the DHS will,
and this would be potentsive like this, one of the
safer things they could do would be to really go
big into this space of prevention and try to build
(18:34):
out their network of regional coordinators who would work closely
with local police departments and state police to both help
monitor at risk individuals or extremist groups, but also stage interventions.
And one of the things that the literature and the
and the research really points to is that people at
times of great insecurity and hardship, particularly during something like
(18:57):
this pandemic, are subject to riticalization and recruitment by extremist groups.
And so, you know, this past year has left so
many Americans distressed, and it's it's created a ripe environment
for this type of recruitment. And so, you know, I
think going forward that that types of research could potentially
inform the way DHS takes on a growing role in
(19:18):
this in the domestic terrorism space. Nick Merov, reporter at
the Washington Post covering the Department of Homeland Security. Thank
you very much for joining us. My pleasure, Oscar. Thank you.
That's it for today. Join us on social media at
(19:38):
Daily Dive pod in both Twitter and Instagram. Leave us
a comment, give us a rating, and tell us the
stories that you're interested in. Follows and I heart Radio
or subscribe wherever you get your podcast. This episode of
The Daily Divers produced by Vigor Right and engineered by
Tony Sarentina. I'm Oscar Rameras and this was her Daily
Dive
It's Wednesday, February. I'm Oscar Ramirez in Los Angeles and
this is the daily dive. On Thursday, NASA is in
for seven minutes of terror. The new Mars Rover Perseverance
will be landing and everything has to be perfect for
the mission to be a success. The entry, descent, and
(00:22):
landing requires a heat shield, parachute, rocket thrusters, and a
skycrane that will lower the rover onto the Martian surface.
After that, the real mission starts, as the rover will
collect soil samples and also launch an autonomous helicopter. Christian Davenport,
space reporter at the Washington Post joins us for how
it will all play out next. Department of Homeland Security,
(00:44):
which was founded in response to nine eleven, is beginning
a pivot from focusing on foreign threats to a growing
concern in the US domestic terrorism. While the FBI usually
looks into terrorism and extremists, the latest threat assessments from
the DHS have pointed to increase activity by these groups
and needs to re orient itself to these current threats.
As always, there are concerns of civil liberty violations and
(01:07):
politicization of the Department. Nick Merov, reporter for the Washington Post,
joins us for more. It's news without the noise. Let's
dive in the Perseverance chooses that that targets and then
UM and that all happens in the two point four
(01:27):
seconds it takes for Perseverance to send commands for us
to separate from the backshell and start a free fall.
Joining us now is Christian Davenport, space reporter at the
Washington Post and author of the Space Barons. Thanks for
joining us, Christian, Yeah, thanks for having me. As usual,
we've got a lot of space news going on, and
Thursday is going to be an interesting day. NASA's Mars
(01:48):
rover Perseverance is gonna be landing on Mars. They call
the whole process from when it gets into the right
position to the landing, they call it seven minutes of terror.
And you know, it's one of these situations of scientific
and engineering feet that is really unmatched anywhere else. It
takes so much planning, Everything has to go right to
(02:10):
the smallest detail for something like this to be pulled off.
And that's why they call it seven minutes of terror.
And so we're expecting this to happen on Thursday. So
Christians start us off, what are we looking at with
this Mars rover landing. It's a big deal, And you're right,
it is seven minutes of terror. Of course, they're set
communication delay of about eleven minutes or so, so they're
(02:30):
just sitting there waiting and getting the signals back from
the spacecraft. But everything they're finding out it's already happened.
But there's Mars. It doesn't have a thick atmosphere like
we have here on Earth, but it has just enough
of an atmosphere that it can cause a problem. So
it actually they meet still a heat shield because as
it's going through it really really fast, like twelve thousand
miles per hour, that is going to generate a lot
(02:53):
of heat. And then there is enough though for it
to deploy the parachute and touch down, but they still
have to fly are those retro rocket the slow the
spacecraft down propulsively, And then if you remember from they
used the same thing in Curiosity. They call it the skycrane,
where there's a sort of spacecraft above the rover that
lowers the rover down with these cables onto the surface
(03:17):
of Mars. And it's just crazy if you if you
think about it. The Earth is moving in orbit around
the Sun, Mars is moving in orbit around the Sun.
The spacecraft it's going to travel like three hundred million
miles to hit a target in this crater that's four
point eight miles wide. And my colleague did the map
and basically calculated that that's the equivalent of if you
(03:39):
threw a dart from Washington, d C. And we're aiming
at a bull's eye that is about an inch in diameter,
the dart would travel from d C to hit the
bull's eye in Dallas. That's how precise you would have
to be. We've done this before with Mars. Obviously, we've
have a rover out there and everything already. But what's
different about this mission. There's a couple of different major
(04:02):
differences for it. So it's going to a place on
Mars called Jezero Crater, which is fascinating because if you
look at the images of it, I mean, even as
a lay person, you look at and you're like, this clear,
there was water there. I mean, it looks like in
my backyard in a way after a big rainstorm. You
can see where the water sort of runs through the
surface of the Earth and leaves those current marks and
(04:25):
they're sort of adulta there, and that is a great
place to go to look for signs of path of
ancient microbial life. So it's going to do that. It also,
and this is pretty cool, it's gonna have a microphone,
so scientists will actually be able to listen to Mars.
I mean, clearly, the other rovers have taken lots of
pictures of Mars. We have a sense of what it
(04:46):
looks like, what the topography is like. We've got a
lot of orbiters imaging Mars as well. This will be
the first time we'll be able to listen to it.
And there's something super cool that Perseverance has tucked under
its belly. It's got this time any little helicopter called
Ingenuity that's going to try to do a powered flight
on Mars. So it truly is like a Right Brothers
(05:08):
moment on another planet. Would be the first powered flight
on Mars. So that would be really cool too. And
that's a detective demo that we've never seen before. You
mentioned how the topography of the whole thing and you know,
craters and cliffs and all that. I mean, obviously that
adds to the difficulty of landing since it's all being
done remotely, but it's also using this new system. It
(05:29):
has a bunch of artificial intelligence on it, basically scoping
out the terrain so it could help pick the right
place to land. So, as I said, it's so much
that goes into it, this is just another layer of difficulty.
It's doing that totally autonomously. It's not like there's somebody.
They're flying it remotely. I mean, they just can't do
that given the great, great distance, the spacecraft has to
(05:52):
be able to do that on its own. I mean.
One of the analogies we use in our coverage of
this is when Neil Armstrong was landing the Lunar module
on the Moon's surface, the landing site where they wanted
to put it down. Initially they realized there were too
many craters and rocks, and Neil Armstrong had to fly
the spacecraft to find a better spot that was safer
for landing, and he was like famously running out of
(06:14):
fuel in those final minutes. Was he going to be
able to find a clear spot? Well, here there is
no Neil Armstrong or the Neil Armstrong. It's a spacecraft
itself that's going to be doing that sensing. But the
technology has come a long way in that regard. And
now for the actual mission, I mean, these are just
the difficulties of it landing. What the actual mission is,
It's going to collect samples. This could be part of
(06:35):
a three mission campaign to return those samples, soil samples
back to Earth. That in and of itself is another difficulty.
So what is it going to be doing while it's there?
That you know, could be a really cool part of
the mission if it's able to land successfully and fingers
crossed that it does, and it's able to take these
samples from Mars and then essentially catch them store them
(06:56):
on places on the surface where then on a previous
MISSI a spacecraft could come and retrieve them and bring
that back. Now, that wouldn't happen for many years to come,
and there were you know, there's going to have to
be a whole other program design for that sample return mission,
But that could be a really big deal for scientists
to actually get those artifacts back. Today, when we talk
(07:17):
about the Apollo program, there are scientists who are studying
the rocks and regulars that were brought back from the Moon,
you know, in the late sixties and the seventies. That's
provided a lot of science. Imagine for how many years,
how many decades scientists would be studying those samples from Mars.
That would be incredible. The last wrinkle to all of
(07:37):
this is that it's a crowded scene there. The United
States is not the only game in town. China and
the United Arab Emirates also are in the neighborhood right now. Yeah,
I mean, it's like there's a traffic jam right now
around Mars. And that's caused because Mars and Earth are
on the same side of the Sun once every twenty
(07:59):
six months or so, so that's when the orbits line
up that you could get to Mars quickly and efficiently.
And we had that window this past summer. That's when
a lot of these missions were launched. So you've got
the China mission and the U A mission. Is really
fascinating me. This is the first time an Arab country
has sent a spacecraft into deep space into Mars, and
(08:20):
that's going to orbit Mars and study the atmosphere. The
Chinese mission is also in orbit around Mars. It will
eventually descend a rover onto the Martian Service sometime in
the spring. Initially they were talking April. Now it's maybe maybe,
we don't know exactly when that would happen, but that's
a big step for China, which, as you remember, a
(08:41):
couple of years ago, landed a spacecraft on the far
side of the Moon, which had never been done before.
So they've got a lot of ambitions as well. So yeah,
a lot of missions going to Mars right about now. Well,
very hopeful for a successful mission. Christian Davenport, space reporter
at the Washington Post and author of the Space Barons,
Thank you very much for joining us. Thanks for having
(09:10):
you have to make sure that never again, could you know,
domestic terrorism groups attack our institutions of government, and that's
going to mean, you know, scrugging out and stripping down
to the studs any white nationalist groups in our country.
Joining us now is Nick Mirov, reporter at the Washington
Post covering the Department of Homeland Security. Thanks for joining us, Nick,
(09:30):
good to be with you. Oster. We've been seeing this
kind of pivot for the Department of Homeland Security. Obviously,
it was founded in response to nine eleven and looking
into foreign threats, and over the years it's kind of
had to start looking inward more too, domestic threats. Obviously,
we see a lot of extremist groups, white supremacy groups,
(09:50):
and we've seen the attacks that they've done here in
the United States, and so right now, even after the
Capitol Hill riots, there's even more emphasis now for the
depart Homeland Security to look towards these domestic threats. So Nick,
tell us what we're seeing with this, Well, this is
something that has been building for quite some time, you know,
as you know, the perceived threat from al Qaeda and
(10:13):
even ISIS started to fade. Over the last few years.
We had a series of very horrific, high profile domestic incidents.
I'm thinking of the Las Vegas shooting, the attack on
the Tree of Life Synagogue, and then came Neo Passo shooting,
which was the deadliest attack on Hispanic Americans in modern
U S history, and a very obvious example of a
(10:35):
white supremacist carrying out an act of targeted violence and
frankly terrorism. And so this had started to really awaken
folks I think at DHS towards this threat, and there
was also pressure coming from some lawmakers, particularly Democrats, saying well,
what is the biggest threat that faces the homeland today
and it's these domestic violent extremists and white supremacists. Now,
(10:59):
that effort, which was already starting to make some progress
at DHS kind of as an agency but not necessarily
getting picked up but with a lot of attention at
the White House under Trump, that was really thrown into
overdrive by the attack on the Capitol in January six
and since then what we've seen are even louder calls
for DHS to really make a hard pivot towards these
(11:22):
groups and see what can this big internal security agency
do to better protect Americans. The problem is that the
path ahead is not entirely clear the purview of you know,
monitoring extremist groups, terrorism, all that stuff usually fell under
the FBI. So what kind of infrastructure does DHS have
(11:43):
does the FBI have to do this now? Because I know,
you know, in reading through your piece, a lot of
this also has to do. You know, we need good
coordination with our state and local officials too, because this
is where this is brewing up. So the big agencies
need to coordinate with them. But so what does the
infrastructure look like right now? Well, that's a great question
because a lot of people have this sort of false impression,
(12:03):
maybe from television. You know that there are such things
as a kind of standing contingent of homeland security officers
ready to spring into action when the reality is is
not that you're right. The FBI is going to remain
the primary investigative and prostratorial arm, you know, of the
Justice Department to really monitor criminal terrorists and arrest them
(12:25):
and go after them. What DHS can do is both
more limited but also has the potential for more expansion
because DHS is so big. It's got nearly ten times
as many employees overall, if you add up all of
DHS as different agencies. The main things that DHS can
do one would be through this new office that's been
specifically set up to look at this challenge. It's called
(12:48):
the Office of Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention, and its
work is primarily preventative. It's started to hire regional coordinators
around the country who are supposed to work with state
and local officials to identify kind of at risk individuals
or groups and try to stage interventions with them, but
also to collect information and distribute it to state and
(13:11):
local authorities. And as you said, that is one of dhs'
biggest assets that it's forged all these relationships around the
country with state and local police departments to help be
vigilant against foreign terrorist threats. Well, now it could potentially
apply some of those relationships in a more domestic space.
The other big thing is the Office of Intelligence and Analysis,
(13:33):
which is kind of the DHS Intelligence Arm. It has
had a number of stumbles in recent years, and when
it was gathering intelligence on the sort of on the
threat from radical anarchist groups and others in Portland, it
was binged a little bit, especially by Democrats, and kind
of stepped back. But there's going to be I think
we're going to see more pressure on that agency to
(13:54):
be a more active player in the intelligence space. And
then lastly, I would just say DHS does have the
Immigration and Customs Enforcements Homeland Security Investigations Arm, which was
created after nine eleven to be kind of like another FBI,
you know, an armed um investigative body, and what they've
done primarily until now has gone after drug traffickers and
(14:15):
human smugglers and so forth. But they have thousands of
agents of HSI agents around the country who, if oriented
more towards this type of threat, could potentially play a role.
Balance is always a very important thing, especially when you
have these big agencies and there's concerns. So one concern
is the splitting of attention the Department of Homeland Security.
(14:36):
People are concerned, you know, you shouldn't completely turn away
from foreign threats, that's one, and then to just concerns
about civil liberties. You know, now we're looking more into
people here in our own homeland, and so there's always
groups that are concerned about surveillance and different things like that.
I mean, you think about, you know, some of the
anxieties that came with the creation of this thing with
(14:58):
this kind of Orwellian name, right that the Ppartment of
Homeland Security and it's focus until now has been almost
entirely on exterior threats. And what DHS is especially good
at is finding out who is trying to enter the country,
who they are, what their story is, and potentially stopping them.
So the idea that this very large and potentially powerful
(15:20):
security agency that has access to so much information could
potentially plan more active role monitoring Americans is going to
be you know, a major issue going forward. That said,
when we've had several we've seen several hearings since the
January sixth attack, and it's notable that there is seems
to be real bipartisan energy behind some kind of new
(15:41):
domestic terrorism authorities that would potentially, you know, give both
the Department of Justice more latitude to charge people. But
also I think you'll see DHS taking a more active
role in this space. There are other folks, particularly who
are part of the early days of the Department Homeland
Security and its founding and are highly aware of its
founding mission, who say, you know, don't take your eye
(16:04):
off the ball. It's very important for DHS to remain
focused on external trends. But I do think that that's
something that DHS, given its size and it's broad mandate,
would have the ability to do. It's not like U S.
Customs and Border Protection, which is very focused on, you know,
who's trying to enter the country. It's not like they're
necessarily going to play a big role in in this
new space. But there are other DHS components that could
(16:28):
um potentially do more. Now obviously there's a big government agency.
How does politics play into this? What do lawmakers want
to do and how do they want to punish these people?
I saw I mentioned I saw in the article you
mentioned something about you know, sanctions things like that for
people that provide support to these types of groups. So
how are lawmakers getting involved in in this kind of
(16:48):
pivot for the Department of Homeland Security. Well, I think
that's where some of the controversy will start to come in.
You know, I think we're still in this phase where
people remain shocked and disgusted by what happened on January six,
and they want to do something. They want to do
something in a bipartisan spirit. One of the things they
have talked about are and you know, enhancing some of
these laws so that for example, providing material to support
(17:09):
to domestic terrorists and white supremacists who commit violent acts
that could be a crime. But once we get into
the kind of nitty or gritty of how of how
these agencies will function and what potentially expanded roles they'll
take on, I do think we'll start to see some pushback,
particularly from Republicans right now, who are worried about this
idea that these agencies could be used to disproportionately spy
(17:31):
on the party that's not in power, or by naming
you know, white supremacists and domestic extremists, that these federal
agents will become somewhat skewed towards groups with a certain ideology.
That said, all of the statistics show and when when
DHS produced its first Homeland Threat assessment last October, the
(17:51):
numbers clearly show that more Americans have been killed by
white supremacists and domestic extremists than foreign actors, and most
of those are right wing leaning groups. And obviously those
numbers are very skewed by the tragedy and passive. As
you mentioned, you know, some of these reports and threat
assessments that have been put out by DHS point to
(18:11):
this being kind of the emerging threat for US at
least here domestically. But still it would take maybe five
to ten years or something for the DHS to really
build out this effort a little bit more. One thing
that we could potentially imagine is that the DHS will,
and this would be potentsive like this, one of the
safer things they could do would be to really go
big into this space of prevention and try to build
(18:34):
out their network of regional coordinators who would work closely
with local police departments and state police to both help
monitor at risk individuals or extremist groups, but also stage interventions.
And one of the things that the literature and the
and the research really points to is that people at
times of great insecurity and hardship, particularly during something like
(18:57):
this pandemic, are subject to riticalization and recruitment by extremist groups.
And so, you know, this past year has left so
many Americans distressed, and it's it's created a ripe environment
for this type of recruitment. And so, you know, I
think going forward that that types of research could potentially
inform the way DHS takes on a growing role in
(19:18):
this in the domestic terrorism space. Nick Merov, reporter at
the Washington Post covering the Department of Homeland Security. Thank
you very much for joining us. My pleasure, Oscar. Thank you.
That's it for today. Join us on social media at
(19:38):
Daily Dive pod in both Twitter and Instagram. Leave us
a comment, give us a rating, and tell us the
stories that you're interested in. Follows and I heart Radio
or subscribe wherever you get your podcast. This episode of
The Daily Divers produced by Vigor Right and engineered by
Tony Sarentina. I'm Oscar Rameras and this was her Daily
Dive
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