Florida designates over 100 groups as terrorist organizations

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(The Center Square) – Gov. Ron DeSantis and his Cabinet approved the designation of over 100 organizations as domestic terrorist organizations in Florida.

The label now covers antifa, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and CAIR-Florida, the Muslim Brotherhood and more.

At his final scheduled meeting Tuesday as commissioner of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Mark Glass said all the organizations listed in the written designation notice meet the statutory criteria.

DeSantis said he had reviewed the information submitted by Glass and approved the recommendations with no objections from his Cabinet members.

It comes after months of court deliberation and a fight in the state Legislature earlier this year to get House Bill 1471 passed.

The bill granted authority to the chief of domestic security to designate an organization as a domestic terrorist organization or a foreign terrorist organization if certain requirements are met. It requires written notice to the governor and lays out the process for organizations to challenge the designation.

CAIR and CAIR-Florida objected to the designation and filed a lawsuit, claiming the bill violated First Amendment rights to speech and association, among other things.

“There are practically no safeguards,” wrote Scott McCoy of the Southern Poverty Law Center in the lawsuit. “Florida officials may designate an organization without giving it meaningful notice or a meaningful opportunity to challenge the designation before a neutral decisionmaker. In effect, the state’s new designation regime empowers Governor DeSantis, the Chief of Domestic Security, and the Cabinet to play judge, jury, and nonprofit executioner.”

Tuesday afternoon, the American Civil Liberties Union said CAIR was denied the opportunity to be heard before the Florida Cabinet vote.

“As I wanted to explain before the Cabinet voted to designate our clients, Gov. DeSantis’s use of Florida’s dangerous new ‘terrorism’ designation regime against CAIR and its Florida chapter is baseless and unconstitutional,” said Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project. “There are simply no legitimate grounds to brand our clients with a reviled label, impose crippling criminal penalties, and force them to shut their doors in Florida. As the country's leading Muslim civil rights group, CAIR is being targeted not because it poses a threat to public safety, but because doing so serves a political agenda at the expense of Floridians' rights. CAIR and all U.S. nonprofits have the right to criticize the government, protect religious freedom, and advocate for the causes they believe in. We look forward to vindicating our clients’ rights in court.”

The designation will be effective Nov. 5 barring any court intervention, according to the ACLU.