As someone who has cut themselves off from most news outside of HN, is this article actual news or is this just a website trying to stir the pot for clicks
If a story moves on the AP, it’s news, almost by definition.
Not every new institution created by the govt gets posted on Hacker News and the verbage in the headline triggered red flags for me. As a conservative, it would make me concerned over government surveillance possibly targeting me. As a liberal, it would make me concerned over the presence of domestic extremists. So I was trying to gauge how I should feel about this story, whether 'ramping up' means creating a new NSA, or forming a volunteer committee that meets once/week.
I think it's real. IIRC, the Biden administration has been saying they're going to make "domestic extremism" a federal law enforcement priority and they're planning on throwing a lot of resources behind it. I beleive their position is that it got too little attention in previous administrations vs. stuff like drug trafficking and Islamic terrorism. This kind of monitoring fits with that, and seems to be reporting on a detail of those plans.