By Mike O’Donnell | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice
In April of this year, the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, declassified a June 2021 plan by the previous Biden administration to counter domestic terrorism.
During his four-year term, President Biden repeatedly stated that “Domestic terrorism from white supremacists is the most lethal terrorist threat in the homeland.” Variations on this catchphrase were parroted by other senior politicians in the Biden circle—although never with any corroborating evidence.
The declassified 15-page document, titled the Strategic Implementation Plan for Countering Domestic Terrorism, was intended to confront this supposedly lethal threat. This came even as the administration simultaneously opened the gates at the southern border, allowing tens of millions of unvetted illegal aliens into the country.
The plan laid out four pillars the administration hoped to achieve:
- Understand and share domestic terrorism-related information
- Prevent domestic terrorism recruitment and mobilization to violence
- Disrupt and deter domestic terrorism activity
- Confront long-term contributors to domestic terrorism
(If you’d like to read the declassified document, you can find it here: ODNI Strategic Plan PDF)
The Plan emphasized that countering domestic terrorism would not just involve—but demand—a coordinated, government-wide effort.
This would include the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, Treasury, CIA, USAID, Department of Education, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Defense and even global partners through the United Nations Global Counterterrorism Compact. Notably, the National Security Council’s Domestic Violent Extremism Group would serve as a key player.
A legacy of federal overreach expands
This level of coordination didn’t arise in a vacuum.
The PATRIOT Act—draconian from the start—was signed into law in 2001 and handed the federal government sweeping new powers to monitor citizens in the name of national security. It helped pave the way for a brand-new agency in 2002—Homeland Security—to keep the machine running.
Congress still hasn’t had the spine to repeal it.
But the 2021 Biden Strategic Implementation Plan took this further. The Plan gave federal agencies the green light to monitor—and in some cases target—citizens who disagreed with the administration’s policies.
And it did all of this–without the statutory authority or oversight from Congress, engaging in censorship efforts that actively suppressed free speech.
Millions of dollars were funneled into initiatives like the Stanford Internet Observatory’s Election Integrity Project, supported by the Department of Homeland Security.
Their focus? Americans who questioned the narrative. Step outside the approved talking points—on the 2020 election, the Biden family corruption or COVID mandates—and chances are, someone somewhere flagged your post. And then you were censored, silenced or shadow-banned.
This wasn’t accidental. It was an orchestrated campaign to dictate what you could say, see and hear.
And it worked.
The abuses of power under the Biden administration were wide-ranging. Agencies targeted parents who spoke at school board meetings. They targeted supporters of former President Trump. They even went after Catholics—and anyone who publicly shared traditional views about the sanctity of life, biological sex, or men competing in women’s sports.
In late 2021, a whistleblower disclosed the FBI’s use of a “threat tag” system to monitor Americans engaged in constitutionally protected activity. This system allowed the bureau to open investigative files on dissenting citizens.
Perhaps they even have a file on you?
This isn’t just history—it’s happening now
Holding secret files on citizens who disagree with the government is standard procedure in communist and fascist regimes, both past and present.
Unfortunately, the U.S. has its own precedents. FDR’s administration surveilled political opponents. J. Edgar Hoover, during his decades at the FBI, kept his own secret files on citizens.
The Strategic Implementation Plan went a step further by setting aside taxpayer money to push for laws banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
It’s reasonable to ask whether any of that funding helped Colorado lawmakers advance recent gun control laws.
Regardless, everything about the Strategic Implementation Plan flies in the face of a constitutional republic.
The Founding Fathers warned us about the dangers of an all-powerful centralized bureaucracy. President Reagan put it simply: “As government expands, liberty contracts.”
For nearly four years, the 2021 Strategic Implementation Plan remained quietly in effect—woven through the work of federal agencies with little public scrutiny. Congress never lifted a finger to repeal it.
A new Government Accountability Office report, released in April 2025, confirmed the plan was not only active through early this year but deeply embedded across dozens of federal agencies—with 49 out of 58 action items already underway.
Only this spring, after returning to office, did President Trump announce his intent to toss the Biden-era strategy and replace it with something new.
As of now, that rollback is still in progress. Whether the surveillance and censorship programs it enabled have truly ended—or simply gone underground—remains anyone’s guess.
Should you be concerned?
I know I am.
Mike O’Donnell is a small business advocate, nonprofit executive and economic development leader based in Kirk, Colorado. He currently serves as Executive Director of Prairie Rose Development Corp., a mission-driven lender supporting underserved entrepreneurs across the state.
Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.