A week after a tense stand-off between gun-carrying states' rights advocates and US federal Bureau of Land Management police, self-described militia members are still protecting Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his family.
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada calls the armed campers "domestic terrorists".
He said a federal task force was being formed to deal with the unrest.
Nevada Republican Senator Dean Heller says those who Reid may call domestic terrorists, he calls patriots.
The Bundy ranch is the latest flashpoint in a dispute about whether states or the federal government should control public range lands.
Left unresolved is the government's claim that Bundy owes more than $US1.1 million ($A1.18 million) for letting about 900 cows trespass for 20 years on rangeland 130km northeast of Las Vegas.
