My Understanding of Extremism and Domestic Terrorism Essay

Domestic terrorism is a real threat to this country. This type of attack is nothing new to this country but until the threat of international terrorism became prominent, there was not a large focus on domestic terrorism. With a look at history, domestic terrorists are a greater threat to security than international terrorists. Some of these threats are easily preventable and others are more difficult to see coming. The Department of Homeland Security needs to focus on domestic terrorist threats with the same effort as they do for

Domestic terrorists are turning into such a bigger threat as there becomes more and more dangerous domestic terrorist groups. For instance, right-wing extremists are becoming more of a danger that we can’t ignore. As said by Kurt Eichenwald, “[Timothy] McVeigh, the infamous anti-government extremist, murdered 168 people in 1995 when he detonated a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.”Like Timothy McVeigh, many U.S. citizens have had violent disagreements about rights and freedoms with government officials, which has caused many of these antigovernment extremist groups to form. According to Ron Nixon, “Mr. Ellison said, ‘Right-wing extremists have launched an average of 330 attacks a year and killed about 250 people between 2002 and 2011. These are dangerous people.’” Right-wing extremists are becoming a bigger threat to our country. They are attacking and killing more people every year and we need to find a

Terrorism has always existed in American policing, and while the groups committing these acts have changed, their intentions have not. Their intentions being to cause maximum fear and scare those who they target into doing and following their ideology. In the 1970’s and 1980’s in America, the main terrorist groups were associated with the environmental movement and race based groups, while other parts of the world were dealing with Islamic extremists, were committing terrorist acts across the Middle East without much intervention from the United States. In fact the group Al-Qaeda, who attacked the World Trade Centers in 1993 and 2001, found its roots in the 1980’s fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan with weapons supplied by the Central Intelligence Agency. While the U.S. Federal Law Enforcement agencies knew of these groups, they underestimated the capabilities of lone wolf, small cell, and whole terrorist organizations. This was due to the fact that the Federal Law Enforcement agencies top priority was general crime such as organized crimes and white-collar crime.

“Special interest terrorism differs from traditional right-wing and left-wing terrorism in that extremist special interest groups seek to resolve specific issues, rather than effect widespread political change. Special interest extremists continue to conduct acts of politically motivated violence to force segments of society, including the general public, to change attitudes about issues considered important to their causes. These groups occupy the extreme fringes of animal rights, pro-life, environmental, anti-nuclear, and other movements. Some special interest extremists -- most notably within the animal rights and environmental movements -- have turned increasingly toward vandalism and terrorist activity in attempts to further their causes” (Jarboe, 2002).

Ever since 9/11 when both World Trade Center buildings were attacked by an Islamic Group, attacks by Islamic Terrorist on U.S. soil have been less of a threat than Domestic Terrorists. Domestic Terrorism has been shown these passed for years but yet again most of these cases have not been classified as acts of Domestic Terrorism they most likely fall into the category. Now the definition of Domestic Terrorism is basically "the committing of terrorist acts in the perpetrator 's own country against their fellow citizens". Now personally I don 't know how our government is working with these popular cases like Charlottesville, Las Vegas, and a new that just happened recently actually two but I 'll just say one, the New York attack that

Domestic terrorism is like cancer that eats away at the very values and beliefs of the American people. Instead of combining efforts to peacefully and legally enact change, domestic terrorists take the law and actions into their own hands. Groups such as eco-terrorists use firebombing to make their point that the Earth will be protected at all costs. That cost even meant human lives. Militia groups feel the same way. Their goal is not about saving the Earth but rather to change the government. They see it as too weak to handle the needs of the America people. These individuals use modified firearms, explosives, and survival tactics. Law abiding citizens are not defenseless, the FBI and NCIRC work together to help keep America safe.

Conventional wisdom has it that extremism is a bad thing. However "extremism" is simply deemed as whatever society considers unacceptable at the time. For example, almost 200 years ago, the idea of freeing all the slaves and banning slavery in America would have been thought of as "extremist." Additionally, back in the era of Nazi Germany, the notion that the Holocaust was wrong and should be stopped would have been thought of as "extremist." More importantly than whether something is "extreme" it is all a matter of right or wrong.

After all, it is not as if right-wing extremism disappeared after September 11. The history of right-wing extremism from 1995 to the present day has been one of a steady stream of plots, conspiracies, terrorist acts, and hate crimes. The recent history of extremist violence in the United States has in most respects been dominated by right-wing extremists.

The FBI also gives a definition of domestic terrorism that is very similar to its definition of terrorism, but has a minor difference. Like terrorism, there are three characteristics that need to be met in order to define an act as domestic terrorism. The first characteristic is that it needs to involve acts that are dangerous to human life that violate federal or state laws. The second characteristic is it needs to appear intended to (i) intimidate or coerce civilian population; (ii) influence policies of a

The perpetrators of terrorism have changed over time. Domestic terrorism has its roots in the United States going back to the Colonial Era, where some argue that patriots such as in the Boston Tea Party used terror tactics to spread their message (Zalman, 2015). Many argue that the acts patriots took were

When you hear the words terrorism, what does you mind go to? Most people would say some sort of extremist group because that is what the media puts into our heads but in reality most domestic terrorist attacks are committed by what is known as a ‘Lone Wolf” attacker. These are people who prepare and commit violent acts alone. These cases are much harder to detect because of a multitude of things. For instance laws have been established to protect civil liberties but in the process have prevented investigators from tracking people engaged with hateful speech, unless there is a suspected crime that person may be involved in. It is easier to track and detect international terrorism because often there are many people involved in the attack and often those attacks are committed by different terrorist groups, and the U.S government is constantly tracking and getting new information on those different terrorist groups. Many counterterrorism efforts have been shaped in response to foreign terrorism

The U.S. law enforcement and counterterrorism professionals have been cautioning for years that the right-wing extremist threat in the United States is on the rise, from September 12, 2001 to December 31, 2016, the right-wing terrorists were responsible for 47% of all deaths from violent extremism in the United States. Nonetheless, Far-right menace violence that includes racist sentiments of hate crimes can and will manifest to great domestic terrorism. Their acts of terrorism as well as the other attacks are a form of psychological warfare; they use their violence as propaganda to shape perceptions of political and social issues in their favor, which in turn sends a message to a broader target audience. Far-right individuals have become bolder on their acts, some individuals who preformed these violent attacks, would plan their attacks ahead of time, but now there is not a blueprint, attacks are now merely based on chance encounters that enrage the perpetrators which triggers these random attacks. Furthermore, with individuals who have this mindset that they have nothing to gain or lose in society, are the

Americans have considered terrorism as a horror that occurs in other countries and not as a real threat to America itself. As the recent terrorist attacks on our nation shows, this opinion was gravely incorrect. There are several policies in both the private sector and our government, which contributed to our vulnerability to terrorism.

National terrorism has been the focus of attention since September 11. But now domestic terrorism is becoming increasingly common among hate groups across the nation. Domestic terrorism can be defined as visible crime, or “street crime.” These acts would consist of violent crimes, (acts against people in which injury or death results) property crimes (acts that threaten property held by individuals or the state) and public order crimes. (acts that threaten the general well-being of society and challenger accepted moral principles) It can also however be described as political crime, (criminal acts by or against the government for ideological purposes) which would include the 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing.

The calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious or ideological.