{"id":3668,"date":"2015-01-31T22:44:02","date_gmt":"2015-01-31T20:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/?p=3668"},"modified":"2017-11-14T21:27:57","modified_gmt":"2017-11-14T19:27:57","slug":"countering-domestic-terrorism-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/countering-domestic-terrorism-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Countering domestic terrorism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"countering-dom\"<\/a>Normally, when Washington-based policy institutions issue major reports, unless the study reflects strongly held ideological preferences of its constituents or is a stunning condemnation of whichever administration is in power, the half-life is at best a day or two.\u00a0 Last week, Business Executives for National Security (BENS—and I am on the advisory board but did not participate in this study) issued its findings on countering domestic terrorism.\u00a0 This report is a must read for the White House, state houses, mayors\u2019 offices and the public.<\/span><\/p>\n

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This report is a critical follow-on to the Commission on September 11th<\/sup> co-chaired by former New Jersey Governor Tom Kean and Representative Lee Hamilton who also served on this effort\u2019s oversight board.\u00a0 Of the ten recommendations that will not be repeated here, the most stunning conclusion of the study is that in more than a dozen years since September 11th<\/sup>, \u201claw enforcement and intelligence agencies still lack an enterprise-wide concept at the federal level.\u201d \u00a0An enterprise-wide concept means issuing rules of the road and guidance on how to resolve the many contradictions and dilemmas that confront solutions to domestic terrorism. <\/span><\/div>\n
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How this failure persists is a less important question to answer than moving quickly to repair obvious deficiencies in the ability to counter domestic terrorism. More nuanced was the way the study group addressed the fundamental dilemmas and contradictions surrounding domestic terrorism.\u00a0 These dilemmas are as complicated as Churchill\u2019s description of the Soviet Union <\/span>as \u201ca riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/div>\n
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The fundamental dilemmas and contradictions relate to treating domestic terrorism as a law enforcement or<\/span> a national security issue and the tensions among public safety, privacy, security and civil liberties.\u00a0 Additionally, in a federalist system, with fifty separate states and widely differing laws and regulations, ensuring coordination and integration is a Sisyphean labor. \u00a0\u00a0On one hand, obviously intelligence and information are crucial to checking domestic terrorism.\u00a0 <\/span><\/div>\n
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But, on the other hand, with seventeen federal intelligence agencies and many-fold more state and local capabilities from cops on the beat to fusion centers and liaison capabilities with foreign governments along with huge challenges that relate to security, clearances and information exchanges, integration and coordination present formidable obstacles in improving efficiencies and effectiveness.\u00a0 Clearly, no simple or single formula to balance these often competing and conflicting forces exists or is likely to be invented soon.<\/span> But <\/span>without removing or bypassing these obstacles, domestic terror will always remain \u201ca clear and present danger.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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A further potential threat also must be addressed.\u00a0 One of the diabolical consequences that advantage terrorists is how the threat or use of terror attacks civil liberties and basic rights.\u00a0 Taken a step further, how vulnerable is the resiliency of any nation from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe if terrorists are clever enough to manipulate this potential leverage point?<\/span><\/div>\n
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The attacks on Pearl Harbor and September 11th<\/sup> angered and catalyzed America into action.\u00a0 But terror can also terrorize a nation into inaction and even panic. During World War I, German Zeppelin attacks against London induced panic that did not reoccur thirty years later during the Nazis\u2019 Blitz.\u00a0 In 1919 and 1920, several dozen letter bombs were mailed across America to members of the Supreme Court, cabinet secretaries and even the legendary banker J. P. Morgan.\u00a0 Following the Spanish flu epidemic and Lenin\u2019s seizure of Russia that prompted a \u201cRed Scare,\u201d these letter bombs in which a single security guard was killed created panic across America.<\/span><\/div>\n
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In 2001, anthrax-filled letters were mailed to offices in Washington and New York. While many not living in the affected cities were less worried, within Washington, supplies of Cipro\u2014a drug to treat anthrax—and plastic covering and duct tape to seal off rooms were sold out. The next year, two snipers terrorized Washington, D.C. and the surrounding area randomly killing ten.\u00a0 Now suppose the nation wide attacks of 1919-1920 were repeated today.\u00a0 What might follow?<\/span><\/div>\n
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Over-reaction is always possible.\u00a0 Thomas Jefferson signed the Sedition Act into law.\u00a0 In the Civil War, Lincoln abrogated habeas corpus.\u00a0 The Espionage and Sedition Act passed during World War I was used to arrest tens of thousands of suspects in 1919-1920.\u00a0 Not a single person was charge or convicted although hundreds were deported.\u00a0 During World War II, Japanese-American citizens were interned.\u00a0 <\/span><\/div>\n
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People of a certain age recall the fears over polio epidemics before Jonas Salk discovered an inoculation.\u00a0 Similarly, civil defense and the phrase \u201cduck and cover\u201d is well known to that generation.\u00a0 The Cuban Missile Crisis brought the specter of nuclear war close to home.<\/span><\/div>\n
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This report does not cover all of these issues.\u00a0 But it is a powerful reminder that much more needs to be done to counter domestic terror.\u00a0 And not just in America.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Normally, when Washington-based policy institutions issue major reports, unless the study reflects strongly held ideological preferences of its constituents or is a stunning condemnation of whichever administration is in power, the half-life is at best a day or two.\u00a0 Last week, Business Executives for National Security (BENS—and I am on the advisory board but did not participate in this study) issued its findings on countering domestic terrorism.\u00a0 This report is a must read for the White House, state houses, mayors\u2019 offices and the public. \u00a0 This report is a critical follow-on to the Commission on September 11th co-chaired by former New Jersey Governor Tom Kean and Representative Lee Hamilton who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":3666,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,65,82,76,102,62,66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-americas","category-blog-en","category-economics","category-harlan-ullman-en","category-issues","category-regions","category-studies-and-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3668"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3668"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3669,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3668\/revisions\/3669"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}