If so, why does the Bush administration want to trample our rights?

by Benjamin H. Friedman

As the new research fellow for Defense and Homeland Security at the Cato Institute, and someone who’s written extensively on how the terror threat to the United States is hardly an “existential” one, I was glad to see this headline on the cover of the latest Rolling Stone magazine (right behind the left ear of Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke): “The Fake Domestic Terror Threat: How the FBI Became a Factory of Fear.” (We would provide the link, but it’s not free online).

Even if it’s a bit hyperbolic, the author, Guy Lawson, does not tell readers much that they could not have gathered from the Washington Post or the New York Review of Books. But he repeats something that bears repeating: Six plus years of fevered searching for terrorists on American soil has turned up precious little of the real thing.

The hunt, led by the FBI, has found several wanna-be jihadis willing to sign up for phony terror plots often organized by FBI informants, various illegal immigrants with shady overseas connections, a number of people gathering funds for foreign terrorist organizations, and only a handful of true terrorists (and not particularly formidable ones).

That means we have found no terrorist sleeper cells in the United States since September 11, 2001, as the FBI admitted.

Time and again, federal officials held press conferences to announce the break-up of a terrorist plot and vaguely described the disaster prevented. The evening news and the headlines repeated their lurid claims. Months later, the inside pages of the papers would report that the plot was not what we were told - and TV (news) doesn’t even bother (to follow-up).

The plans have turned out to be unfeasible or preliminary.

On other occasions, it turned out the plotters visited a terrorist camp but did little plotting. Some charges have been dismissed. Some have been completely bogus.

Experts, like an FBI agent Lawson quotes, say that just because you haven’t found something, it doesn’t mean it’s not there. That’s indisputable. But when several federal agencies, local police, alarmed citizens and ambitious federal prosecutors search for terrorists for years and find almost none, you have good evidence that there just aren’t many to find.

Some might say the absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. But that expression is illogical. If you spend two hours searching your car for your lost wallet, it is good evidence that it’s not there, though it’s not proof.

Make no mistake. The domestic terror threat is not altogether false. Most of those the government has prosecuted in the name of counter-terrorism should have gone to prison or been deported, and the FBI should not quit looking. The point is simply that the threat is greatly exaggerated.

Without that exaggeration it would be harder, obviously, to justify illegal wiretapping and other brazen assertions of unconstitutional executive power.

Lawson mentions another consequence of overreaction to domestic terrorism; one that is mostly ignored: fewer resources devoted to fighting good old-fashioned crime. He quotes a Northern Illinois police officer frustrated by the funds the FBI devotes to chasing terrorists when there is plenty of real federal crime going unsolved and wonders if this is the best use of our tax dollars. He could have gone further.

The FBI has shifted about 2,400 agents from crime to counter-terrorism in recent years, despite the doubling of its topline budget - now $6.4 billion. The result is likely more fraud, more racketeering, more mafia.

In a 2005 report, Justice Department inspector general Glenn Fine notes that the FBI opened 45 percent fewer criminal investigations in 2004 than 2001 and referred 27 percent fewer cases to a U.S. Attorney for prosecution. Cases opened on violent crime dropped 47 percent, financial crimes 40 percent, public corruption 42 percent and American criminal enterprises - often the mafia - 50 percent.

Even readers skeptical about the merits of federal policing ought to agree that it is wiser for the feds to chase real criminals than imaginary terrorists. As Jim Harper recently reported, terrorists usually impose large costs only by inducing the unwitting help of their victims.

By encouraging the FBI to ignore its traditional responsibilities, we magnify the costs of terrorism. A recalibration of priorities is in order.

American politics being what it is, however, it might take a few hundred more articles like Lawson’s.

Reprinted with permission. Originally filed under Defense and National Security and Civil Liberties in the Cato Institute’s Liberty Blog.

The National Lawyers Guild and the Society of American Law Teachers are urging citizens to get involved to oppose the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007, which could make it out of a U.S. Senate committee and be voted into law on the floor by Christmas.

It was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on Oct. 23 on a cowardly vote of 404-6, and critics say it will likely lead to the criminalization of beliefs, dissent and protest, and invite more draconian surveillance of Internet communications.

This bill would establish a Commission to study and report on “facts and causes” of “violent radicalism” and “extremist belief systems.” It defines “violent radicalism” as “adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.”

The term “extremist belief system” is not defined; it could refer to liberalism, nationalism, socialism, anarchism, communism, etc.

“Ideologically based violence” is defined in the bill as the “use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual’s political, religious, or social beliefs.” Thus, “force” and “violence” are used interchangeably.

If a group of people blocked the doorway of a corporation that manufactured weapons, or blocked a sidewalk during an anti-war demonstration, it might constitute the use of “force” to promote “political beliefs.”

The bill charges that the Internet “has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.”

This provision could be used to conduct more intrusive surveillance of Internet communications without warrants.
Read the rest of this entry »

Though the Bush administration blames Iran for “terrorism” in Iraq and elsewhere, the evidence of violent meddling is actually stronger against U.S. ally, Saudi Arabia.

Still, the administration and the U.S. press corps routinely describe the oil-rich kingdom as “moderate” and a friend of “reform.” In reality, however, Saudi Arabia’s mix of religious extremism and political repression has made it a breeding ground for the likes of Osama bin Laden and scores of suicide bombers.

For the full story of this double standard in the Middle East, go to the independent ConsortiumNews.Com.

During the week of August 20 - 24, 2007, a military exercise known as operation Noble Resolve will be taking place in and around the city of Portland, Oregon, involving the scenario of a nuclear attack on the city.

Bloggers are pointing out that large scale “terrorist” attacks for some reason always seem to occur during precisely this type of exercise. The exact same scenario, at the exact same time and in the exact same place.

“If I lived anywhere NEAR Oregon I’d be really nervous right about now,” one blogger says. “I for one will be paying close attention to operation Noble Resolve this month.”

On the morning of September 11, 2001, NORAD and the US Air Force were conducting several “war games” exercises in the north-eastern U.S., including operations Vigilant Guardian, Vigilant Warrior, Northern Guardian and Northern Vigilance. One of these exercises involved the scenario of a hijacked airliner being flown into a building. During this training operation, 4 commercial airliners were actually hijacked; 3 of them were flown into buildings and the 4th crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

On the morning of July 7, 2005, Scotland Yard’s Anti-terrorist Branch was running an exercise based on simultaneous bombs going off at railway stations in London. While this exercise was happening, “terrorists” bombed the London subway system. Simultaneous bombs went off precisely at the railway stations where the exercises were happening - at the exact same time.

You DO NOT want to be in Portland, Oregon this summer

The question is, who is behind these attacks? Is al Qaeda a rogue CIA front organization with connections to defense contracters in Alabama? Stay tuned…