FBI put Anonymous 'hacktivist' Jeremy Hammond on terrorism watchlist

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/02/fbi-anonymous-hacktivist-jeremy-hammond-terrorism-watchlist

by randomname2 • 11 years ago

173 139 11 years ago

flycaliguy2• 11 years ago

Step 1: Create overreaching laws and sell them to the public with the word "terrorist".

Step 2: Evolve the definition of the world "terrorist" behind the scenes.

We are seeing similar word play in Canada as the word "terrorist" evolves into "radicalized". Of important utility to our government as they attempt to shift public perception of environmentalists over to "radical" or "extreme" due to the prominence of our oil industry. With success expect these sorts of labels to be slowly painted over our Native population in some old fashioned establishment racism.

woodman• 11 years ago

... attempt to shift public perception of environmentalists ...

That might be a little tough, because eco-terrorism is already a thing - I remember the word being used as far back as the early 90s. So they would have to equate participation in the democratic process to burning down housing developments and research facilities, a tall order.

na85• 11 years ago

The problem is that, North of the 49th, "eco terrorism" simply means "anyone who dislikes the oil industry"

chisleu2• 11 years ago

Radical used to mean someone who thought the time for peaceful politics was over. How it means anyone who thinks anything you think is extreme... :(

triplesec• 11 years ago

just... no http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radicalism_%28historical%29

anonbanker2• 11 years ago

Not just the naive population.

Lots of "freeman-on-the-land" types are being charged as terrorists. I had two that the CBC was chomping at the bit to sensationalize. Imagine their dismay when it was resolved administratively, without jail time.

For a good example of how they're attacking the Radicals, Google "Dean Clifford" sometime. In jail over a year, even though he keeps beating all his charges.

CamperBob22• 11 years ago

I have no problem at all assigning the label "terrorist" to people who do things like this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Washington_firebo...).

flycaliguy2• 11 years ago

I wasn't really referring to the ELF or related groups. I was referring to specifically Canadian examples of activits, often native with land right claims, protesting unsound industry.

e12e8• 11 years ago

You forgot secret step 1.5 - infiltrate legitimate groups and provoke them into committing violence, paving way for step 2.

torthrowaway1235• 11 years ago

A decade ago I knew Jeremy, a very little. Not enough to be particularly interesting even then, yet alone now, and I haven't spoken to him since he went to jail for the first time (I think around 2005).

I hugely admire his morals, and that he lives his life by them so completely. And I agree with a lot of them. But, at least from the vague impression I have based off old (and no-doubt memory-distorted) conversations with him, mainly on IRC, and on news reports in the last couple of years, I'm not too sure "possible terrorist" isn't a fitting label for him. He's always wanted to fight against big chunks of society.

As far as I know he's never committed or planned to commit any violent crime, but his personality and view of the world make me think that he'd be willing to if he thought there was a greater good to come from it. The first thing he was caught and locked up for was stealing 1000s of credit cards from a right-wing website and using them - if I remember correctly, to donate to a charity. Those people who suffered at the hands of his credit card fraud were people he didn't know, but was willing to justify it morally in that they had donated or purchased something from this right wing website. And yes it was a very right-wing site, it was very much within the norms of the American political spectrum, it's not like they were neo-nazis or the KKK.

Maybe I'm doing him a disservice, and maybe the FBI were just abusing terrorism laws to crack down on (relatively-)innocent hackers. But the truth is that if I were in their shoes, Jeremy Hammond would scare me as much as the next plane from Al-Queda.

(And while on the subject of surveillance... I created a fake account from Tor to write this. Can't imagine anyone would really care about my saying I knew him, hell I'm 99% sure he wouldn't even remember my name, but I'd rather not make that tie if it hasn't already been made.)

rilita6• 11 years ago

You should be very cautious about ever making long posts in any way tying yourself to people on terrorist watchlists... People generally tend to reuse specific phrases. It is entirely possible to figure out who you are just from having a good chunk of text you have written get correlated to other things you have written.

Example distinct portions of your text you may be reusing "yet alone now", "(I think", "I hugely", "The first". Independently they seem meaningless but taken together they are a loose fingerprint.

torthrowaway1235• 11 years ago

Already aware of that and found myself writing differently to how I normally would... though don't know nearly enough about the subject to know how much conscious changes would make.

(In this case it's pretty irrelevant, fairly sure I could post "I used to know Jeremy Hammond" on my Google+ profile and it not matter. In fact, I'm pretty sure if the FBI ever cared enough about the no-doubt lengthy list of people he's come into contact with over his lifetime then my name is probably already on a list. I didn't want to tie my public name to him anyway, but probably wouldn't have been paranoid enough to move to Tor if I didnt already have it open for some shopping.)

tptacek27• 11 years ago

As far as I know he's never committed or planned to commit any violent crime

Hammond was arrested for violently protesting a holocaust-denier at a German restaurant in suburban Chicago. He and his companions entered the place wearing masks, apparently threw paint, and then glassware; one person was injured.

He also also plead guilty to battery after he threw red paint at and then struck a police officer in a 2004 gay rights rally.

If your definition of violence includes property damage, he was also arrested for tearing down and burning a Chicago 2016 Olympic campaign banner.

The latter two incidents --- with the cops and the sign --- who gives a shit, I guess. After watching the Chicago NATO protests a few years back, I gained some sympathy for the police and what they face with "Black Bloc" "protestors", but those situations are generally so fucked up and fraught it's hard to confidently take a side; the overwhelming majority of protestors work in good faith.

But the first incident --- storming a restaurant and throwing glassware because they're hosting a private event for a holocaust-denier --- that's unequivocally violent and criminal. The corrective for bad speech is more speech, not violence.

orbifold• 11 years ago

Some fraction of those black bloc people are usually agent provocateurs. At least here in germany the far right and left is subverted by payed informants and undercover police to the extend that it wasn't feasible to prosecute the most prominent far right party because a significant fraction of their leadership had been police informants for years.

torthrowaway1235• 11 years ago

I dont (fully) want to be defensive about Hammond, after all in my original comment, I said that he strikes me as someone who would be OK turning violent if he thought justified.

But the examples you give are more like excited teenagers as terrorism. There's a big difference between planning an act of terrorism and planning to protest some little speech and a few of you turning slightly violent by throwing things.

You're right that my statement was probably technically inaccurate (although I don't know if there's evidence he was one of the ones who did anything more than "go there" regarding the holocaust denier, and the gay rights rally without knowing the details I'm just as inclined to assume police brutality as Hammond being violent). But in the context of my comment I was talking violence as relates to terrorism, not petty assaults.

e12e8• 11 years ago

(And while on the subject of surveillance... I created a fake account from Tor to write this.

You know, I just watched "citizenfour" -- and one thing stuck with me: when explaining X/Keyscore targeting, Snowden mentions that you can use anything that uniquely identifies you, like an email address or a phone number... or even a password.

Granted HN is served over SSL, so that shouldn't be an issue... but you know -- if you're being overly paranoid, make sure you're paranoid enough that it actually helps ;-)

torthrowaway1235• 11 years ago

I dont quite follow your point - youre worried that I might have used my real email address when creating this HN account, or used the same password as a different HN account?

transfire• 11 years ago

Oh the Irony since the United States of America was founded by Terrorists.

Lawtonfogle• 11 years ago

Living in the southern portion of the USA, I get some mean looks when I wish people "Happy Treason Day" on July 4th.

stefantalpalaru• 11 years ago

I heard a brit saying "happy colonial betrayal day" :-)

josefresco4• 11 years ago

Care to elaborate? ...not that it's relevant to this discussion.

DINKDINK• 11 years ago

The United States was founded by a group of revolutionaries attacking the British state.

escaped_hn• 11 years ago

I think he's trying to imply that the current definition of terrorist according to the us gov would put the founding fathers as a match based on what they did.

tptacek27• 11 years ago

This is definitely message- board- clever, but I'm not sure what it's supposed to mean. Stipulate that the United States was founded by terrorists. Now what? What's the implication of that fact on public policy today?

dolant• 11 years ago

It means if you'd oppose yourself at some point in history then your ideology is contradictory and invalid.

fnordfnordfnord3• 11 years ago

He's probably just trying to point out that the founders would likely be on terrorist watch lists today.

rilita6• 11 years ago

Jeremy was involved in a number of actual attacks together with other "members" of Anonymous.

It may not seem like terrorism in the typical sense you think, but disrupting computer systems randomly and maliciously is a type of terrorism.

I think it is perfectly reasonable to consider this particular individual a type of terrorist based on his actions. ( see other comments about his additional violent actions and suggestions )

If you think you can go around doing whatever you want with computers, and not have the government add you to a number of lists, then you are in some serious denial.

An alternative example: I don't hack random people, nor do I advocate violence, but I recently purchased some aluminum powder and red iron oxide off the internet. If I was added to the watchlist just for purchasing those substances, then -that- would be much more ridiculous.

thissideup3• 11 years ago

If you think you can go around doing whatever you want with computers

But the the government is entitled to do whatever it wants with computers why?

If I was added to the watchlist just for purchasing those substances, then -that- would be much more ridiculous.

Maybe that's already the case. We don't even know how many lists of this nature exist let alone why people are put on them.

mcantelon• 11 years ago

disrupting computer systems randomly and maliciously is a type of terrorism

So hacking is equivalent to murdering people via bombs? Are protests that disrupt traffic also terrorism?

rilita6• 11 years ago

You don't need to actually murder someone to be considered a terrorist, nor to actually effectually cause people to die. If you advise and encourage others to do so, to a strong degree, then you are just the leader of the terrorists rather than the foot person who actually blows himself up.

This person has no respect for government, and maliciously and repeatedly breaks laws put in place to protect the citizens.

Terrorism literally means to cause terror. People get pretty terrified when people steal and abuse all of their information.

Also, hacking can and does cause death. Consider what happens if you hack into the computers at a drugstore and change the prescriptions to give people the wrong drugs. Terrorism?

zamalek• 11 years ago

So hacking is equivalent to murdering people via bombs?

Depending on what was hacked. Anonymous on occasion challenged the notion of "activism" and indirectly endangered human lives. The mastercard hack would have been quiet scary for people whose, on the day, lives depended on their card.

Does that make them terrorists? No. It does place them into the exact gray area that they decided to act in, they are neither activist nor terrorist: rather something in-between.

Does that justify putting Jeremy on the watchlist? Just like his actions, it's a gray area, there is no good answer.

There is no right or wrong here, nor does there have to be. Anonymous's actions were often ignorant and dangerous: don't make yourself the same by blindly defending everything that they did. These are difficult questions, spend more time thinking about them before trying to answer them.

exo762• 11 years ago

You are out of your mind. You are equating pennies of damage done by Anonymous with terrorism, which involves killing people for instilling fear and reaching unpopular political goals.

thissideup3• 11 years ago

This accurately describes many commenters in this thread and threads like it. Based on OP's description the US government is a terrorist organization.

dang• 11 years ago

You are out of your mind.

This comment would be better without that first sentence. Personal attacks are not ok on Hacker News, regardless of how wrong someone may be.

rilita6• 11 years ago

Denial of service attacks can be very expensive in terms of monetary damage. That is the weakest form of behavior that Anonymous engages in. This is hardly "pennies of damage".

Consider how angry you are reacting to me; then consider how angry you would be if someone zeroed out your bank account by hacking. Do you still think people who engage in malicious hacking should be allowed to do what they do without being added to some lists of people who should be dealt with?

tptacek27• 11 years ago

Terrorism seems to be uniformly violent, but it is not always murderous. Extreme property damage is a tool of terrorism as well. But hacking is virtually never violent, and Stratfor wasn't an exception to that.

We may be jumping to conclusions when we suggest that Hammond's inclusion on a watchlist means that the FBI views Anonymous as a terrorist group. What he did with Anonymous is surely what got their attention, but his other affiliations seem like a more likely grounds for being added to a list of people to flag.

tptacek27• 11 years ago

It seems just as likely that Hammond was put on a watchlist over his affiliation with the extremist fringe of the Occupy movement than anything else.

gwys2• 11 years ago

Has someone told the FBI about Berlin? They might want to put the whole city on the list just to be sure considering possible co-conspirators. Probably add Hamburg too.

sarciszewski3• 11 years ago

torthrowaway123:

A decade ago I knew Jeremy, a very little. Not enough to be particularly interesting even then, yet alone now, and I haven't spoken to him since he went to jail for the first time (I think around 2005).
(And while on the subject of surveillance... I created a fake account from Tor to write this. Can't imagine anyone would really care about my saying I knew him, hell I'm 99% sure he wouldn't even remember my name, but I'd rather not make that tie if it hasn't already been made.)

I think this illustrates the real concern a lot of people may have over this story than the hair-splitting semantics about defining the word "terrorist".

How do we know who's labeled a terrorist and who isn't?

What if we're associated with someone on a terror watch list without knowing this?

What if you're on a watch list and don't know it?

What recourse do any of us have?

thissideup3• 11 years ago

These are all good questions. I'm sure some agent of the government will respond very conclusively shortly.

sarciszewski3• 11 years ago

I think they'd rather get their JTRIG shills to downvote me than to risk the public gaining a sense of clarity in how they operate.

tptacek27• 11 years ago

You don't, and can't. The purpose of having watchlists is so counterterrorist investigators can quietly monitor the movements of people they think will organize terrorist attacks. Notifying the people on the list defeats that purpose: it ensures that none of the people it's watching will incriminate themselves, or lead counterterrorist investigations to the other members of the plot.

That doesn't mean the lists aren't fraught or regularly abused. For instance, you surely cross a line from "legitimate investigative tool" to "tool of oppression" when the watchlist ensures you get an extra hour of screening at the TSA checkpoint.

sarciszewski3• 11 years ago

You don't, and can't. The purpose of having watchlists is so counterterrorist investigators can quietly monitor the movements of people they think will organize terrorist attacks. Notifying the people on the list defeats that purpose: it ensures that none of the people it's watching will incriminate themselves, or lead counterterrorist investigations to the other members of the plot.

Fair enough.

That doesn't mean the lists aren't fraught or regularly abused. For instance, you surely cross a line from "legitimate investigative tool" to "tool of oppression" when the watchlist ensures you get an extra hour of screening at the TSA checkpoint.

At this point, I want to say, "What can be done about this abuse?!" but I don't really have any answers. The best we can hope for is some form of independent oversight from someone who can remain some degree of objectively neutral (which is to say, not buddy-buddy with law enforcement), but who also can be trusted not to leak stuff to the press.

I dunno, does anyone have better ideas? This is way outside of my comfort zone.

will_brown9• 11 years ago

It almost sounds like a farce:

1. US Gov. passes Executive Order permitting: a) the Depart. of State to identify individuals/organizations as "terrorist/terrorist organizations"; b) the CIA to put individuals (including citizens) on targeted kills lists; c) the FBI to put people on a Terrorist Watchlist;

2. There is no oversight to the process and the Government is not required to disclose who is on the list(s) or even the criteria to get on the list;

3. When the first (known) CIA targeted killing of a US citizen failed and the US Gov. was sued, the Court dismissed the case finding the Courts can not perform a Constitutional review, because such an Executive Order falls squarely within the Political Question Doctrine;

4. When the Government successfully killed the US Citizen, using a military drone strike, in a Country the US was not authorized to use the Use of Force (under International Law)...no one cared because the individual was Muslim and the Government assured us this was a guy with ties to Islamic terrorism. In fact, you can see in this article the such an attitude permeates all the way to the EFF, where one of EFF's Senior Staff Attorneys says he wouldn't have issue if Hammond had ties to Al-Qaida or Islamic State, but this is solely concerning to them because it is likely Anonymous;

5. Now the US Gov. has again extended their new found powers and now people are split...but what is really alarming is the people who think, well this guy was a piece of shit, so the Gov. got it right...no harm no foul.

This is not end of the World, sky is falling commentary, but wake up. It is never OK for any Government to have secret lists of any kind much less kill lists...and it is even more telling that the US Gov. refuses to disclose the lists (in full, certainly some lists are public) or the criteria/process.

tzs4• 11 years ago

When the Government successfully killed the US Citizen, using a military drone strike, in a Country the US was not authorized to use the Use of Force (under International Law)

Which international law address US use of force in Yemen?

will_brown9• 11 years ago

Which international law address US use of force in Yemen?

Article 2(4) of the UN Charter is the general framework prohibiting the use of force between member States.[1] The UN Charter itself only provides for 2 exceptions to the prohibition on the use of force: a. Self-Defense and b. with prior authorization from the UN Security Council. However, much like the US Constitution, which has been interpreted and extended through legislation and through the Courts, the UN Charter has been interpreted through treaties, UN Resolutions, votes of the UN Security Council, case studies and customary law/international norms.

To put this in context, put the shoe on the other foot. Imagine a foreign national located in the US, who has been deemed a terrorist or equivalent by another country, and that country performs some kind of military/quasi-military/drone strike within the jurisdictional integrity of the US.

Separately, there is an entire second half to the analysis, so once the use of force is authorized (jus ad bellum), then we need to apply the actual laws of war (jus in bello). The easiest way to convey this is to say that the response must be proportionate to the act that authorized the use of force and otherwise use of certain weapons are prohibited, such as those that fail to distinguish between civilian and combatant (e.g. prohibitions against the use of chemical weapons). Looking at the facts of this particular case, it would appear problematic that before the CIA drone strike that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, the US botched at least a first attempt that resulted in the killing of 2 unintended targets.

[1] http://www.un.org/en/sc/repertoire/principles.shtml

shit_parade2• 11 years ago

Don't worry about it, because you too can go volunteer for the Whitehouse and make America a better place one tech at a time.

rayiner3• 11 years ago

4. When the Government successfully killed the US Citizen, using a military drone strike, in a Country the US was not authorized to use the Use of Force (under International Law)...no one cared because the individual was Muslim and the Government assured us this was a guy with ties to Islamic terrorism.

It's pretty offensive to muslims to lead your characterization of al-Awlaki with the fact that he was Muslim, rather than the fact that he went to Yemen and took up arms against the United States while inciting violence against the country. U.S. Citizenship isn't a blanket immunity against U.S. military action. It's certain that the U.S. killed Americans who went and fought for the Nazis in Europe. Few people would challenge the validity of such actions. Does it become wrong because you make a list instead of doing it indiscriminately?

And ultimately, it's deeply counter-productive to try and lump people like Hammond together with people like al-Awlaki. Military action against foreign aggressors is a fundamental right of sovereign nations. People will not give it up. If you tell them that such actions must be subject to "law" all you'll accomplish is distorting and diluting the law to accommodate the sorts of actions that must be taken against foreign aggressors. The law should not try to insert itself into foreign military matters. It's not a fight it will win, and it will be the downfall of the law.

rdtsc• 11 years ago

It's pretty offensive to muslims to lead your characterization of al-Awlaki with the fact that he was Muslim

It may very well be. But OP is not saying al-Awlaki was a muslim and therefore not worth bothing about raising a stink regarding constitutional issues, but rather that large swathes of population believe that.

Heck were are dealing with people who thought (and still think I bet) that Saddam Hussein was "al Qaeda".

The law should not try to insert itself into foreign military matters.

All is well except for those pesky constitutional issues. If this was Russia or other countries which (I am guessing here), do not have the same rights in their Constitutions as US, there wouldn't be much to discuss.

So "foreign military matters" needs to be discussed a bit more. See, US is not at war with Pakistan. It is friendly with its government and allegedly is allowed by said Pakistani govt. to pick off people on the ground to kill using drones. So this needs to be talked about. Are we at war? Is "Global War On Terror" now an conventient cop-out to let us do this there without those Constitutional rights people getting into our business? What if those tribes in the mountains brought drones and started dropping anthrax boms or grenades on our cities, would we understand that as an equitable retribution and so on.

scintill762• 11 years ago

It's pretty offensive to muslims to lead your characterization of al-Awlaki with the fact that he was Muslim

It was maybe too blunt, but it may have been part of the point to say it this way, as if it were said by the Americans who "didn't care" once they heard it was "just some Muslim-sounding name" and the person was accused of terrorism. Maybe I'm too cynical, but it's not hard to imagine many Americans would forget any outrage they might have had, once they heard the name "al-Awlaki." (I am an American myself, if it matters.)

[Later edit]: To build on the original point, maybe we need to stop using distracting mitigating terms like "drone", "terrorism", "citizen", "country", maybe even "al-Qaeda" etc. There's enough to talk about when we pare it down to: the Executive Branch is unilaterally and secretly a) investigating, adjudicating, and executing, b) spying on everything by default, c) instituting less-drastic but still restrictive measures, such as no-fly lists and watchlists. Is simplifying it to that extreme too naive? Maybe, but I'd rather start there and work forward, than getting sidetracked early about which nationalities it's OK to kill, and precisely which organizations are so knee-jerk evil that the mere whiff of them justifies almost anything.

P.S. I didn't lead with this because my other thoughts are more productive, but maybe you slighted Yemen almost exactly the way you accuse the parent of slighting Islam. At least, I read a negative connotation when you write "he went to Yemen", as if that's already half the case for why he needs to be killed.

shit_parade2• 11 years ago

rather than the fact that he went to Yemen and took up arms against the United States while inciting violence against the country.

It is difficult to call it a fact since there was no trial, no due process, nor evidence cited by US government in the killing of its citizen. Perhaps there was secret evidence presented in secret to a secret court, but that's rather grim consolation.

Also the concept of law should absolutely insert itself into matters of foreign military matters. WWI and WWII were both horror shows, Western civilization rightly decided to do their best not to repeat the worst of the atrocities committed therein. You seem all to eager to return to a world where Western governments kill millions without consequence.

logn3• 11 years ago

Does it become wrong because you make a list instead of doing it indiscriminately?

Yes, it indicates this is wrong. There's a profound difference between killing someone in the heat of battle versus the president reviewing kill lists every Tuesday. The latter suggests a lack of imminence. Add to that he's a citizen and that the battlefield is any place where "terror" is.

Arguably, al-Awlaki simply preached dissent. Granted, you can argue he was a traitor actively trying to harm the US. In that case, so is Hammond, and a lot of other people conveniently on official lists.

Just because you disagree, even vehemently, with al-Awlaki's message, does not mean that we should compromise our principles of due process. Larry Flynt wasn't an ideal poster boy for free speech advocates. But his justice affirmed the strength of the 1st Amendment and was a small step in erasing racial boundaries (he published interracial porn shortly before being tried on obscenity). So I think lumping al-Awlaki and Hammond together is very much productive.

scintill762• 11 years ago

It's certain that the U.S. killed Americans who went and fought for the Nazis in Europe.

Probably, but some Wikipedia browsing reveals several who were captured and _not_ killed. (Beware, list assembled hastily, along with usual disclaimers about it being from Wikipedia.)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Henry_Best - life in prison

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Peter_Burger - death, commuted to life in prison

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_John_Burgman - prison for 6 to 20 years

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Chandler - life, commuted after 16 years by JFK, on condition he immediately leave the US

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mildred_Gillars - 10 to 30 years

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_James_Monti - 25 years

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_John_Dasch - death, commuted to 30 years

Some even had a death sentence commuted! I'm not informed or motivated enough to dig into the relative threat levels of these people vs. someone like al-Awlaki, how warfare has changed, al-Qaeda vs. Nazis, the circumstances of their capture, etc. I'll leave it at just noting that we've found a way to not-kill even an American SS officer (Monti), so maybe we can keep that up. Or at least, we can know not all American Nazis were killed "indiscriminately", nor when they were "on a list." (Although, in line with my previous post, I would hope this restraint would not be only because they are citizens.)

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:People_convicted_of_t...

junto• 11 years ago

We are rapidly moving towards a world where political dissent equals terrorism. People that create movements that carry momentim, outside the traditional political corridors of power shall be watched and persecuted. Should the trend continue, do not be surprised when people start to go missing.

tptacek27• 11 years ago

That and blowing up buildings, sure.

Crito• 11 years ago

I don't think junto has an issue with the concept of terrorism encompassing the blowing up of buildings. And I think that you know that.

threatofrain2• 11 years ago

I wonder why we use the term "terrorism", as opposed to paramilitary organization, which I think is a more relevant construct. Terrorism defines a group based on its methods which are supposed to deliver fear or some kind of mass hysteria to the public.

A paramilitary organization may or may not use tactics of terror, and even if they do, their tactics may be a small part of why they are harmful and relevant.

Under this construct, we can talk about cartels, IS/ISIL, Al Qaeda, IRA, and so on.

And you know how in every large forum, when someone talks about the definition of terrorism, inevitably states also get pulled into the discussion, such as the actions of the US / Russia / China? That's because terrorism is an over-inclusive lens of discussion or perception, which means it requires "discretion" to use the term. It genuinely is wishy-washy.

tptacek27• 11 years ago

Most domestic terrorist groups the FBI tracks don't really fit the definition of "paramilitary organizations".

Terrorism describes the strategy of pinpoint deployment of outlandish violence to coerce policy by generating fear. That's one strategy used by paramilitary organizations, but so is "seize and hold territory" or "persistently disrupt supply lines". Islamist terrorists don't target JFK airport in the hopes of disrupting our military supply lines. They do it to provoke the US public by creating fear.

Having said that: I'm not sure what coherent public policy objective is served by singling out "terrorism" from other violent crimes. At the level of law enforcement, criminal violence if criminal violence whether it be in the service of a bank robbery or a radical animal rights protest.

_bfhp• 11 years ago

You hold that Islamist terrorists must necessarily have the (vaguely defined by you) motive of "provoking the US", when most Islamist attackers on the U.S. have consistently cited a particular political motive? [1] And yes, it would have been great if the U.S. government had treated "terrorism" as the law enforcement issue it is rather than starting convenient[2] wars. I recommend President of the CCR Michael Ratner's 2004 book "Guantanamo: What the World Should Know" for early treatment of the things being discussed in the comments here.

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/24/boston-...

[2] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/18/david-f...

threatofrain2• 11 years ago

But I think it's actually a good thing that some domestic terrorist groups don't fit the definition of paramilitary organization. To make our construct useful in public policy, we should be able to propose broad treatment across all members of a construct and be able to predict consistent outcome. We should be interested in developing useful tools for policy talk, and being able to make grounded generalizations is super useful.

I don't think the Unabomber or Anonymous fits in the same policy discussion as IS or Al Qaeda, because I think these problems suggest very divergent courses of policy. Every time we have to make caveats to our category, every time we must exercise discretion in interpretation, we will find our construct proportionally less robust.

Imagine a government rule which authorizes military action against IS, cartels, or Al Qaeda, including assassinations and characterized by an absence of legal process. Whether or not I agree with this rule, I can accept that it is sensible and potentially productive to at least talk about. I can accept that these groups have common characteristics which behave consistently following military or civilian interventions, thus permitting policy generalizations. I can also see that there is an intuitive connection between the solution and the problem.

What is hard to accept is that Unabomber and Anonymous should be on that same table for discussion, because what the overinclusion of these groups do is move the line of justification to remove legal process a little closer to home, and a little more into the realm of capricious discretion. It's hard to accept that some domestic terrorists are anything like an organization that has revenue streams, human resource management, infrastructure, administration, a paramilitary force, and so on, and so it's hard to connect the solution to the problem.

Of course, behind all of this is the assumption that terrorist organizations are so mighty that they have graduated beyond the class of criminal and into sub-state actor, and that ordinary civilian instruments are totally inadequate, and that military solutions are the only effective solutions.

desdiv• 11 years ago

Because "paramilitary" has a strict legal definition[0] in addition the commonly used informal definition of "organized armed group that's not a government sanctioned military power". The California State Military Reserve[1], for example, is a paramilitary organization under that legal definition. About two dozen states have similar paramilitary state defense forces[2], all of which are distinct from both federal military units and the state's own National Guard units.

[0] https://www.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_rul_rule4

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Military_Reser...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_defense_force

tptacek27• 11 years ago

The Daily Dot broke this story and provided the actual documents, the meat of which is:

    DO NOT ADVISE THIS INDIVIDUAL THAT THEY MAY BE ON A TERRORIST WATCHLIST.

    CONTACT THE TERRORIST SCREENING CENTER AT [REDACTED] DURING THIS ENCOUNTER. 
    IF THIS WOULD EXTEND THE SCOPE OR DURATION  OF THE ENCOUNTER, CONTACT THE TSC 
    IMMEDIATELY THEREAFTER. IF YOU ARE A BORDER PATROL OFFICER, IMMEDIATELY 
    CALL THE NTC.

    ATTEMPT TO OBTAIN SUFFICIENT IDENTIFYING INFORMATION DURING THE ENCOUNTER, 
    WITHOUT OTHERWISE EXTENDING THE SCOPE OR DURATION OF THE ENCOUNTER, TO ASSIST THE 
    TSC IN DETERMINING WHETHER OR NOT THE NAME OR IDENTIFIER(S) YOU QUERIED BELONGS 
    TO AN INDIVIDUAL IDENTIFIED AS HAVING POSSIBLE TIES WITH TERRORISM.

    DO NOT DETAIN OR ARREST THIS INDIVIDUAL UNLESS THERE IS EVIDENCE OF A VIOLATION OF 
    FEDERAL, STATE, OR LOCAL STATUTE(S).

Some observations:

First, this looks like boilerplate text. If so, "DO NOT ADVISE..." means, in general, "do not advise anyone on a terrorist watchlist that they are on the watchlist". That text would make sense if, for instance, this is what an LEO sees on their MDT screen when they look up someone's identity. Counterterrorist workers want to collect information from LEOs, so they need to flag people to get reports --- but they don't want that to come at the expense of tipping off terrorism subjects that they're under investigation. That's a warning that might make a lot of public policy sense when the FBI is tracking Abdul Kadir and his plot to blow up JFK, but not as much sense for Jeremy Hammond.

The all-caps text and awkward structure of the prose sort of suggests that's what this is: the stuff that shows up on the cop's MDT screen when they run someone's identity and they've been flagged.

Second, each of the three paragraphs in this notice to LEOs directs the officer not to detain the subject based on the notice. Presumably that's because doing so can generate evidence that will then be excluded at trial, because merely being on a watchlist does not provide the police with probable cause to search or arrest.

Finally, people should remember that while our immediate association to the word "terrorism" is 9/11 and Islamist militants, the FBI tracks a pretty broad range of domestic terrorist groups --- including parts of the militia movement, radical animal rights groups, white supremacist groups, and "anarchist extremists", a category they surely didn't make up for Hammond, but which Hammond could easily have fallen into.

(In case it needs saying, while it may once have been the case in the '60s and '70s that there were radical anarchist groups that merited special tracking at a national level, I do not think the "anarchist extremists" of 2015 --- even the ones who try to scare the horses the mounted police are riding at the NATO protests --- qualify as "terrorists". The separatist militia movement, though? I'm glad we're calling them what they are.)

bmelton• 11 years ago

I'd also add that the "REDACTED" bit makes it look arbitrarily suspicious. The FBI terrorist screening center isn't a secret thing. They've got contact info on the FBI site which I can confirm rings to a phone inside the building.

Or, at least it did, before they moved from Reston to Vienna.

tptacek27• 11 years ago

Sure, but I assume it's the DOJ that redacted that bit :)

a3n• 11 years ago

The thing is, there's no formal, "prove it" review, by a jury, grand jury or judge. It's just some dude in the FBI who doesn't like someone, and decides to fuck with them. They're supposed to be an investigating agency, but now they just skip ahead to punishment.

Some guy fucking with you, is what our government has descended to.

FBI put Anonymous 'hacktivist' Jeremy Hammond on terrorism watchlist

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