Domestic Terrorism

Domestic Terrorism:

Common ties between domestic terrorism and international terrorism:

Terrorism can be defined as the use of threats and at some times actual violence in the pursuit of political goals. According to Paul Johnson terrorist have three elements which include: Terrorist believe that their goals are the most important and through this believe they reject all other means of achieving their goals. Terrorist will run counter to democratic institutions and that civil freedom which is one characteristic of a democratic nation makes the nation to be more vulnerable to terrorism.

Domestic terrorism and international terrorism have common ties whereby their activities are similar, they are common in the activities they involve in order to get finances, they both will involve in activities such as drug trafficking, counterfeiting and smuggling of goods. These are their major source of finance to their activities.

They have a common enemy which include the law enforcement agencies and the government, this is because they both involve themselves in illegal activities and these agencies are there to enforce laws.

Internet and domestic terrorism

Internet has enhanced the occurrence of domestic terrorism, the internet has become a source of information enhancing the occurrence of identity theft which is used by terrorist group to engage in their criminal activities, information collected include individuals information, bank credit information and credit card information. The internet has also been used to lure innocent

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citizens into frauds where individuals are asked to pay for certain services or goods and as a result they are fraud off their money.

The intervention which includes monitoring activities in the web by the authorities will be an effective way to counter terrorism. However this may result into leaking of organisations information that may lead to losses by these organisations. When there exists a monitoring device in the internet then there will be leaking of company information to its competitors or even to speculators which may lead to loss of funds.

Therefore the best way to strike a balance is to monitor only suspicious information on the web mostly from regions that are suspected to have terrorist groups, there exist such monitoring systems but they were banned by the US government but the best would be to install a system that tracks conversations that include key words used by the terrorist groups. Organisational information therefore should not be monitored to avoid financial losses as a result of information leak. Therefore the federal should be empowered to monitor information regarding suspicious groups and not for the organisations.

Funding of domestic terrorism

Terrorist groups will involve themselves in criminal activities to fund their operations, they have an advantage in involving in criminal activity in that they gain finances and at the same time they endanger the societies that they target through these activities. The other reason is that the criminal activities the terrorist involve in are hard for the judicial system to solve and prove. Some of the criminal activities that terrorist will engage in include:

Drug trafficking:

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Drug trafficking is an activity that the terrorist involve in order to finance their activities, initially the terrorist groups were funded by the soviet union but after its collapse drug trafficking become a major source of finance.

Identity theft:

Identity theft is one of the most recent means in which terrorist use to finance their activities, this has emerged with the emergence of the internet and computer software which have made it easier to retrieve peoples information, and this has enabled the terrorist to steal people’s identity which have resulted to financial scams which provide finances to the terrorist groups.

Cigarette smuggling

This is also a means by which terrorist groups will use in gaining finances, cigarettes are smuggled from low tax regions to regions whereby individuals will buy large quantities of cigarettes from low tax regions and sell them at a profit in regions where there are high taxes imposed on cigarettes. An example is in the North Carolina where cigarette taxes are lower than

in                                                                                                                                           New York and therefore terrorist

will smuggle cigarettes from

North Carolina

to

New York

.

Counterfeit:

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Terrorist will trade in counterfeit good to finance their activities. Counterfeits for example are made on designer cloths, pharmaceutical products and sometimes electronic goods.

The Hamm report:

According to the Hamm report it is clear that the best way to prevent terrorism is by dealing with the crimes that finance the terrorist organisations, the report analysis the major terrorist acts and clearly shows the patterns of activities of the terrorist groups. The report identifies that terrorist group in order to accomplish their aims they have to have funds, travel documents and a communication system. Therefore the major target in stopping the terrorist groups should therefore be the activities that fund the terrorist groups.

Some of the activities that terrorist involve in order to fund their activities according to Hamm include counterfeiting, bank robbery and credit card theft all these act as source of income to the groups. He also states that terrorist are well trained in that they are in a position to build bombs, breach airline security and also smuggling explosive through high security areas. The terrorist according to this report spend many days checking the routine of targeted area. Therefore according to Hamm the lifeblood of the terrorist groups is the various criminal acts that help fund their activity and therefore the best way to deal with terrorism threats is to deal with these activities that fund them.

The future of terrorism:

In the society we are faced with a great threat from terrorism, terrorism use force to gain their

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goals and their believe that there is nothing else important than the goals that they set then we are endangered, terrorism can be stopped if appropriate measures are put in place in the society, in a democratic form of governance it is very difficult to implement the strategies that are appropriate to counter terrorism. For example the best way to counter terrorism is through viewing of web contents of individuals but this will be highly opposed by individuals because this diminishes their right of free speech and privacy.

International terrorism can easily be stopped but for domestic terrorism it is very hard to stop because the individuals already live in the society they endanger, it is therefore easier to decrease the rate of international crime than that of domestic terrorism. According to the Hamm report it is clear that we can reduce the incidences of terrorism through investigating on the source of funding of these groups.

References:

Centre for national security studies Recent Trends in Domestic and International Terrorism retrieved on 26th October, available at http://www.cdt.org/security/usapatriot/19950426cnss-tre nds.html

Denver (2007) counter terrorism, retrieved on 26th October, available at http://denver.fbi.gov/i nteterr.htm

Terrorism Enforcement (2007) International and Domestic terrorism, retrieved on 26th October, available at http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/terrorism/177/

Wayman Mullins (1997) Domestic and International Terrorism C.C. Thomas press, New York

Institute for policy research (2007) Policing Terrorism, retrieved on 26th October, available at http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/ptr_01.htm

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