The following article worries me. I can see where law enforcement would classify us as members of a terrorist group. Us is defined as anyone who posts on such forums as AR15.com or similar forums, those who prepare for SHTF situations,gun owners,outdoors enthusiast, reloaders and those who are of independent thought. Paranoid. Not really when you look at government actions since 9/11.

Your thoughts and comments.






Homegrown Terror Threat
By TOM HAYS 08.15.07, 2:21 PM ET


NEW YORK -

Average citizens who quietly band together and adopt radical ways pose a mounting threat to American security that could exceed that of established terrorist groups like al-Qaida, a new police analysis has concluded.

The New York Police Department report released Wednesday describes a process in which young men - often legal immigrants from the Middle East who are frustrated with their lives in their adopted country - adopt a philosophy that puts them on a path to violence.

The report was intended to explain how people become radicalized rather than to lay out specific strategies for thwarting terror plots. It calls for more intelligence gathering, and argues that local law enforcement agencies are in the best position to monitor potential terrorists.

"Hopefully, the better we're informed about this process, the more likely we'll be to detect and disrupt it," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said during a briefing with private security executives at police headquarters.

The study is based on an analysis of a series of domestic plots thwarted since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, including those in Lackawanna, N.Y.; Portland, Ore.; and Virginia. It was prepared by senior analysts with the NYPD Intelligence Division who traveled to Hamburg, Madrid and other overseas spots to confer with authorities about similar cases.

The report found homegrown terrorists often were indoctrinated in local "radicalization incubators" that are "rife with extremist rhetoric."

Instead of mosques, those places were more likely to be "cafes, cab driver hangouts, flop houses, prisons, student associations, non-governmental organizations, hookah bars, butcher shops and bookstores," the report says.

The Internet also provides "the wandering mind of the conflicted young Muslim or potential convert with direct access to unfiltered radical and extremist ideology."

The threat posed by homegrown extremists - from "eco-terrorist" groups to neo-Nazis - has long been a top concern for federal counterterror officials.

Recently, authorities have taken a closer look at radicalization happening in U.S. prisons, where a study last year by George Washington University and the University of Virginia found that Islamic extremists were turning jail cells into terrorist breeding grounds by preaching violent interpretations of the Quran to their fellow inmates.

Additionally, the Justice Department last year indicted 28-year-old Adam Gadahn, who was raised on a farm in southern California, with treason and supporting terrorism for serving as an al-Qaida propagandist.

Gadahn is believed to have tried to recruit supporters through videos and messages posted on the Internet.

The NYPD report warns that more intelligence gathering is needed since most potential homegrown terrorists "have never been arrested or involved in any kind of legal trouble," the study says.

They "look, act, talk and walk like everyone around them," the study adds. "In the early stages of their radicalization, these individuals rarely travel, are not participating in any kind of militant activity, yet they are slowly building the mind-set, intention and commitment to conduct jihad."

Kareem Shora, legal adviser for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, called the findings faulty and potentially inflammatory.

Police "paint such a broad brush," Shora said. "It plays right into the extremists' plans because it's going to end up angering the community."

A recently released National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Osama bin Laden's network had regrouped and remains the most serious threat to the United States.

Kelly insisted the NYPD report made no effort to provide a "cookie-cutter" profile for terrorists. He also argued that the NYPD report "doesn't contradict the National Intelligence Estimate - it augments it."

Associated Press Writer Lara Jakes Jordan in Washington contributed to this report.

Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

BLAH BLAH BLAH, yeah I saw this on the news last night.

OH THE NOES!!!1111!!!eleven!!

Jezz.. they are not comming to get you! the sky is not falling!!

I really really hope that I'm wrong........but IMO terrorist cells, individuals, and others who have cause(real or imagined) to support the terrorist cause are already in place, and have been so for some time now........I know that's hard to believe based on our stringent immigarion and border control policies.....yeah right


RG

Way to miss the point, guys.  This week, it's Muslims...next year, it could easily be us.

Quoted: Way to miss the point, guys.  This week, it's Muslims...next year, it could easily be us.

....................IT HAS BEEN US FOR THE LAST 20 YEARS...................at least!!!!!!

More of us then them.  Come and get 'em

JPFO

   October 23, 2006

       Trading Liberty For Safety

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety,
deserve neither Liberty nor Safety" - Benjamin Franklin

The response was predictable. After sending our alert last Thursday regarding the passing of the Military Commissions Act, we received a flood of email. Many were supportive, but others took exception:

   "Don't you care that terrorists want to kill us?"
   "Olbermann's obviously a left-wing nut who wants conservatives out of power."
   "The act isn't that bad..."

It is bemusing to watch certain conservatives -- conservatives who once screamed that Bill Clinton was going to suspend the Constitution, establish martial law, and put Americans in concentration camps -- blithely justify the actions of a president who appears to be doing just that. A president who once reportedly stated that the Constitution is "just a [expletive] piece of paper."

"Stroke of the pen, law of the land. Kinda cool." (1)

Remember that phrase? When Clinton advisor Paul Bengala spoke those prophetic words, conservatives were justifiably outraged. How DARE the president unilaterally overturn the Constitution of the United States! He has no right! What hubris! Yet Bush's repeated infringements are quietly excused as "necessary," and those who oppose him are demonized as "liberal nuts" or "terrorist-lovers." Just as those who opposed Clinton's treachery were demonized as part of a "vast right-wing conspiracy."

"Bush won't misuse it. It'll only be used on terrorists," states one writer.

Okay, let's pretend that's true (historical evidence to the contrary). In the early 1930's, in response to a recent crime wave, the right-of-center Weimar Republic passed several "vital, necessary" laws registering firearms and prohibiting Gypsies from owning them. Five years later, a left-of-center leader was in power and used those same laws, amending them as needed, to consolidate his power. The result was World War II and the murder of millions of what the US might today refer to as "unlawful enemy combatants."

Writes Joe Wolverton II:

   "Those who fail to see the dire gravity of this legislation and who prefer to take refuge in the naive partisan belief that President Bush and the Republican Congress would never abuse this tremendous power, should contemplate well the fact that both the White House and Congress may very possibly change to Democrat control in the near future. Then will the supporters of the Bush administration's grasp for power have a leg to stand on to even protest, let alone stop, dictatorial exercise of the same power under a Democrat regime run by Clinton, Feinstein, Boxer, Pelosi, Schumer, and the like?" (2)

Like most of this administration's recent legislation and "signing statements," the MCA is a knee-jerk reaction, a product of short-term thinking that will inevitably be used for evil, just as the "vital, necessary" laws of the Weimar Republic were.

"Olbermann's a liberal shill," writes another apologist.

Again, we'll assume that's an accurate statement. But what difference does it make? Many notable conservatives (who truly understand what "conservative" means) have stated the same.

   *In addressing the issue before a Senate committee, Brigadier General James C. Walker, Staff Judge Advocate General (JAG) for the Marine Corps, said: "I'm not aware of any situation in the world where there is a system of jurisprudence that is recognized by civilized people, where an individual can be tried without, and convicted without seeing the evidence against him. And I don't think the United States needs to become first in that scenario." (3)

   * Referring to the new law's provision that a detainee is not allowed to see the evidence presented against him, Rear Admiral Bruce E. MacDonald, the Navy's top lawyer, stated: "I can't imagine any military judge believing that an accused has had a full and fair hearing if all the government's evidence that was introduced was all classified and the accused was not able to see any of it." (4)

   * The Air Force's chief lawyer, Major General Jack Rives declared that the commissions established by the act do "not comport with my ideas of due process." (5) (One wonders why -- if this is the _Military_ Commissions Act -- the military is plainly none too happy with it?)

   * Jim Bovard, author of the anti-Clinton book _Feeling Your Pain_ , wrote a scathing commentary on the MCA, as well as the mainstream yawn it engendered (6).

   * So did the ultra-conservative magazine _The New American_, which states, "The Military Commissions Act of 2006 allows the executive branch to circumvent the Constitution, endangering the due process of law for all Americans, not just terrorists." (7).

   * Arlen Specter (R) stated of the MCA, "I'm not going to support a bill that's blatantly unconstitutional . . . that suspends a right that goes back to 1215..." (8)

   * Even the platform of the Constitution Party -- hardly a hotbed of liberal ideology -- states "We deplore and vigorously oppose legislation and executive action, that deprive the people of their rights secured under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments under the guise of "combating terrorism" or "protecting national security." (9)

People often make the mistake of assuming that JPFO is a conservative organization because of our support of the Second Amendment. Not so; we're very much beyond that. JPFO is _absolutely_ committed to the Bill of Rights. We have no sacred cows, no party line to follow. Our only criteria is "Does this infringe on the Bill of Rights?" If it does, we react negatively, regardless of who is doing it. Keith Olbermann is not our source -- the law is our source. And this law clearly, unequivocably violates the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

"You want to protect terrorists!"

Wrong. We want to protect people accused of terrorism (that whole unfashionable "innocent until proven guilty" thing). People have been unjustly accused by our government before, after all (check out the John Glover case on our website (10)). If the accused are indeed guilty, then punish them appropriately. But everyone deserves the basic right to defend himself in court...not to be locked away in a gulag under some specious accusation.

"The removal of Habeas Corpus only applies to aliens."

True, as far as it goes. Now what happens if you're picked up as an "alien"? You can't prove otherwise because without the right of Habeas Corpus, you cannot demand to go to court to make your case.

Or you could simply be declared a UEC, or "unlawful enemy combatant". Section 948(a) of the MCA defines "unlawful enemy combatant" as:

   (i) a person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents who is not a lawful enemy combatant (including a person who is part of the Taliban, al-Qaeda, or associated forces); or (ii) a person who, before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the president or the secretary of defense. (11)

Note that this definition (much broader than previously-used definitions) contains NO exception for American citizens. And the Second Circuit Court of Appeals previously upheld the UEC label as meaning you are no longer under the protection of the Bill of Rights (12). All the government would have to do at your habeas corpus hearing is provide some evidence that you have engaged in some act of terrorism (maybe you donated to an organization "suspected of terrorist ties"...).

Jacob Hornberger -- another conservative -- points out:

   "How does an American who is labeled an enemy combatant ultimately get tried? Answer: he doesn’t. Under the Military Commissions Act, trial by military tribunal is limited to foreigners. So, even though Americans still have the use of habeas corpus (so far) to test whether their detention is lawful, if the Supreme Court ultimately upholds the “unlawful enemy combatant” designation for people accused of terrorism, Americans will be returned to indefinite military custody as “unlawful enemy combatants” if the government has provided some evidence of terrorism at the habeas corpus hearing." (13)

"At least Bush lets us keep our guns."

The purpose of the Second Amendment is to ensure that people have the ability to overthrow a government that has become tyrannical. The fact remains that all firearms permitted in the US must meet the "sporting purpose" definition. Not all are well-suited for fighting a standing army. Further, guns do little good when you cheerily applaud the tyrant or make excuses for him. Guns, after all, were prevalent in Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

The painful reality is that both parties have been betraying us for years. They do not respect the Constitution, nor do they respect our basic rights. Conservatives who excuse Bush's actions have been duped into remaining loyal to the ideal of conservatism even as it is twisted into a nearly-unrecognizable mockery of itself by the Bush administration.

A true conservative would say, "WRONG IS WRONG, no matter who is doing it. And destroying our freedoms -- for any reason -- is WRONG. I don't care who's doing it, this is immoral and illegal. I'm not going to follow the party line if it goes against everything I believe."

Perhaps the saddest, most telling comment comes from a writer who states:

"Arab and Iranian Muslims must be exterminated. Any law that remotely points in that direction is good. That you and the U.S. Government coddle Muslim scum is an insult to civilization."

Does anyone fail to see the parallel between 1930's Germany and our present society within this statement? To write such a hate-filled declaration to a Jewish civil rights organization -- one fully aware of the dangers of broadly damning an entire race or religion and advocating their "extermination" -- is breathtaking in its audacity. That the writer is willing -- nay, eager -- to give up his own freedoms and liberty to further such a goal is perhaps saddest of all.

In closing, we offer this challenge: send us a link to a video or thoughtful article that supports the Military Commissions Act as legitimate and Constitutional. We'll put it up, and let our readers decide.

- The Liberty Crew

They can't deport all of us.

A battle for the hearts and minds, where have I heard this before?

Sounds like another war against the right is brewing.

Nothing to see hear.  Move along now.

Quoted: OH THE NOES!!!1111!!!eleven!! Jezz.. they are not comming to get you! the sky is not falling!!

The Jews in Germany were saying the same thing, all the way up to the point of being led into the cattle cars.

You start preping the masses with articles like this and as time goes on article after article goes just a tiny bit further until some incident occurs. What better reason to use to remove firearms is that the owners are terrorists or support terrorists especially after some form of incident.

Quoted: Quoted: OH THE NOES!!!1111!!!eleven!! Jezz.. they are not comming to get you! the sky is not falling!! The Jews in Germany were saying the same thing, all the way up to the point of being led into the cattle cars.

Do you get your foil buy the roll or bulk?

Stop and think about how a story about a gun owner who has a large amount of ammo at home would appear. How it could be distorted. There are a lot of us myself included who have stocked up on military surplus ammo because we know some day it will really be gone and we will be forced to purchase ammo at extremely high prices if we wish to continue in our hobby.. So we purchase as much as we can in an effort to dollar cost average our ammo supplies as the cost of ammo goes up. YEt in the end those not participating in our hobby think having 20 rounds is excessive and 100 rounds would classify you as some terrorist. Heaven forbid what they would think of you if they discoverd you had 10,000 rounds of ammo or more. And I know there are some of you who have even more.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: OH THE NOES!!!1111!!!eleven!! Jezz.. they are not comming to get you! the sky is not falling!! The Jews in Germany were saying the same thing, all the way up to the point of being led into the cattle cars. Do you get your foil buy the roll or bulk?

Your right history shows that governments have never commited atrocities against their citizens.

A modern nation has never engaged in organized extermination of a segment of it's citizens

Once the Dems took control of our NH state legislature they tried to alter our existing CCW laws.

They wanted to add wording that prevented licensing people with "ties to organized crime and terrorist organizations".

My response was WTF? Why is that wording necessary? If you're known to be involved with these groups, shouldn't you be arrested already?

Anyway, the Bill was shot down by gun owners.... for now. But the motivation is more clear after reading the OP's article. Once the wording is there, then they can have their fun determining who are "terrorists".

Quoted: Way to miss the point, guys.  This week, it's Muslims...next year, it could easily be us.

+1
Exactly.

Some folks here are simply not bright enough to imagine that though.

I'm sure lots of jews didn't think things could get that bad in germany back in the '30's. Too bad they were wrong.  

Do people not see the parrells to Germany in the late 30's?
Political corruption, spying on public, soon we will have political police....err I think we are there now.

Newt Gingrich:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdP1I7uzI7Y

The third thing I want to talk about very briefly is the genuine danger of terrorism, in particular terrorists using weapons of mass destruction and weapons of mass murder, nuclear and biological weapons. And I want to suggest to you that right now we should be impaneling people to look seriously at a level of supervision that we would never dream of if it weren't for the scale of threat. Let me give you two examples. When the British this summer arrested people who were planning to blow up ten airliners in one day, they arrested a couple who were going to use their six month old baby in order to hide the bomb as baby milk. Now, if I come to you tonight and say that there are people on the planet who hate you, and they are 15-25 year old males who are willing to die as long as they get to kill you, I've simply described the warrior culture which has been true historically for 6 or 7 thousand years. But, if I come to you and say that there is a couple that hates you so much that they will kill their six month old baby in order to kill you, I am describing a level of ferocity, and a level of savagery beyond anything we have tried to deal with. And, what is truly frightening about the British experience is they are arresting British citizens, born in Britain, speaking English, who went to British schools, live in British housing, and have good jobs. This is a serious long term war, and it will inevitably lead us to want to know what is said in every suspect place in the country, that will lead us to learn how to close down every website that is dangerous, and it will lead us to a very severe approach to people who advocate the killing of Americans and advocate the use of nucle ar or biological weapons. And, my prediction to you is that either before we lose a city, or if we are truly stupid, after we lose a city, we will adopt rules of  engagement that use every technology we can find to break up their capacity to use the Internet, to break up their capacity to use free speech, and to go after people who want to kill us to stop them from recruiting people before they get to reach out and convince young people to destroy their lives while destroying us. This is a serious problem that will lead to a serious debate about the first amendment, but I think that the national security threat of losing an American city to a nuclear weapon, or losing several million Americans to a biological attack is so real that we need to proactively, now, develop the appropriate rules of engagement. And, I further think that we should propose a Geneva convention for fighting terrorism which makes very clear that those who would fight outside the rules of law, those who would use weapons of mass destruction, and those who would target civilians are in fact subject to a totally different set of rules that allow us to protect civilization by defeating barbarism before it gains so much strength that it is truly horrendous. This is a sober topic, but I think it is a topic we need a national dialogue about, and we need to get ahead of the curve rather than wait until actually we lose a city which could literally happen within the next decade if we are unfortunate.

 At the rate we are going we will live to see the day when if you own a gun and disagree with govt.org policies you will be a "terrorist". Already if you espouse identical views as the founding fathers you are a "radical".
 Our govt already could care less about the invasion of illegals, criminal street gangs based on cocaine sales and now ID theft/counterfeit checks, the true threats of China and now Russia again, or any of a long list of things injurious to our country that are going on.
 Their sights are turned inwards to their own citizens. The new "Real ID" initiative, proposed use of our spy satellites on us, the campaign finance reforms that prohit free speech, on and on. When is the last time a member of Congress or the President opposed a bill because the Constitution did not give them the power to do whatever they were wanting to do? Likely the 1930's.
 Make no mistake. The relationship between the govt and the people has changed since the end of WW II. After WW II the govt would sell you the US service rifle for about $9. Now we are prohibited from owning the US service rifle. When they hand you the rifle you are sane, competent, and to be trusted. As soon as you have risked your life as long as they need you to, you are not to be trusted and not able to possess such a dangerous instrument.
 When the push back from the people starts we will see how they classify people. Just last week they raided the Minutemen's leaders home. They are determined to end that organization. I bet they are not far from being "terrorists". The fact that the Minutemen were born from the govts failure to do their job regarding immigration doesn't matter to them.
 

Quoted: More of us then them.  Come and get 'em

i share your sentiments, and laugh at it's absurdity.

Having the executive branch unilaterally declare someone a "terrorist" and move to deny that person their inalienable rights is just plain wrong.

The hard sell coming from the fedgov on embracing a surveillance / police state is getting pretty disgusting as of late.

I agree with the JPFO on this one.