How to define domestic terrorism in America
Dec 8, 2015, 11:54 AM | Updated: 4:47 pm
The San Bernardino shootings have officially been defined as terrorism. (AP)
(AP)
Now it’s definitive: the San Bernardino shootings were an act of terrorism, as President Obama said in a recent Oval Office address.
“…it is clear that the two of them had gone down the dark path of radicalization, embracing a perverted interpretation of Islam that calls for war against America and the West,” he said. “They had stockpiled assault weapons, ammunition, and pipe bombs. So this was an act of terrorism, designed to kill innocent people.”
What makes the shooting domestic terrorism?
Outside a Seattle bakery, several people explain what “terrorism” means to them, including Turner Helton, a Seattleite and downtown business owner.
“[Terrorism is] like 9/11, just mass destruction for no reason other than to kill people,” Helton said.
Zack Hutson had another take on terrorism.
“It’s using violence to intimidate people in the way they live their lives,” Hutson said. “So that could be really any violent act that scares people so they can’t live the way that they normally would.”
In our unscientific survey of social media, co-workers, and those bakery customers, there seems to be confusion about what an actual legal definition of “terrorism” is.
It turns out, there is a definition. The US Patriot Act, created after 9/11, defines domestic terrorism.
It’s all about motivation. You have to know why the perpetrators acted to know whether to affix the label.
William Yeomans is a former top official with the Department of Justice who spent decades in the civil rights division.
“The definition is that domestic terrorism includes acts that are intended to intimidate or coerce civilian population or to influence the policy of a government by or through intimidation or coercion or to affect the conduct of the government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping.”
And it has to happen in the United States. But what the Patriot Act does not spell out, is the significance of the label.
“The law with regard to domestic terrorism simply doesn’t have a whole lot to say,” Yoemans said.
The Patriot Act definition does not come with a domestic terrorism statute. It hardly changes the way a case is federally prosecuted, except for some sentencing guidelines. There’s one charge for providing material support to a terrorist organization, but the more commonly used charges for these crimes are ones such as “murder” and “use of weapons of mass destruction.”
On Nov. 27 Robert Dear entered a Planned Parenthood clinic and killed three people. One of them is a veteran of the Iraq War, Ke’er Stewart.
Stewart’s friend, fellow veteran Tony Fisher, told NBC News that his buddy is a hero – and he talks about the shooter as a terrorist.
“There are domestic terrorists here … same kind of terrorists we would face on the battlefield,” he said. “Somebody with blatant disregard for life.”
Officially, though, it’s not terrorism. Some law enforcement told reporters that Dear uttered a sentence like “no more baby parts” after the attack, meaning he had an ideological opposition to the clinic.
But police and federal agents in Colorado say the investigation is ongoing and they can’t speak about Dear’s motives.
Yeomans says the word “terrorism” as applied in the US has itself become an ideological issue. It’s a debate divided largely along party lines. Democrats and Republicans both have reasons the word is applied and not applied in different instances, like with the Planned Parenthood attack.
“The pro-life supporters have not wanted to label those as acts terror because they’re afraid the pro-life movement will be targeted with being responsible for producing terrorism,” Yoemans said. “That kind of thinking has a lot more to do with terrorism than the law does.”
The fear, then, is that the word “terrorism” will implicate like-minded but nonviolent individuals.
That’s a fear shared by 1.6 billion people around the world: Muslims.
Arsalan Bukhari of Washington’s Center on American-Islamic Relations has researched use of the word.
“We found that it was used almost exclusively to describe actors who are Muslims, and not to describe those who are of other faiths, even when the actions were the same – for the same reasons, at the same gravity level,” he said.
Bukhari notes that is a dangerous distinction.
“When those words are used so disproportionately it causes discrimination, bullying and inspires violence against those who are Muslim and those who appear to be Muslim,” he said. “And that’s the real life impact we have to keep in mind. Those children, women, men who are out and about – our neighbors, our doctors, our store clerks – they have to bear the brunt of the discrimination that these words inspire.”
For some customers at that Seattle bakery, such as Eli Crawford, the definition doesn’t even matter.
“Everybody’s got a reason behind their violence. Everybody has a reason for what they do. I mean, who am I to say whether somebody’s reason is political or personal?” Crawford said. “I think it’s all personal. Is there an ideology behind it? I mean there’s an ideology behind anybody’s violence.”
The only thing that’s crystal clear is that how different individuals use and define the word varies dramatically.
