Domestic terrorism has proven to be more difficult for Big Tech companies to police online than foreign terrorism.
The big picture: That’s largely because the politics are harder. There’s more unity around the need to go after foreign extremists than domestic ones — and less danger of overreaching and provoking a backlash.
Flashback: When tech firms came together in 2017 to tackle foreign terrorism, the bipartisan view that ISIS was a serious national security threat allowed them to take blunt
By Richard Hanania
After tragedy struck the Capitol last week, calls for policy change came swiftly. In response to the deadly mob that rampaged through the halls of Congress, many now advocate new anti-terrorism laws that would give the government powers at home that are usually only exercised abroad. Among these are the ability to work off of broader definitions of crimes like conspiracy or providing material support to organizations that commit violent acts.
Some see the war on terror as a
By Naghi Ahmadov
On January 8, 1977, a series of terrorist attacks struck Moscow city, the capital of the Soviet Union. Three explosions occurred in a row in different places, with an interval of less than 40 minutes. All the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the KGB were raised on alarm. Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, who spent Saturday hunting, urgently left for the capital. At that time, the life of Muscovites was not overshadowed by rampant
By Cameron Sumpter
The Royal Commission of Inquiry into the March 2019 Christchurch terrorist attacks against two mosques in New Zealand released its report this week. A primary finding was that New Zealand’s modest counterterrorism resources had been largely absorbed by the perceived threat of jihadi militancy in recent years, without an informed assessment of risk from other ideologies.
Yet the 800-page report also makes clear that if greater attention had been given to the threat of far-right
By Ben NORTON
The US State Department designated Yemen’s Houthi movement — the most effective force in fighting al-Qaeda — as a “terrorist” organization. Meanwhile Washington and Saudi Arabia have supported al-Qaeda.
The United States government has designated the enemy of al-Qaeda in Yemen as a terrorist organization, after spending years backing al-Qaeda in the country.
Like the US-led wars on Syria, Libya, former Yugoslavia, and 1980s Afghanistan, Yemen represents an example of an armed
By Brett Wilkins
"You feel your privacy is being invaded," said one Palestinian victim. "The aim is to control and humiliate."
Terrorized civilians are a universal, immutable fact of military occupation, as a report about Israeli night raids on Palestinian homes published last week affirms.
The report—entitled A Life Exposed: Military Invasions of Palestinian Homes in the West Bank (pdf)—and put forth by the groups Breaking the Silence, Yesh Din, and Physicians for Human Rights Israel, contains
By Ron PAUL
Last week’s massive social media purges – starting with President Trump’s permanent ban from Twitter and other outlets – was shocking and chilling, particularly to those of us who value free expression and the free exchange of ideas. The justifications given for the silencing of wide swaths of public opinion made no sense and the process was anything but transparent. Nowhere in President Trump’s two “offending” Tweets, for example, was a call for violence expressed explicitly or
By Attiya Munawer
After a period of silence in Balochistan, terrorists have resurfaced and for the past two months, terrorist groups have stepped up their attacks. In recent days, terrorists in Mach have brutally slaughtered 11 miners of the Hazara Shia community by tying their hands and feet at gunpoint. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the incident. Separatist organizations and sectarian groups on the territory of Balochistan have been active in spreading unrest and are being backed by
By Wayne Madsen
On early Christmas morning a vehicle bomb exploded in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. The target was the AT&T metropolitan area network hub “Batman” building, a 33-story structure – the tallest building in Tennessee – which resembles the fictional cape crusader’s cowl. The bomber turned out to be a 63-year-old white man. Anthony Quinn Warren, who blew himself up in the terrorist attack, apparently subscribed to the babble from the pro-Donald Trump “Qanon” group of far-right
By Animesh Roul*
Although the so-called Islamic State (IS) Caliphate crumbled and disintegrated in the Middle East, the group’s most potent branch, the IS-Khorasan Province (IS-KP) remains resilient. It continues to display its violent presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, fiercely withstanding the unremitting onslaughts from government and rival Taliban forces. The group demonstratively retains the ability to carry out gruesome attacks at will in the capital Kabul and its traditional
By Medea Benjamin, Nicolas J.S. Davies
Joe Biden will take command of the White House at a time when the American public is more concerned about battling coronavirus than fighting overseas wars. But America’s wars rage on regardless, and the militarized counterterrorism policy Biden has supported in the past—based on airstrikes, special operations and the use of proxy forces—is precisely what keeps these conflicts raging.
In Afghanistan, Biden opposed Obama’s 2009 troop surge, and after the
By Catrina Doxsee*
On May 31, 2020, amid a wave of protests across the United States following the murder of George Floyd, President Donald Trump sparked controversy by tweeting, “The United States of America will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization.” Attorney General William Barr issued a statement the same day declaring, “The violence instigated and carried out by Antifa and other similar groups in connection with the rioting is domestic terrorism and will be treated
By Arshi Khan*
Fault lines in the domain of knowledge have become common features in the contemporary world, be it the domain of intellectual, political or mass media which are bound to develop politics of subterfuge and deception. Such epistemological declines began with the explanation of human consciousness within the water-tight circle of the naturalistic description of Aristotle’s theory of nature, empiricism and experiences. The majority of Western intellectuals, institutions and media
By Alexandra Brzozowski
Global deaths from terrorism have fallen for a fifth consecutive year, according to the 2020 Global Terrorism Index, but far-right attacks have increased by 250% globally, to a level not seen in the last 50 years, with the pandemic likely to exacerbate the trend.
Deaths from terrorism fell by 15% around the world last year to under 14,000, a 59% decrease since 2014, according to the report issued by the Institute of Economics and Peace (IEP) on Wednesday (25
By Siddharth Singh
In his statement at a special meeting of the Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee on 6 March 2003, the Former Secretary-General Kofi Annan has noted:
“….Our responses to terrorism, as well as our efforts to thwart it and prevent it, should uphold the human rights that terrorists aim to destroy. Respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law are essential tools in the effort to combat terrorism – not privileges to be sacrificed at a time of
By Nadia Henni-Moulaï
His arguments may go unheard among top government circles, but Olivier Roy, a French political scientist and professor at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, is a prominent figure in the French intellectual world. His work sheds light on the mechanisms and complexities of radicalisation processes.
In 2015, he coined the phrase the "Islamicisation of radicalism" as opposed to the "radicalisation of Islam", a theory put forward by another leading scholar
By Amandla Thomas-Johnson
Strikes killing thousands of people, many civilians, one of the largest blemishes on former president's record
Barack Obama has forcefully defended his controversial killer drone policy in the former US president's first memoir written after his eight-year tenure in the White House.
In an excerpt from A Promised Land published in the Sunday Times ahead of its release on Tuesday, Obama said the evolving face of warfare meant that he had to resort to “more targeted
On October 23, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released a statement in commemoration of the 1983 attacks on the U.S. marine barracks in Beirut which led to the deaths of 241 U.S. service members.
Pompeo asserted that the Lebanese Hezbollah movement was behind the attack and made reference to the group’s “commitment to violence and bloodshed.” It further stated: “…we renew our commitment to preventing Hezbollah and its sponsor Iran from spilling more innocent blood in Lebanon or anywhere in
As democratic uprisings spread like wildfire across the Middle East in 2011 and 2012, the United Arab Emirates experienced its own milder form of the Arab Spring.
Secular intellectuals and Islamist groups joined together in March 2011 to craft a petition for greater political representation in Emirati politics. After witnessing the fall of regimes across the region, Abu Dhabi responded by conducting the largest crackdown in Emirati history — arresting, jailing, banning, and exiling practically
Will Baldet, a fellow at the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right and Prevent coordinator
The residual threat posed by the banned terrorist group al-Muhajiroun (ALM) group is matched by the enduring public curiosity that it provokes. The symbiotic relationship between the threatening rhetoric that the group employs and the resulting fascination with its activities has played to the group’s strategy of courting attention and transmitting their ideology to a larger audience. For many years the
Domestic terrorism has proven to be more difficult for Big Tech companies to police online than foreign terrorism.
The big picture: That’s largely because the politics are harder. There’s more unity around the need to go after foreign extremists than domestic ones — and less danger of overreaching and provoking a backlash.
Flashback: When tech firms came together in 2017 to tackle foreign terrorism, the bipartisan view that ISIS was a serious national security threat allowed them to take blunt
