Homegrown Terrorism

Terrorists in the United States?

Recently Marco Rubio remarked on Buzzfeed that we should be looking more into “homegrown terrorism” and that while we’re debating Civil Liberties and how to protect our freedoms we need to be finding ways to look for homegrown terrorists.

As much as I hate to agree with Marco Rubio of all people I have to agree. I wrote a paper in Graduate School on the subject of homegrown terrorism. I looked at terrorism from leftist groups like Greenpeace (who, among other things, blew up Hummers and other large SUVs in the early 00s) and right-wing groups like the KKK and white supremacist groups. Overall, while there have been some isolated cases the incidents are isolated and rare. However, I also think Mr. Rubio is referring to the increasing muslim population in the United States and that they will be able to train, gather resources and do more attacks like the Boston bombing of 2013. Sadly, I cannot disagree with him. Many other nations including France, the UK, and Canada have domestic terrorism arms that, within strict regulations, monitor their respective nations for terrorism and we definitely need one here in the United States. Not only would that discussion allow us the chance to have a real discussion about the regulations of domestic surveillance anti-terrorism measures and to create a new agency that would swallow up parts of the FBI and the NSA. This is especially true as Muslim-American citizens go back to Syria and other conflicts to fight there and then come back into this country battle hardened and trained. The threat could be real in the future and it is worth investigating.

The Bottom Line

Its time to get serious about domestic terrorism in this country and form a new agency with strict regulations and an ombudsman for the task. We should invite experts from Canada and the UK to create this agency and do it the best way possible.