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ladystylestores · 4 years

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The Next American Terrorist

The Growing Irrelevance of Organizational Structure for U.S. Domestic Terrorism

Bruce Hoffman, Terrorism Expert, Professor, Georgetown University

Bruce Hoffman is a professor at Georgetown University and the Shelby Cullom and Kathryn W. Davis Visiting Senior Fellow for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has served as a commissioner on the Independent Commission to Review the FBI’s Post-9/11 Response to Terrorism and Radicalization, a Scholar-in-Residence for Counterterrorism at the CIA, and an adviser on counterterrorism to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq in 2004.

Colin Clarke, Senior Fellow, The Soufan Center

Colin P. Clarke is a Senior Fellow at The Soufan Center where he studies terrorism, extremism, and political violence. He is also an Associate Fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT)- The Hague and an adjunct senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation.

For decades, America’s primary terrorist threat came from groups based abroad. Today, a new crop of terrorist actors is emerging from within our own borders. What was mostly a monochromatic threat from Salafi-jihadist groups like al-Qaeda, the Islamic State (IS), and those individuals they sought to inspire, has now become a kaleidoscope with new threats from “boogaloo bois,” white supremacists, neo-Nazis, shadowy anarchist elements, and the extreme fringe of violent incels—politicized involuntary celibates fueled by a hatred of women.

Although diverse and for the most part unconnected to each other, this often bewildering array of anti-government extremists, violent misogynists, and left-wing militants share a common objective of disrupting society and in the process, overturning existing norms if not the entire political, social and economic order.

Unlike the identifiable threats we have faced from hierarchically-organized, groups like al-Qaeda and IS, the new emerging groups of individuals are devoid of the command-and-control apparatuses that counterterrorism practitioners typically seek to disrupt. Command and control is the mechanism by which terrorist groups plan, coordinate, and execute attacks and is a key component of the group’s organizational structure. For the past two decades, the United States has relentlessly targeted the leaders of terrorist groups with decapitation strikes, which has disrupted their organization’s infrastructure, and interdicted their finances. But this new collection of terrorist adversaries possesses few of the attributes that proved so vulnerable to counterterrorism actions.

Thus, bureaucratic organizations with hierarchical leadership structures and clearly-defined objectives have been supplanted by loosely networked movements with amorphous goals that exist across the ideological spectrum that we are only now beginning to understand. Moreover, members of these networks are more susceptible to what terrorism expert Daveed Gartenstein-Ross calls “fringe fluidity,” where an experience with one form of extremism can lead to a distinct radicalization pathway and thus, facilitate the movement of individuals from one form of militancy to another. There are several high-profile examples, including Nick Young, the Northern Virginia transit cop who was enamored with both Nazi Germany and the Islamic State. In May 2017, a neo-Nazi turned Islamic State supporter named Devon Arthurs killed his two neo-Nazi roommates because they mocked his newfound zeal for radical Islam after formerly being a member of Atomwaffen.

Popular theories like accelerationism, whose proponents believe in the complete destruction of current systems of government, appeal to individuals that claim allegiance to movements on both the far-left and the far-right. Taken together, this perhaps suggests the growing irrelevance of organizational structure when assessing U.S.-based domestic terrorist threats. For neo-Nazi groups like The Base and Atomwaffen Division, as well as the boogaloo movement and many far-right extremists, a confluence of ideological affinities is more powerful in inspiring and provoking violence than the

hierarchical terrorist organizational structures of the past. The merging of concepts that motivate individuals to engage in terrorism, no matter how quixotic, is likely to prolong the threat and complicate effective countermeasures. One immediate implication of this ideological mélange is that it makes it more difficult to identify tangible grievances and therefore craft appropriate policy responses.

This trend has been abetted by the continued emphasis on lone wolf or lone actor attacks. Originally articulated by American far-right extremists as a “leaderless resistance” strategy it was subsequently embraced with intensified fervor by Salafi-jihadist groups like the Islamic State, which encouraged followers to be both entrepreneurial and opportunistic in launching attacks in the West. The result was a shift in tactics, techniques, and procedures, including a spike in vehicle attacks against unsuspecting pedestrians along with other demonstrably crude attacks using commonplace weapons like axes and machetes. Both white supremacists as well as violent incels, for instance, have each used cars deliberately to harm civilians without being instructed or trained to do so by a terrorist leader. Since the protests began over the murder of George Floyd, there have been nearly three dozen reported cases of vehicle attacks, including one allegedly perpetrated by a high-ranking Ku Klux Klan (KKK) member named Harry Rogers in Richmond, VA.

Although we have seen this less clearly defined organizational structure among some domestic terrorism threats in the United States in the past, the current iteration is unprecedented. In the 1980s and 1990s, violent, extremist far-right groups like The Order and the Phineas Priesthood adopted the leaderless resistance strategy and operated clandestinely to conduct bombings and assassinations and commit crimes including bank robberies. But such groups were short-lived or had limited impact. Today, the dimensions of these diverse threats present new challenges to Federal law enforcement agencies and their state, local, and tribal partners.

Even without a robust and identifiable organizational structure in place, Federal law enforcement is still tasked with mapping how the individuals and small cells belonging to these movements communicate, delegate tasks, procure weapons and equipment, and maintain operations security. Yet even when the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is successful in disrupting plots through the use of informants, the fact that these individuals do not belong to an actual organization or group, per se, means that the arrests, while critical to keeping Americans safe, can only have a limited impact in reducing the overall domestic terrorism threat. This is precisely what the strategy of leaderless resistance was designed to ensure.

Counterterrorism strategies must adapt to the range of traditional and emerging threats from a multiplicity of international and domestic adversaries. In some cases, domestic and international milieus will intersect and overlap. There is undoubtedly an interplay between foreign countries like Russia interested in stirring the pot domestically in the United States, and violent non-state actors operating on American soil, even if the actual linkages are murky and difficult to uncover. The leader of The Base, Rinaldo Nazzaro (aka Norman Spear), for instance, is an American citizen believed to be living in St. Petersburg, Russia and the United States recently listed the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM) as a specially designated global terrorist organization or SDGT—an important step that falls just short of the ultimate sanction of a foreign terrorist organization, or FTO. A U.S. citizen and white supremacist named Matthew Heimbach has been linked to RIM in the past, thus underscoring the eroding distinction between foreign and domestic when Americans lead and are of members of State Department-sanctioned terrorist groups.

The law has failed to keep pace with either the social media technology that facilitates and abets radicalization or terrorist adversaries that defy traditional conceptualizations. It may be worth considering legislation focused specifically on domestic terrorism that would create a category facilitating the prosecution of crimes that in an international context are considered terrorism. Equally importantly, such legislation might standardize the collection and analysis of data on hate crimes and other acts of violence that should be prosecuted as terrorism to bring greater equity in the sentencing of foreign and domestic terrorists. Persons convicted in the United States of providing material support to IS, according to the George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, receive sentences in excess of thirteen years in prison. Last February, a member of Atomwaffen received a twelve-month sentence for similar charges. The law should remain agnostic to the ideologies that fuel political violence while focusing on the actions themselves.

Since September 11, 2001, the so-called Global War on Terror saw the United States leverage its exquisite military and intelligence capabilities to focus on disrupting terrorist plots from North Africa to South Asia, even as organizations like al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and their respective affiliates and franchise groups continue to adapt and evolve. Yet now, as evidenced by events that have played out over the first half of this year, there is a renewed sense of urgency to deal with actual terrorist threats percolating on American soil. Policymakers could consider the appropriate laws, authorities, and policies to ensure that the country is prepared to meet the ever-changing terrorism threat, including its most recent domestic permutations.

Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief

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paulbenedictblog · 4 years

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Cnn news Questions still unanswered after fatal shooting of Virginia man by US Park Police

Cnn news

The US Park Police non-public come below fire for their handling of protesters outside the White Dwelling, but a case in Northern Virginia could perhaps well present perception into the group's lack of transparency in controversial incidents, lawmakers impart.

Bijan Ghaisar used to be riding home on the George Washington Parkway upright outside of Washington, D.C., to non-public dinner along with his father in November 2017. That is when, based totally on a household attorney, Ghaisar's automobile used to be struck from within the succor of by one other automobile.

Ghaisar had no ruin to his automobile, so he stored riding. But the driving force of the varied automobile called police, and that is when the U.S. Park Police "aggressively" pursued Ghaisar, the household attorney acknowledged.

Video launched by the Fairfax County, Virginia, Police Department reveals Ghaisar riding slowly, stopping twice. On the third discontinue, Ghaisar attempted to jog round the Park Police, and officers barricaded him in and opened fire.

"At no point did Bijan Ghaisar attain anything to diagram off these officers to deem that their lives or the lives of any individual else used to be at misfortune," household attorney and former DOJ reliable Roy Austin told ABC Records.

Ghaisar used to be in a coma and died days later.

Austin acknowledged that after the incident, "U.S. Park Police equipped security to his [hospital] room and told his household and fogeys that he used to be a felony."

In a assertion to ABC Records, the Nationwide Parks Carrier acknowledged that they've "communicated with Congress to present updates and data as it's able without interfering within the ongoing investigations and litigation. We haven't any extra comment."

'Gruesome therapy'

Procure. Don Beyer, D-Va., told ABC Records that correct thru the principle few days after the taking pictures there used to be "silence."

"There used to be the hideous therapy of the household when they came to survey their brother and their son, who used to be there on life give a ranking to," Beyer acknowledged. "And they'd no longer let them consult with on story of someway they were going to motivate him derive away with three bullets in his head."

Three days after the taking pictures, the FBI took over the investigation -- but to on this day and age, questions on Ghaisar's death live.

"For the final now, two and a half of occurring three years, the U.S. Park Police has told us very tiny; they told the household very tiny about what came about here," Austin acknowledged. "They've largely defended these officers."

Procure. Beyer acknowledged that there used to be phenomenal frustration among the households within the Northern Virginia community.

"We had a year and a half of, nearly two years of full silence, after which one other many, many months of silence from the Department of Justice and in a roundabout diagram their dedication that nothing will be executed. So, upright an improbable frustration that justice used to be no longer served and that the total thing used to be opaque the full time," Beyer acknowledged.

Sen. Stamp Warner, a Virginia Democrat, reiterated that the response from Park Police has been fully "opaque."

He's retaining up an Interior Department nomination till he will get questions answered in regards to the taking pictures.

"We gave them and the Department of Interior warning that if I wasn't going to derive answers, I had to exercise this tool on story of Bijan's household, who non-public upright been crushed by the response of our government, deserve a higher acknowledge," he defined to ABC Records by cell phone.

Fairfax County Police Chief Edwin Roessler told ABC Records that he launched his division's run-cam photos for the sake of transparency, and he impressed the Park Police to achieve the same.

He acknowledged he told the Park Police at the time that "as skilled colleagues ... they prefer to liberate that video when or no longer it's now no longer going to erode the integrity of the investigation."

"That in-automobile video is my property, even supposing it used to be evidence," Roessler acknowledged of the photos he launched. "So the dialogue then allowed conversation succor to me that they were no longer going to liberate the video."

At a community meeting, Acting Park Police Chief Gregory Monahan addressed the incident in December of 2019.

"It be primary to command that there are extra aspects to this investigation that also must be addressed," Monahan acknowledged based totally on local experiences. "There could be the aptitude for felony prosecution at the county stage or the assert stage, and there could be additionally -- and can merely happen -- an administrative investigation. Provided that there could be no longer any dedication on the felony element of this incident, I in actuality would love to respect the technique, and I will no longer comment any extra at present."

The federal investigation used to be closed final year and no felony costs were introduced against the officers.

Fairfax County Commonwealth's Authorized skilled Steve T. Descano currently requested 260 documents from the FBI pertaining to the case, but to this point he has no longer got any of them.

Descano did no longer acknowledge to ABC Records' query for comment.

Fixed with the Washington Post, the Justice Department declined to permit the FBI brokers livid by the case testify.

Earlier this year, Ghaisar's household sued the federal government and the officers alive to, and the think demanded that the federal government flip over the FBI file within the case.

The government has asked for an extension to present the FBI file within the civil suit, but at a listening to in March, the think used to be unmoved by the federal government's efforts to lengthen the file's liberate.

"I don't rob that being the invention direction of agreed to within the joint discovery opinion," Procure Ivan Davis acknowledged.

Fixed with Beyer, the Park Police did no longer liberate the names of the officers alive to till their names came out within the invention phase of the lawsuit.

A court date is diagram for July to present an update to the invention direction of.

Austin told ABC Records that the federal government has been particularly "cruel" to Ghaisar's household, and confused out that the federal government used to be no longer clear with them.

"The federal government has been embarrassing, unprofessional and in point of fact upright cruel to this household for the final two and a half of years," he acknowledged. "At no point when they were pronouncing their dedication now to no longer prosecute did they sit down down with the household earlier than pronouncing making their announcement in public."

Every other incident 'on the same song'?

If the Park Police's response to the Ghaisar case is any indication, it will be complicated to resolve what came about in Lafayette Park final week when Park Police cleared the park of protesters earlier than President Donald Trump's arrival.

In an interview over the weekend, Authorized skilled Common William Barr acknowledged that the protesters within the park were no longer mute.

"They were no longer mute protesters. And that's the reason one of many great lies that the media appears to be like to be perpetuating at this point," Barr acknowledged in an interview with Face the Nation.

Barr additionally told The Associated Press final week that it used to be a Park Police commander who made the tactical teach to bound the protesters succor.

"I'm no longer livid by giving tactical commands treasure that," Barr told AP. "I used to be pissed off and I used to be additionally terrified that because the group grew, it used to be going to be more difficult and more difficult to achieve. So my angle used to be, derive it executed, but I did no longer impart, 'Bolt attain it.'"

The Nationwide Parks Carrier, on behalf of the Park Police, referred ABC Records to their assertion on June 2.

"The US Park Police (USPP) is committed to the mute expression of First Modification rights. Nonetheless, this past weekend’s demonstrations at Lafayette Park and all around the Nationwide Mall included activities that were no longer section of a mute reveal, which resulted in injuries to USPP officers within the motorway of accountability, the destruction of public property and the defacing of memorials and monuments," appearing USPP Chief Gregory Monahan acknowledged. "One day of 4 days of demonstrations, 51 participants of the USPP were injured; of those, 11 were transported to the sanatorium and launched and three were admitted."

Within the assertion, Park Police acknowledged that "violent protestors on H Facet motorway NW began throwing projectiles including bricks, frozen water bottles and caustic liquids. The protestors additionally climbed onto a historical constructing at the north terminate of Lafayette Park that used to be destroyed by arson days prior. Intelligence had published requires violence against the police, and officers found caches of glass bottles, baseball bats and metallic poles hidden along the avenue."

Beyer acknowledged that the dearth of transparency by the Park Police in both incidents is "symptomatic of an overall disrespect for transparency."

"By hook or by crook, the Park Police don't feel that they're responsible to the community as an total," Beyer acknowledged.

Roessler acknowledged that every body regulation enforcement companies prefer to come succor into the 21st century.

A Park Police spokesman told multiple news retailers that it used to be a "mistake" to impart that Park Police did no longer exercise poke gasoline to clear the park, most attention-grabbing to liberate a assertion hours later that walked it succor.

"United States Park Cops and various helping regulation enforcement partners did no longer exercise poke gasoline or OC Skat Shells to terminate the residence at Lafayette Park per violent protesters," the assertion acknowledged.

Warner acknowledged that the two incidents parallel one one other.

"It be very troubling that this incident happens. And then you positively could perhaps well also merely non-public the incident that came about final week, and there appears to be like to be the same 'veil the ball.' Was once there poke gasoline? Was once there no longer poke gasoline? I do no longer know," Warner acknowledged.

"It be smug, over the high. But additionally mute -- the 'veil the ball' methodology appears to be like to be the same sample by methodology of what came about at Lafayette Park," he added.

Austin acknowledged he sees similarities in how the cases were dealt with.

"They are a regulation enforcement company that appears to be like to operate without same old tips of engagement, without right practising and with nearly zero transparency, and that is an subject," he acknowledged.

Beyer acknowledged that the two incidents are "very noteworthy on the same song of upright disrespect for public participation, public belief."

"Totally different participants non-public a correct to know in a democracy what goes on on," he acknowledged. "And we non-public by no diagram realized within the Bijan Ghaisar case and now we do no longer know what led to the chain of occasions in Lafayette Square."

Beyer acknowledged that presumably if there could be no longer more transparency, it will be time to rethink the Park Police.

"This could perhaps well be the time after we take into story folding the Park Police correct into a police division with a higher popularity," he acknowledged. "That could perhaps be an thought that also has to be vetted, but Park Carrier has had its delight in complications with misogyny and the treasure."

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shirgiguere · 7 years

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How To Ensure Your Roof Survives The Summer Heat

Summer gets really hot around here, and although you have air conditioning and take precautions against the heat by taking shelter, your roof cannot. It will face the direct sun for the entire summer.

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself how destructive the extreme temperatures are? And how your roof can be negatively affected? High temperatures not only affect your health, they can also affect the state of your roof and home. The good news is that you can do something about this by making some necessary changes to your roof.

One of the ways of dealing with the heat is to have a cool roof. The following post explains the advantages of a cool roof:

A cool roof can:

Reduce a building’s air-conditioning bills. Keeping a roof cool means air conditioning doesn’t have to work as hard — and you can save money.

Keep your air conditioning units working longer. Less use of the air conditioning means it is less taxed.

Keep building tenants more comfortable. A cool roof can help keep workers inside the building cooler, especially in unconditioned spaces like warehouses and factories.

Avoid using air conditioning altogether. In some areas of the country, you may not even need to use A/C in the building at all.

Help lower maintenance costs and extend the life of the roof. Dark roofs absorb more heat and can cause more stress to the roof, which could potentially shorten its lifespan. Read more at GAF…

Why not do something to your roof that will not only make you more comfortable and lower your bills, but also extend your roof’s life? You’ll be glad you did it.

There are different ways you can have a cool roof. One of them is to paint the roof white, as described in this post:

The easiest way to reflect the sun’s rays is to paint a roof white – something the Greeks have been doing for centuries. A white roof reflects around 85% of the sunlight that hits it – at least when it’s clean – and heats to just a few degrees warmer than the outside air temperature. A black roof, by contrast, can heat to more than 80C, according to sustainable construction expert Chris Jensen from the University of Melbourne.

“On a black tile roof, you could fry an egg, and on a cool roof you could walk on it in your bare feet,” says Jensen, “that’s the magnitude of the difference.” Read more at The Guardian…

The effects of a white roof are as plain as day. However, the roof needs to be cleaned regularly to ensure it is completely effective.

If you find the idea of a white roof absurd, there are other options that you could go for, as described in the next post:

A Long-Term Structural Solution for the Summer Heat

Although the Equinox Phenomenon may just last for days, the summer heat lasts for months. Temperatures in the high 30s to 40s are not comfortable at all. Add humidity to that and you feel like you’re in a sauna while having your lungs squeezed.

The above suggestions can take care of your body. But is there anything else you can do to bring room temperatures in your home a few degrees lower than the simmering heat outside?

The answer is yes and it comes in the form of roof paint called Cool Shades™. There are other roof paints of course, but Cool Shades™ can reflect 21% more infrared light compared to non-reflective roof coatings. Read more at My Boysen…

Technological advancements provide solutions to give your roof the ability to reflect away as much heat as possible, and you can capitalize on these products.

Any improvements you need to make on your roof will eventually need to be implemented by a roofing contractor. If you live in Dulles VA, or anywhere in Northern Virginia, and are looking for a professional roofing company, get in touch with us. We are a full service residential roofing company, and the Best Rated Roofing Company in Virginia. Call us today for all your roofing repair and replacement needs.

How To Ensure Your Roof Survives The Summer Heat appeared first on Roof.net blog.

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