Homeland Security-Funded Study Pushing Tea Party Terrorism Narrative
In an era of agenda-driven academic research, who watches the watchers? Or more accurately, who gets to designate and categorize the “objective” data? This is the question raised after examining a study and related dataset recently published by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland.
START was launched in 2005 with a $12 million grant from the Department of Homeland Security, and is recognized by DHS as one of its “Centers for Excellence.” In December, DHS announced it had renewed START’s funding to the tune of $3.6 million.
A recent START study titled “Hot Spots of Terrorism and Other Crimes in the United States, 1970 to 2008” puts the “excellence” description in question. A press release announcing the report states the study concluded that nearly a third of all terrorist attacks between 1970 and 2008 occurred in just five major metropolitan areas. The study was based on a START database called “Profiles of Perpetrators of Terrorism in the United States,” and both the report and database are supported by the DHS Science and Technology Directorate’s Human Factors/Behavioral Sciences Division.
Reading through the study, some baffling issues arose. In Table 4 (p. 22), titled “Hot Spots of Religious Terrorism by Decade”, three “hot spot” areas — Los Angeles, Manhattan, and Wasco, Oregon (former home of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) — are identified: 
But there seems to be some data missing when it comes to known Islamic terrorist incidents in New York City and Los Angeles. The study shows no religious terrorism in Manhattan during the 1990s. How about the 1993 World Trade Center bombing? Or the 1994 Brooklyn Bridge Jewish student van shooting by Rashid Baz that killed 16-year-old Ari Halberstam after Baz heard a fiery anti-Jewish sermon at his local mosque? Or the 1997 Empire State Building observation deck shooting by Ali Abu Kamal that killed one tourist and injured six others before Kamal took his own life?
And then there was the 2002 shooting at the Los Angeles Airport El Al counter by Hesham Mohamed Hadayet that killed two and wounded four others. The FBI and Justice Department concluded that the attack was a terrorist attack by an Egyptian assailant bent on becoming a Muslim martyr.
These are reflected nowhere in the study. Perhaps, like the 2009 Fort Hood massacre by Major Nidal Hasan, who gunned down his U.S. Army colleagues while shouting “Allahu Akbar,” these incidents are considered acts of “workplace violence” and not religious terrorism?
Any agency that sponsors such a grant should have its appropriation reduced by the grant amount in perpetuity. Grants should come from Congress alone.
Really? You want to prevent anyone but the government from doing research? The private sector would be forbidden to do any research?
Wouldn’t that make things WORSE, not better?
You didn’t read it right. He said all GOVERNMENT-SPONSORED research must come from Congress. Of course, this would mean an extreme increase in Federal employees to do research internally. What about the amazing work (including the internet!) done by the DOD’s DARPA?
That wont work either, since it would merely replace idiotic executive branch research with idiotic research sponsored by congressional earmarks.
A better way would be to give congress a sort of veto authority over executive sponsored research. I would have the following procedure:
The responsible cabinet agency conposes a list of proposed research grants, from their congressionaly sponsored research budget, with a description of each project, and who the chief researchers are. The relevant committee can have hearings on each item in the list, and can delete/reduce any item, but cannot add a new one. Congress votes on the list, and any member can propose an amendment on the floor deleting or reducing a grant, but cannot add a new one, or increase one. This vote cannot be filibustered, and must be scheduled in each house within 60 days. This amended list is the projects that are funded. The cabinet agency can then propose a new list to spend any remaining funds that were freed up when congress struck a project. That way no research project will happen unless both the executive and congress agree with it, and if the agency proposes any idiotic grants like this one, congress can easily strike it.
I would propose a procedure like this for new executive branch regulations as well.
ANYTHING that has the force of law should originate in the legislative, as per the Constitution. All of these regulations that were not voted on and passed by Congress should be tossed out and voted upon INDIVIDUALLY by Congress, no additions or editting allowed. Then they can be reinstated or chucked out.
This is exactly why those on the right need to cool a lot of the talk about terrorists – to the left, we are terrorists, because we don’t want big government.
So when the government wants to do something about “terrorists”, remember, it could be happening to you.
I mean, we all know that Krauthammer quip about Conservatives thinking Liberals are naive (or stupid), while Liberals think Conservatives are evil. It’s not just a joke, it’s literally true. To them, Sarah Palin is worse than Osama Bin Laden
“This is exactly why those on the right need to cool a lot of the talk about terrorists”
I might misunderstand your meaning, but I don’t think we need to stop talking about reducing big government at all. That is partly how we got into this mess in the first place. The silent majority needs to be the vocal majority. The TEA Party, AMericans for Prosperity and others are prime vehicles for this.
You completely missed jeremy’s point, and it was a very good point. He was saying that we should be extremely careful what powers we give to the fed gov to fight terrorism, like the patriot act, because the left could end up defining us as terrorists, and use those powers against us, as Obama is now doing. I used to caution the right about that repeatedly during the bush administration, when everybody was valiantly trying to give away our freedoms to fight terrorism. Their reply was always the nieve one that we could trust bush and he would never abuse his powers. That was not true of bush, and it is definitely not true of Obama.
“He who would give away freedom for temporary safety deserves neither freedom nor safety, and will soon lose both.” Benjamin Franklin.
Oh, heck yeah.
“Never give a politician power you’d hate to see in the hands of a politician you’d hate to see have that power. Powers stay with the position, not the politician.”
There’s no excuse for giving the left control of the language.
I’m beginning to find more cards in the deck along with the “race”card. There is the “bitter” card, the “birther” card, the “tea party” card,the homophile card, the “religious” card and now we have the “terrorist” card.
I’ve seen several of these cards flashed before me in what usually starts off with a normal conversation, and then goes down to:
“Ah ha, so you are a “birther”?
Don’t tell me you are a member of the “tea party”?
and on and on
Root and branch, but it won’t happen.
Watch the Romney admin keep this Braniff guy on at DHS, just to “reach across”.
Agreed.
When Democrats are in office, leftism advances at 80 mph.
When Republicans are in office, leftism advances at 30 mph, but it still advances all the same.
I am annoyed with Republicans who delude themselves into thinking that whenever a Republican wins an election that leftism has been undone. In reality, the advance of leftism has merely been slowed slightly.
I wonder how much we could cut the deficit if we stopped allowing taxpayer money to be used for partisan activity. Jay Carney’s salary, most of the top echelon in the cabinet departments, grants like this, HHS’s ad campaign to “promote the health care law”…
We the taxpayers are paying to be propagandized by our own government all over the place.
Ads on the radio, ads on tv, we are sponsoring the brainwashing.
There’s a .gov website now for everything from how to brush your teeth to what to sprinkle on your food. (
(I exaggerate, but only slightly)
The level of “caring and concern” coming out of this crowd is really about “them” telling “you” how you must conduct your daily life & is an integral part of asserting control over, regulating, every aspect of your life.
The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule
it.
~H.L. Mencken
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its
victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under
robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s
cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated;
but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end
for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be
more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell
of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult.
~ C. S. Lewis
Let’s face it; no matter what our party affiliation or our politics, there’s an app for that in this administration to track our every move. They have done it for years, only this time more aggressively since many Americans are tired of the same old stuff with politicians becoming career politicians and not statesman looking out for our benefit. Heck, they have the right to drone us, why bother with paying someone to study us and come up with statistics. Now there is a cost savings for ‘em.
Most of us saw this coming. According to our own government, we are all “terrorists” now.
The new socialism aren’t the politicians, it’s the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy is a living entity that propagates Socialism into mainstream politics. It’s not accountable to anyone. They form these new groups that compliment each other and continues to fund them. These groups do the dirty work to spread Socialism. Look at the EPA. They are trying to take away property rights. They’re even working on regulation that will require the home owner to get their permission to build a swimming pool or clubhouse on your own property. They will soon regulate what kind of trees and shrubs you can plant. The politician is now a second class entity. It’s the bureaucracy that now has the control. Stop by survivalbasictraining.com to read up on all that is happening. Just think, when you have the EPA, FEMA, Homeland Security and 10000 new drones hovering overhead, do you feel more protected or do you feel you have less freedom and liberty.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/jihads-willing-executioners?f=must_reads
We the people have allowed the co -opting of our collective intelligent thinking in favor of being entertained. By the media, by politicians masquerading as Representatives and Senators,Judges and Commisioners, Mayors et al. We are trained, as Pavlov trained the pooches, to respond to the rewards of the nanny state and behave as programmed. We no longer know or understand the law upon which our Constitutional Republic is constructed. Until we educate ourselves, abolish the public school systems run by public employee unions, we will continue in our ignorance and accept the entertainment as fact.
We keep funding this kind of crap study and when we need to cut the budget, the only place either party can find to cut is in defense and social security.
A quick way to cut the deficit would be to cut all these useless find work to stay in business government agencies and their associated programs and studies.
With the stroke of the pen, I could cut billions out of the budget with the majority of Americans not even noticing.
When the term “terrorism” doesn’t mean anything anymore because everyone and their mother (including many law-abiding senior citizens) is meant to be a “terrorist” because they protest big-government then they joke will be on DHS, because the average citizens will be like “terrorist”-”Oh the sky is falling, we don’t believe you feds anymore” so they won’t be able to catch the real terrosts (mostly Islamic fundies) these days!~
So now Homeland Security is turning to churning out “studies” — well it makes sense, how else can it justify its existence? It has been less than useless in capturing terrorists, particularly at our airports — where they have not stopped one single bad guy in its entire history — AT the cost of untold misery to U.S.-Airlines consumers.
Homeland Security should never have been created. It is a colossal bureaucratic waste of taxpayer monies, and a royal pain in the ass. It needs to go. We cannot continue to throw billions of dollars on a steaming pile of BS that has proved itself to have no value to the people.
And, as to the specific issue at hand, I guess it is just plain *terroristic* for Americans to gather in adamant protest of government policies without laying waste to public spaces, and without committing crimes of violence against opposing citizens OR lawful authorities.
One day we will have a “mainstream media” that does not facilitate the smearing of lawful, peaceable, responsible American protestors.
In Congress, July 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
http://www.usconstitution.net/declar.html
re-framing the narrative by changing the language itself? Double-plus good!
GIGO!
As usual these days with government, good taxpayer funds produce drek.
The government of the United States is at war; at war with the citizens. And we are losing.
Don’t forget that women actually want big government. This includes Republican women.
70-80% of all government spending is a transfer from men to women. Why would women want that to stop?
Please explain your flying leap of illogic.
Any woman who “likes” that the federal government is giving her stuff, transferring stuff to her, is a moron.
Just like any woman who desperately cries for rulings like Roe v. Wade in order to say she has “control” over her own body is a moron.
I hope this helps.
For over 25 years, I have been a member of an organization of men and women who are nearly all fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation), and who are sometimes suspicious of centralized federal authority. We are reverent of individual liberty to such an extent that we have all sworn oaths to lay down our lives, if necessary, for its preservation in the face of threats to national sovereignty and/or personal liberty.
I am very proud of my membership in this organization, and am humbled that I have been elevated over time to a position of authority and leadership within it. You may have heard of us. We’re called United States Marines.
Notice that the OWS movement was not mentioned as a terrorist movement or the BPP or CAIR or ACORN. Domestic terrorism isn’t limited to blowing something up or shooting somebody. It can be more subtle and just as damaging. All you have to do is change a law here, impose your will there and soon it can strangle you.
Is anyone surprised that no islamic groups are listed as terrorist groups? After all it is the religion of peace.
Patrick, while your report is accurate overall, you left out a very important attack of jihad. In fact, I covered it in my own op-ed. Please google, ‘The Opening Of Jihad On US Soil’ and see what pops up.
It boggles the mind, confounds the imagination, our gaggle of politically correct wusses in Washington DC that seems intent on ignoring the clear cut agenda for North America laid out in the Muslim Brotherhood handbook in 1991 of
“…destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers…”
Hamas offshoot CAIR, the MSA and all kinds of lesser known groups operating in North America, groups who’ve gained access to and kind words from the Obama administration, are simply amazed at the ease with which the stupid infidel helps them.
Adina, from your article: “In a nutshell, the FBI was not only taken off Rabbi Kahane’s case, but all Islamic “infiltrating” was halted. President Clinton ordered the CIA, and the CIA then demanded that the FBI cease and desist. The Congress also put the squeeze on the FBI. Why? The true motives are anyone’s guess. However, from 1990 until the 1993 first World Trade Center bombing, these groups were not monitored.” End of article quote.
So very sad. The only conclusion one can come to is that the monitoring was stopped in order to give Muslim terrorists total freedom to carry out terror attacks on American soil. The American people were DELIBERATELY made vulnerable by President Clinton and his administration to Muslim terror attacks, including our cherished 3,000 on 9/11. Rest in peace, dear brothers and sisters. We will NEVER forget you. Or forget your betrayal.
The betrayals of the American people by their government continue to this very day.
“extremist” is something of an anti-concept, don’t you think? It serves the cause of these guys well, b/c it can mean everything and nothing at the same time, to whomever says it or hears it.
Who funds these endless studies that result in voluminous volumes of vapidity, outlining a not so masterful grasp of the biased ? (oh,the American taxpayer)
Extreme right wingers, militant groups, are a small number, but Big Sis Napolitano has long been hung up on presenting “right wing” domestic terrorism as a bigger threat than “left wing” domestic terrorism. This bias on her and her organization’s part has been apparent for years in various writings and pronouncements.
Call this another one.
Inside their invented world, tea party patriots would naturally be a bigger threat to stability in America than anarchist Occupiers.
(Napolitano is the individual whose first observation after the Underwear Bombing incident was “the system worked”, “the system” apparently defined as fellow passengers jumping the guy.)
Islamophobia czar, Bill Braniff…Note Braniff’s sweeping assessment (it “happens across the nation fairly consistently”) and his immediate admission that there is no objective basis for his assessment (“no one is tracking this with numbers”).
The idea there is rampant Islamophobia among “right wingers” is central to these idiots’ overall narrative.
The idiotlogues, czars et al. and etc. with whom Barack Obama has surrounded himself and stuffed his administration seem like parrots whose only operative question in any of these so called studies is…WHAT’S THE AGENDA ? What narrative do I reinforce ? Since the ideology is lockstep and the conclusions they must reach are foregone conclusions, that’s a fairly straightforward and easy question to answer.
Do they know they’re Useful Idiots ?
Do they know that they themselves are being used pawns in the destruction of liberty ?
If being “suspicious of centralized federal authority, reverent of individual liberty” makes a person a terrorist, then (even though I abhor political violence and despise anyone, right or left who engages in it,) I’d have to say I’m guilty.
But, I’ve just gotta say, just like a dentist does things involving dental stuff, I’d think that a terrorist is someone who does things involving terror stuff. Silly me.
the Department of Homeland Security is now a gigantic islamic terrorist sleeper cell hidden in plain sight
Unlike the open-in-your-face terror cell called the State Department.
Frankly, I expected this from the current administration’s partisan group of drones. I do not think we have seen how “low they can go” yet. If you study history, this is somewhat similar to how it went down in Germany in the 30′s. First marginalize, then demonize. One difference is those being demonized are not standing by silently and letting it happen. We are being heard and I think people realize what is happening and will set things back on the path to freedom and liberty. All of these ridiculous bits of partisan politics will taint this administration’s reputations and follow them forever after they are “shown the door”.
It always bugs the hell out of me how the term “right” is habitually misused. Note, the “left-wing” is fairly accurately described in terms of political beliefs, while “right-wing” is, instead, ascribed to paranoia, racism, xenophobia, etc. These are potentially motivations for violent action, but they aren’t “right”.
The truth is, there simply aren’t “right-wing” terrorists. How many terrorist attacks have been committed by people wanting to improve free-market opportunities? When people do fight for this, they are fighting against totalitarian governments who are restricting the freedoms of the people and not committing random violence against the people. But since there are very clearly identified “left-wing” terror groups, they feel like there has to be “right-wing” groups simply for balance.
I remember when conservatives thought that The Patriot Act and creating the DHS was a Great! Idea!
…and you wouldn’t listen when other people tried to warn you about the consequences.
Now, your grandma and your kids are being groped by TSA and YOU are accused of being terrorists…for believing in The Constitution, balanced budgets and smaller government. (If you really believed in smaller government, you wouldn’t have backed The Patriot Act or DHS to begin with.)
Enjoy the show. It’s exactly what you wanted.
BS
The Patriot Act was intended to give the federal government more tools in pursuing and exposing Islamic terrorists. It has been upped and re-upped several times in the years since its passage, by both republicans and democrats in Congress.
All the leftist yellers and screamers that “the feds” were going to come into your home and seize your library books during the GWB administration have fallen remarkably silent under the much more credible usurpations of liberty going on under Big Sis and their beloved Barack.
Where does the Patriot Act authorize drones over American soil ? The notion of all this incredible technology in the hands of people like Big Sis and Barack is genuinely scary.
I don’t recall ever thinking that massive hiring of not too bright (and now unionized) individuals to supervise airport security was ever a particularly good idea.
According to this studies definition, I am probably a terrorist, and was one while I was in the USAF for 14 yrs. And I suspect the majority of my fellow USAF conrades were also terrorists, and that all of our armed forces are infiltrated by right wing terrorists. But Maj Hassan was not a terrorist. That was just an incident of workplace violence, that had nothing to do with religion.
Yes, that makes perfect sense to me, not. I still haven’t decided whether Obama is treasonous, or just terminally stupid.
I still haven’t decided whether Obama is treasonous, or just terminally stupid.
Just trying to use the English language any way they can to control the narrative.
They’ve got a MSM that doesn’t laugh in their faces at calling the Hasan travesty “workplace violence”. We the taxpayer pay focus groups to come up with such crapola for our putative leaders to spew at us.
Recall this self-serving president giving a “shout out” to some guy he was sucking up to in the audience before even addressing what had just gone down at Ft. Hood.
We are all under attack from the global elitists which consists of many groups that you can find via the internet including the Trilateral Group, Bilderberg Group, Carnagie Foundation just to name a few. There is also the Skull and Bones group at Harvard University. The elitists have a global agenda to create one world government through the use of war and destabilizing the monetary systems of all of the nations. They are sucking the wealth out of the nations to keep for themselves. They believe that they are Gods and will transcend to a form of biological human machine race. They have plans to cause civil war in order to eliminate the population, especially those who want to maintain the independence of this nation or any other. They intend to use the Department of Homeland Security, the United Nations, and NATO forces to accomplish this. Much of this information you can find at infowars.com, prison planet, plus by researching yourselves. We the people have to be ready to defend our liberties which they are determined to take away.
This one minute video is AWESOME! Remember in November!
America Crossroads: Operation Hot Mic
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?feature=player_embedded&v=-Czo5Vf8KZs
Who does the government regard as the enemy?
Google: Muslim terrorist training camps in America. There are many. They are ALLOWED by our government.
In 2009, Homeland Security declared the people to watch out for were veterans returning from the wars, pro-lifers and Tea Party attendees. In 2011, Homeland Security put out a video portraying white people as the most likely terrorists.
Google: Concentration camps in America
There are many. They are NOT intended for Muslim terrorists. People in Germany thought the murder of millions of innocents could never happen there. But it did.
Watch it. And weep for our great nation and people:
FALL Of The Republic – The Presidency Of Barack H Obama – The Full Movie HQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8LPNRI_6T8&feature=player_embedded
According to DHS reasoning, Islamists are not the real terrorist threat the US faces. The real threat comes from Americans who oppose this administration’s rush towards a communist/socialist/marxist/authoritarian government.
“…anecdotally we are hearing about it all the time… the elevated levels of Islamophobia….”
Might as well say, “We don’t need to show you no steenkin’ science!” Anecdotally you’re an ax-grinding statist hack whose ultimate boss, *anecdotally*, is not legally qualified for office!
Just another manifestation of “veriphobia”‘s rising levels on the Left; they can’t handle the truth.