Terrorism and the U.S – The Enemy within?

Terrorism and the U.S – The Enemy within?

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U.S. security officials have long considered sovereign citizen groups a growing threat to domestic security. In a 2014 survey of state and local law enforcement agencies, state and local law-enforcement officers listed members of sovereign citizen groups as the top domestic terror threat ahead of foreign Islamist and domestic militia groups. The study was compiled by the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START).

A year before that study was published, a man who held anti-government views shot three Transportation Security Administration employees at Los Angeles International Airport, killing one officer.

According to Home Land Security News Wire, the U.S. government has primarily focused its counterterrorism efforts on the threats posed by foreign extremist groups, including the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. Nevertheless, the problem posed by domestic would-be terrorists has not been overlooked.

CNN reports that a new DHS intelligence assessment, released earlier this month, focuses on the domestic terror threat from right-wing sovereign citizen extremists. The report attributes at least twenty-four violent attacks since 2010 to sovereign citizen groups. CNN notes that these extremists believe they can ignore laws and regulations, and that their individual rights are under attack in routine daily instances such as traffic stops or when they are being required to obey a court order.

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In its assessment, DHS predicts that “(Sovereign citizen) violence during 2015 will occur most frequently during routine law enforcement encounters at a suspect’s home, during enforcement stops and at government offices.” In 2012, a father and son were accused of engaging in a shootout with police in Louisiana after a confrontation that began when an officer pulled them over for a traffic violation. Two officers were killed and several others wounded in that incident. The father and son were sovereign citizen extremists who claimed police had no authority over them. “Law enforcement officers will remain the primary target of (sovereign citizen) violence over the next year due to their role in physically enforcing laws and regulations,” added the DHS intelligence assessment.

The threat of domestic terrorism posed by sovereign citizens, armed militias, and other anti-government groups was barely mentioned in the White House conference on violent extremism. The conference dealt exclusively with the threat posed by jihadist Islamist groups. Administration officials say, though, that U.S. security and law-enforcement agencies focus on the threat from all terrorists, regardless of their ideological leanings.

The Justice Department, which is leading the Obama administration’s counter-radicalization efforts against Islamist extremism, says many of the methods and tactics aimed at stopping recruitment of young people for jihad can also be used to fight anti-government extremist groups.