The Domestic Terrorist Threat:
Background and Issues for Congress
Jerome P. Bjelopera
Specialist in Organized Crime and Terrorism
May 15, 2012
Congressional Research Service
7-5700
www.crs.gov
R42536
CRS Report for Congress
Pr
epared for Members and Committees of Congress
The Domestic Terrorist Threat: Background and Issues for Congress
Summary
The emphasis of counterterrorism policy in the United States since Al Qaeda’s attacks of
September 11, 2001 (9/11) has been on jihadist terrorism. However, in the last decade, domestic
terrorists—people who commit crimes within the homeland and draw inspiration from U.S.-based
extremist ideologies and movements—have killed American citizens and damaged property across
the country. Not all of these criminals have been prosecuted under terrorism statutes. This latter
point is not meant to imply that domestic terrorists should be taken any less seriously than
other terrorists.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) do not officially
list domestic terrorist organizations, but they have openly delineated domestic terrorist “threats.”
These include individuals who commit crimes in the name of ideologies supporting animal rights,
environmental rights, anarchism, white supremacy, anti-government ideals, black separatism, and
anti-abortion beliefs.
The boundary between constitutionally protected legitimate protest and domestic terrorist activity
has received public attention. This boundary is especially highlighted by a number of criminal
cases involving supporters of animal rights—one area in which specific legislation related to
domestic terrorism has been crafted. The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (P.L. 109-374) expands
the federal government’s legal authority to combat animal rights extremists who engage in
criminal activity. Signed into law in November 2006, it amended the 1992 Animal Enterprise
Protection Act (P.L. 102-346).
Five discussion topics in this report may help explain domestic terrorism’s significance for
policymakers:
• Level of Activity. Domestic terrorists have been responsible for orchestrating
more than two-dozen incidents since 9/11, and there appears to be a growth in
anti-government extremist activity as measured by watchdog groups in the last
several years.
• Use of Nontraditional Tactics. A large number of domestic terrorists do not
necessarily use tactics such as suicide bombings or airplane hijackings.
• Exploitation of the Internet. Domestic terrorists—much like their jihadist
analogues—are often Internet savvy and use the medium as a resource for their
operations.
• Decentralized Nature of the Threat. Many domestic terrorists rely on the
concept of leaderless resistance. This involves two levels of activity. On an
operational level, militant, underground, ideologically motivated cells or
individuals engage in illegal activity without any participation in or direction
from an organization that maintains traditional leadership positions and
membership rosters. On another level, the above-ground public face (the
“political wing”) of a domestic terrorist movement may focus on propaganda and
the dissemination of ideology—engaging in protected speech.
• Prison Radicalization. Prison has been highlighted as an arena in which terrorist
radicalization can occur. Some prison gangs delve into radical or extremist
ideologies that motivate domestic terrorists, and in a number of instances, these
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The Domestic Terrorist Threat: Background and Issues for Congress
ideologies are integral to fashioning cohesive group identities within prison
walls. It must be reiterated, however, that even for gangs that exhibit these
ideological dimensions, criminal enterprises such as drug trafficking—not radical
beliefs—largely drive their activities.
Congress may choose to consider issues in three areas regarding the federal role in combating
domestic terrorism. First is the issue of definitions. It is difficult to assess the scope of domestic
terrorism because federal agencies use varying terms to describe it. Even more basically, there is
no clear sense of how many domestic terrorist attacks have occurred or how many plots the
government has foiled in recent years. Second, Congress may review the adequacy of domestic
terrorism intelligence collection efforts. For intelligence gathering and program prioritization
purposes, there is no standard set of intelligence collection priorities across federal agencies that
can be applied to domestic terrorism cases. Also, there likely is no established standard for the
collection of intelligence from state and local investigators—aside from suspicious activity
reporting. Finally, it may be of value to explore how domestic terrorism fits into the Obama
Administration’s community outreach-driven strategy to quell terrorism-related radicalization in
the United States. Congress may query the Administration on which brand of domestic terrorists
it plans to focus on under the strategy and which local community groups it intends to engage
regarding domestic terrorism issues.
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Contents
Introduction...................................................................................................................................... 1
Domestic Terrorism Defined............................................................................................................ 2
What Is Domestic Terrorism?.................................................................................................... 3
Toward a Narrower Definition ............................................................................................ 4
Ambiguity Regarding “U.S.-Based Extremist Ideologies” ................................................. 5
Factors Complicating the Descriptions of the Domestic Terrorism Threat ............................... 5
Counting Terrorism Cases ................................................................................................... 5
Sifting Domestic Terrorism from Other Illegal Activity ..................................................... 6
Extremism vs. Terrorism ..................................................................................................... 7
The Lack of an Official Public List..................................................................................... 9
Toward a Practical Definition: Threats Not Groups ................................................................ 10
Animal Rights Extremists and Environmental Extremists................................................ 11
Anarchist Extremists ......................................................................................................... 13
White Supremacist Extremists .......................................................................................... 16
Anti-Government Extremists ............................................................................................ 22
Black Separatist Extremists............................................................................................... 30
Anti-Abortion Extremists.................................................................................................. 32
Protected Activities vs. Terrorism—Divergent Perceptions of the ALF.................................. 34
A Serious Domestic Concern or “Green Scare?” .............................................................. 34
Assessing Domestic Terrorism’s Significance............................................................................... 38
Counting Incidents................................................................................................................... 39
Growth in Hate Groups and Anti-Government Extremism............................................... 41
“Non-Violent” Strategies......................................................................................................... 42
Direct Action ..................................................................................................................... 43
The ALF: “Live Liberations” and “Economic Sabotage” ................................................. 43
The ELF: “Monkeywrenching”......................................................................................... 44
“Paper Terrorism”: Liens, Frivolous Lawsuits, and Tax Schemes .................................... 48
The Internet and Domestic Terrorists ...................................................................................... 50
A Decentralized Threat............................................................................................................ 52
Leaderless Resistance........................................................................................................ 53
Lone Wolves...................................................................................................................... 55
Prison Radicalization............................................................................................................... 59
Policy Considerations for Congress............................................................................................... 61
Scoping the Threat................................................................................................................... 61
Terminology ...................................................................................................................... 62
Designating Domestic Terrorist Groups............................................................................ 62
A Public Accounting of Plots and Incidents...................................................................... 63
Intelligence .............................................................................................................................. 64
How Does Domestic Terrorism Fit into the U.S. Countering Violent Extremism
Strategy?............................................................................................................................... 65
Figures
Figure 1. Hate Groups and Militia Groups, 2000-2010 ................................................................. 42
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Figure 2. ALF and ELF Guidelines ............................................................................................... 47
Contacts
Author Contact Information........................................................................................................... 66
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The Domestic Terrorist Threat: Background and Issues for Congress
Introduction
Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11), domestic terrorists—people who commit
crimes within the homeland and draw inspiration from U.S.-based extremist ideologies and
movements1—have not received as much attention from federal law enforcement as their foreign
counterparts inspired by Al Qaeda. This was not necessarily always the case. The FBI reported in
1999 that “[d]uring the past 30 years, the vast majority—but not all—of the deadly terrorist
attacks occurring in the United States have been perpetrated by domestic extremists.”2
The U.S. government reacted to 9/11 by greatly enhancing its counterterrorism efforts. This report
discusses how domestic terrorists broadly fit into this new counterterrorism landscape, a terrain
that in the last 10 years has been largely shaped in response to terrorists inspired by foreign
ideologies. This report focuses especially on how domestic terrorism is conceptualized by the
federal government and issues involved in assessing this threat’s significance. Today (perhaps in
part because of the government’s focus on international terrorist ideologies) it is difficult to
evaluate the scope of domestic terrorist activity. For example, federal agencies employ varying
terminology and definitions to describe it. Also, domestic terrorism-related intelligence collection
efforts have not necessarily received the same attention as similar efforts to counter foreign
threats. Beyond these issues, the Obama Administration’s community outreach-driven strategy to
quell terrorism-related radicalization in the United States focuses on individuals inspired by Al
Qaeda. How domestic terrorism fits into this strategy is unclear. Congress may opt to examine
these and other issues related to domestic terrorism.
Domestic terrorists may not be the top federal counterterrorism priority, but they feature
prominently among the concerns of some law enforcement officers. For example, Los Angeles
Deputy Police Chief Michael P. Downing recently included “black separatists, white
supremacist/sovereign citizen extremists, and animal rights terrorists” among his chief
counterterrorism concerns.3 Also possibly contributing to domestic terrorism’s secondary status as
a threat, a large number of those labeled as domestic terrorists do not necessarily use traditional
terrorist tactics such as bombings or airplane hijackings. Additionally, many domestic terrorists
do not intend to physically harm people but rather rely on alternative tactics such as theft,
trespassing, destruction of property, and burdening U.S. courts with retaliatory legal filings.
1 This conceptualization of the term “domestic terrorism” is derived from a number of U.S. government sources
detailed in this report. They are further discussed below. This paper will not focus on homegrown violent jihadists.
However, when referring to such actors, for this report, “homegrown” describes terrorist activity or plots perpetrated
within the United States or abroad by American citizens, permanent legal residents, or visitors radicalized largely
within the United States. “Jihadist” describes radicalized Muslims using Islam as an ideological and/or religious
justification for belief in the establishment of a global caliphate—a jurisdiction governed by a Muslim civil and
religious leader known as a caliph—via violent means. Jihadists largely adhere to a variant of Salafi Islam—the
fundamentalist belief that society should be governed by Islamic law based on the Quran and follow the model of the
immediate followers and companions of the Prophet Muhammad.
2 Federal Bureau of Investigation, Terrorism in the United States: 30 Years of Terrorism—A Special Retrospective
Edition, (2000) p. 16.
3 Bill Gertz, “L.A. Police Use Intel Networks Against Terror,” Washington Times, April 11, 2011,
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/apr/11/la-police-use-intel-networks-against-terror/?page=all#pagebreak.
See also: Joshua D. Freilich, Steven M. Chermak & Joseph Simone Jr. “Surveying American State Police Agencies
About Terrorism Threats, Terrorism Sources, and Terrorism Definitions,” Terrorism and Political Violence, vol. 21,
no. 3 (2009) pp. 450-475. Freilich, Chermak, and Simone found that domestic terrorist groups featured prominently
among the concerns of U.S. state police officials.
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While plots and attacks by foreign-inspired homegrown violent jihadists have certainly earned
more media attention, domestic terrorists have been busy as well. It is worth noting that in terms
of casualties on U.S. soil, an act of domestic terrorism is second only to the events of 9/11.
Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on
April 19, 1995, claimed 168 lives and injured more than 500 others. One estimate suggests that
domestic terrorists are responsible for carrying out more than two dozen incidents4 since 2004,
and there appears to be a growth in anti-government extremist activity as measured by watchdog
groups in the last several years. Much like their jihadist counterparts, domestic terrorists are often
Internet savvy and use the medium as a resource for their operations. Prison has been highlighted
as an arena that can foster terrorist radicalization, and white supremacy—a set of beliefs held by
white supremacist extremists—has long played a role in the activities of several U.S. prison
gangs. Sovereign citizen anti-government ideas (that have inspired some domestic terrorists) have
also circulated in U.S. prisons.
Terrorists are typically driven by particular ideologies. In this respect, domestic terrorists are a
widely divergent lot, drawing from a broad array of philosophies and worldviews. These
individuals can be motivated to commit crimes in the name of ideas such as animal rights, white
supremacy, and opposition to abortion, for example. The expression of these worldviews—as
opposed to violence in support of them—involves constitutionally protected activities.
Aware of the lines between constitutionally protected speech and criminality, domestic terrorists
often rope themselves off from ideological (above-ground) elements that openly and often legally
espouse similar beliefs. In essence, the practitioners who commit violent acts are distinct from the
propagandists who theorize and craft worldviews that could be interpreted to support these acts.
Thus, terrorist lone actors (lone wolves) or isolated small groups (cells) generally operate
autonomously and in secret, all the while drawing ideological sustenance—not direction—from
propagandists operating in the free market of ideas.
This report provides background regarding domestic terrorists—detailing what constitutes the
domestic terrorism threat as suggested by publicly available U.S. government sources.5 It
illustrates some of the key factors involved in assessing this threat and concludes by examining
potential issues for Congress. This report does not discuss in detail either violent jihadist-inspired
terrorism or the federal government’s role in counterterrorism investigations. It is meant to be
read in conjunction with CRS Report R41780, The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Terrorism
Investigations; and CRS Report R41416, American Jihadist Terrorism: Combating a Complex
Threat, which provide greater context in these areas.
Domestic Terrorism Defined
Two basic questions are key to understanding domestic terrorism. First, what exactly constitutes
“domestic terrorism?” Answering this question is more complicated than it may appear. Some
consider all terrorist plots occurring within the homeland as acts of domestic terrorism. According
to this perspective, a bombing plot involving U.S. citizens motivated by a foreign terrorist group
such as Al Qaeda constitutes domestic terrorism. While this conceptualization may be true at
some level, a practical definition of domestic terrorism distilled from federal sources is much
4 Based on information from the National Counterterrorism Center’s Worldwide Incident Tracking System.
5 This report does not presume the guilt of indicted individuals in pending criminal cases.
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narrower. It suggests that domestic terrorists are Americans who commit ideologically driven
crimes in the United States but lack foreign direction or influence—whether tactical or
philosophical. This conceptualization excludes homegrown individuals directed or motivated by
groups such as Al Qaeda. Second, what particular groups are considered domestic terrorist
organizations? The U.S. government does not provide a precise, comprehensive, and public
answer to this question. Rather, in broad terms, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has identified a
number of general threats that embody this issue.
What Is Domestic Terrorism?
In the most general statutory terms, a domestic terrorist engages in terrorist activity that occurs in
the homeland. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI, the Bureau) has lead responsibility for
terrorism investigations at the federal level.6
The FBI generally relies on two fundamental sources to define domestic terrorism. First, the Code
of Federal Regulations characterizes “terrorism” as including “the unlawful use of force and
violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population,
or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.” 7 Second, 18 U.S.C.
§2331(5) more narrowly defines “domestic terrorism” and differentiates it from international
terrorism and other criminal activity.8 This definition comes from Section 802 of the USA
PATRIOT Act (P.L. 107-52). According to 18 U.S.C. §2331(5), domestic terrorism occurs
primarily within U.S. territorial jurisdiction, and domestic terrorism involves
(A) ... acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United
States or of any State;
(B) appear to be intended—
(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or
kidnapping.... 9
6 28 C.F.R. §0.85.
7 Ibid.
8 U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, “Responses of John E. Lewis [then Deputy
Assistant Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation] to Additional Questions from Senator Obama,” Eco-Terrorism
Specifically Examining the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front, 109th Cong., 1st sess., May 18,
2005, S. Hrg. 109-947 (Washington: GPO, 2007), p. 41. Hereafter: Responses of John E. Lewis.
9 18 U.S.C. §2331(5).
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Enforcement—Joint Terrorism Task Forces
Aside from the FBI, other federal agencies such as the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and
the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) play a role in enforcement efforts to counter domestic terrorism. These
agencies—as well as state and local law enforcement representatives—typically cooperate within the framework of
Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs), multi-agency investigative units led by DOJ and the FBI across the country.10
JTTFs are teams of police officers, federal agents, analysts, linguists, SWAT experts, and other specialists who
investigate terrorism and terrorism-related crimes. Seventy-one of the more than 100 JTTFs currently operated by
DOJ and the FBI were created since 9/11. Over 4,400 federal, state, and local law enforcement officers and agents—
more than four times the pre-9/11 total—work in them. These officers and agents come from more than 600 state
and local agencies and 50 federal agencies.11
The FBI considers JTTFs “the nation’s front line on terrorism.”12 They “investigate acts of terrorism that affect the
U.S., its interests, property and citizens, including those employed by the U.S. and military personnel overseas.”13 As
this suggests, their operations are highly tactical and can involve developing human sources (informants) as wel as
gathering intelligence to thwart terrorist plots. JTTFs also offer an important conduit for the sharing of intelligence
developed from FBI-led counterterrorism investigations with outside agencies and state and local law enforcement.14
Additionally, there is a National JTTF, which was established in July 2002 to serve as a coordinating mechanism with
the FBI’s partners. Some 40 agencies are now represented in the National JTTF, which has become a focal point for
information sharing and the management of large-scale projects that involve multiple partners.15
Toward a Narrower Definition
The definitions cited above are too broad to capture what the FBI specifically investigates as
“domestic terrorism.” Besides the statutory definitions regarding the crime of domestic terrorism,
the FBI has historically emphasized particular qualities inherent to the actors who engage in
domestic terrorism. According to the Bureau, domestic terrorists do not simply operate in the
homeland, but they also lack foreign direction.16 In fact, the Bureau’s practical, shorthand
definition of domestic terrorism is “Americans attacking Americans based on U.S.-based
extremist ideologies.”17 The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) follows this construction.18
10 Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Protecting America from Terrorist Attack: Our Joint Terrorism Task Forces,”
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/terrorism/terrorism_jttfs.
11 Ibid.
12 Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Protecting America Against Terrorist Attack: A Closer Look at Our Joint
Terrorism Task Forces,” May 2009, http://www.fbi.gov/page2/may09/jttfs_052809.html.
13 Brig Barker and Steve Fowler, “The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force Officer,” The FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin,
vol. 77, no. 11 (November 2008), p. 13.
14 Kevin Johnson, “FBI Issues More Top Secret Clearance for Terrorism Cases,” USA Today, August 12, 2010,
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-08-12-secret-clearances_N.htm; STRATFOR, A Decade of Evolution in
U.S. Counterterrorism Operations, Special Report, December 2009, http://www.stratfor.com/memberships/150745/
analysis/20091216_us_decade_evolution_counterterrorism_operations?ip_auth_redirect=1; CRS Report RL33033,
Intelligence Reform Implementation at the Federal Bureau of Investigation: Issues and Options for Congress.
15 DOJ, “Joint Terrorism Task Force,” http://www.justice.gov/jttf/.
16 James F. Jarboe, [then Domestic Terrorism Section Chief, Counterterrorism Division] Federal Bureau of
Investigation, Testimony Before the House Resources Committee, Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health,
February 12, 2002, http://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/the-threat-of-eco-terrorism. Hereafter: Jarboe, Testimony.
17 Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Domestic Terrorism in the Post-9/11 Era,” September 7, 2009, http://www.fbi.gov/
news/stories/2009/september/domterror_090709. Hereafter: Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Domestic Terrorism.”
18 See Department of Homeland Security, “Domestic Terrorism and Homegrown Violent Extremism Lexicon,”
November 10, 2011. Hereafter: Department of Homeland Security, “Domestic Terrorism and Homegrown.”
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Ambiguity Regarding “U.S.-Based Extremist Ideologies”
On the surface, the FBI’s shorthand definition for domestic terrorism appears straightforward.
However, there is inherent ambiguity to it. Namely, some of the “U.S.-based extremist
ideologies” driving what the Bureau views as domestic terrorism have international roots and
active followings abroad. The ideologies supporting eco-extremism and animal rights extremism
(discussed below) readily come to mind, and people have long committed crimes in their names
outside the United States.19 At least in part, their origins lay in the United Kingdom. Nazism—
with its German origins and foreign believers—is an element within domestic white supremacist
extremism. Anarchism, the philosophy followed by anarchist extremists, also has longstanding
European roots. The racist skinhead movement traces its origins abroad—to the United
Kingdom—as well. It is unclear exactly what the FBI means when it emphasizes U.S.-based
ideologies in its framing of domestic terrorism.
Factors Complicating the Descriptions of the Domestic
Terrorism Threat
A few more issues make it hard to grasp the breadth of domestic terrorist activity in the United
States. First, counting the number of terrorist prosecutions in general has been difficult in the
post-9/11 period. Second, there may be some ambiguity in the investigative process regarding
exactly when criminal activity becomes domestic terrorism. Third, the federal government
appears to use the terms “terrorist” and “extremist” interchangeably when referring to domestic
terrorism. It is unclear why this is the case. Finally, and most importantly, which specific groups
are and should be considered domestic terrorist organizations? The U.S. government does not
provide a public answer to this question. Rather, the federal government defines the issue in terms
of “threats,” not groups.
Counting Terrorism Cases
While statutory and practical federal definitions exist for “domestic terrorism,” there is little clear
sense of the scope of the domestic terrorist threat based on publicly available U.S. government
information. Most broadly, it has been said that in much of the post-9/11 period, the federal courts
and DOJ may have applied different parameters when sorting, counting, and categorizing all
types of terrorist prosecutions—let alone domestic terrorism cases.20 A 2009 study (critiqued by
DOJ) found that the U.S. Federal District Courts, DOJ’s National Security Division, and federal
prosecutors rely on different criteria to determine whether or not specific cases involve terrorism
at all.21
19 See Gary A. Ackerman, “Beyond Arson? A Threat Assessment of the Earth Liberation Front,” Terrorism and
Political Violence, vol. 15, no. 4 (2003), pp. 155-156. Hereafter: Ackerman, “Beyond Arson?”
20 Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), Who Is a Terrorist? Government Failure to Define Terrorism
Undermines Enforcement, Puts Civil Liberties at Risk, September 8, 2009, http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/terrorism/215/.
DOJ issued a press release that broadly challenged these findings and suggested that TRAC may have omitted certain
statistics in its study. TRAC refuted these claims. For the interchange between DOJ and TRAC, see http://trac.syr.edu/
tracreports/terrorism/219/.
21 Ibid.
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A bit more narrowly, in many instances, individuals considered to be domestic terrorists by
federal law enforcement may be charged under non-terrorism statutes, making it difficult to grasp
from the public record exactly how extensive this threat is. Regarding the prosecution of domestic
terrorism cases, DOJ has noted that, “[a]lthough we do have at least one specialized [federal]
statute aimed at animal enterprise terrorism,22 domestic terrorism cases often involve firearms,
arson or explosive offenses; crimes relating to fraud; and threats and hoaxes.”23 In some
instances, the crimes committed by people the FBI describes as domestic terrorism suspects do
not violate federal law. When this occurs, the Bureau, “support[s] [its local] partners any way [it]
can—sharing intelligence, offering forensic assistance, conducting behavioral analysis, etc.”24
Thus, individuals considered domestic terrorists by federal law enforcement may not necessarily
be federally charged as terrorists.
Sifting Domestic Terrorism from Other Illegal Activity
It may not be possible for investigators to describe the criminal activity involved early in an
investigation as domestic terrorism. In these instances, investigators can work toward clarifying
the motives of the suspects involved.25 Domestic terrorism cases differ from ordinary criminal
activity in key ways. Most importantly, unlike ordinary criminals—who are often driven by self-
centered motives such as profit and tend to opportunistically seek easy prey—domestic terrorists
are driven by a cause or ideology.26 If the motives involved eventually align with the definition
laid out in 18 U.S.C. §2331(5), presumably the case becomes a domestic terrorist investigation. In
some instances, ideologically motivated actors can also collaborate with profit-driven individuals
to commit crimes.
To further cloud matters, another category of criminal activity, hate crime, may appear to involve
ideological issues.27 However, as described by one federal official, a “hate crime” “generally
involve[s] acts of personal malice directed at individuals” and is missing the broader motivations
driving acts of domestic terrorism.28 For investigators, distinguishing between “personal malice”
and ideologically motivated actions may be difficult in specific cases. This suggests that sorting
domestic terrorism from hate crimes depends on the degree of a suspect’s intent. Did the suspect
articulate an ideology, belong to a domestic terrorist group, or follow an extremist movement?
The grey area between domestic terrorism and hate crime hints that in some instances, suspects
with links to domestic terrorist movements or ideologies supporting domestic terrorism may be
22 This likely refers to the Animal Enterprise Protection Act from 1992. In late 2006 shortly after the white paper’s
publication, this act was amended by the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.
23 Department of Justice, Counterterrorism White Paper, June 22, 2006, p. 59. Hereafter: Department of Justice, White
Paper.
24 Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Domestic Terrorism.”
25 Responses of John E. Lewis, pp. 41, 42.
26 In some instances such as those involving white-supremacist prison gangs who espouse extremist beliefs, the profit
motive may be paramount in their criminal activity. See Joshua D. Freilich, Steven M. Chermak, and David Caspi,
“Critical Events in the Life Trajectories of Domestic Extremist White Supremacist Groups,” Criminology and Public
Policy, vol. 8, no. 3 (August 2009), p. 508. Hereafter: Freilich, Chermak, and Caspi, “Critical Events. See also: David
Holthouse, “Smashing the Shamrock,” Intelligence Report, Southern Poverty Law Center, Issue 119, (Fall 2005),
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2005/fall/smashing-the-shamrock?page=
0,1; Camille Jackson, “Nazi Low Riders,” Intelligence Report, Southern Poverty Law Center, Issue 114, (Summer
2004), http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2004/summer/nazi-low-riders.
27 For more on hate crimes legislation, see CRS Report RL33403, Hate Crime Legislation, by William J. Krouse.
28 Responses of John E. Lewis, p. 41.
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charged with hate crimes.29 It is unclear to what extent this influences how the government
understands the threat posed by extremist movements that hold racist beliefs. If some individuals
of this ilk commit crimes against police or judges, for example, is the government more apt to
label this activity as terrorism while individuals sharing these same racist motivations but
targeting ordinary citizens based on race, religion, disability, ethnic origin, or sexual orientation
are charged with hate crimes?
The FBI’s public description of the case of confessed would-be bomber Kevin Harpham
exemplifies how difficult it may be to characterize acts as domestic terrorism. Initially the FBI
viewed the case as domestic terrorism. In 2011, Harpham, allegedly motivated by white
supremacist ideology, left a bomb—which never detonated—along the route of a parade in
Spokane, WA, honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The FBI’s Northwest Joint Terrorism Task
Force led the investigation.30 In prepared public remarks framing the “current state of the
terrorism threat” from April 2011, the FBI’s Assistant Director for the Counterterrorism Division
noted that Harpham’s case was one of “several recent domestic terrorism incidents [that]
demonstrate the scope of the threat.”31 Harpham eventually pled guilty to committing a federal
hate crime and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.32 Thereafter, the Bureau
described the case as the successful prevention of a “horrific hate crime.”33
Extremism vs. Terrorism
Another concept that muddies discussion of domestic terrorism is “extremism.” The latter term is
commonly applied to homegrown actors, whether they be domestic terrorists or adherents of
ideologies forwarded by foreign groups such as Al Qaeda. National security expert Jonathan
Masters has suggested that many law enforcement officials likely view “extremism” as largely
synonymous with “terrorism.”34 Masters has also found that there is a “lack of uniformity in the
way domestic terrorist activities are prosecuted” in the United States.35 Presumably, using the
term “extremist” allows prosecutors, policymakers, and investigators the flexibility to discuss
terrorist-like activity without actually labeling it as “terrorism” and then having to prosecute it as
29 While this discussion focuses on intent, domestic terrorists can exhibit additional traits that distinguish them from
other offenders. For example, as part of their involvement in ideological movements, domestic terrorists often are
exposed to more tactical training—in weapons, explosives, arson, reconnaissance, paramilitary discipline—than many
more ordinary criminals. See Anti-Defamation League, Guidebook on Extremism for Law Enforcement, (2007), p. 9.
Hereafter: Anti-Defamation League, Guidebook.
30 Department of Justice, press release, “Attempted Bomber Arrested,” March 9, 2011, http://seattle.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/
pressrel11/se030911.htm.
31 Mark F. Giuliano, Assistant Director, Counterterrorism Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation, prepared remarks
delivered at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence,
Washington, D.C., April 14, 2011, http://www.fbi.gov/news/speeches/the-post-9-11-fbi-the-bureaus-response-to-
evolving-threats.
32 Department of Justice, press release, “Attempted Bomber Pleads Guilty to Federal Hate Crime and Weapons
Charge,” September 7, 2011, http://www.justice.gov/usao/wae/news/2011/2011_09_07_Harpham_Plea.html.
33 Federal Bureau of Investigation, “MLK Parade Bomber,” January 13, 2012, http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2012/
january/hatecrime_011312/hatecrime_011312?utm_campaign=email-Immediate&utm_medium=email&utm_source=
seattle-top-stories&utm_content=62754; Department of Justice, press release, “Colville, Wash., Man Indicted for
Federal Hate Crime in Attempted Bombing of the MLK Unity March,” April 21, 2011, http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/
2011/April/11-crt-509.html.
34 Jonathan Masters, Militant Extremists in the United States, Council on Foreign Relations, Washington, DC, February
7, 2011, http://www.cfr.org/terrorist-organizations/militant-extremists-united-states/p9236.
35 Ibid.
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such. This flexibility is certainly an asset to prosecutors. They can charge subjects of FBI
domestic terrorism investigations under a wider array of statutes and, as a result, not describe the
subjects publicly as terrorists. However, for policymakers this flexibility makes it hard to
determine the scope of the domestic terrorist threat. One cannot get a clear sense of scope if some
individuals are charged and publicly described as terrorists, others are discussed as extremists,
and still others enter the public record only as criminals implicated in crimes not necessarily
associated with terrorism, such as trespassing, arson, and tax fraud.
What Is Extremism?
The FBI’s public formulation of “extremism” suggests two components. First, extremism
involves hewing to particular ideologies. Second, it also includes criminal activity to advance
these ideologies.36 Thus, according to this construction, an anarchist believes in a particular
ideology—anarchism. An “anarchist extremist” is an anarchist who adopts criminal tactics.37
One scholar has indicated a similar bifurcation: First, extremism refers to an ideology outside a
society’s key values, and for liberal democracies, such ideologies “support racial or religious
supremacy and/or oppose the core principles of democracy and human rights.” Second,
extremism can refer to the use of tactics that ignore the rights of others to achieve an
ideological goal.38
“Homegrown Violent Extremists” Are Not Domestic Terrorists
The FBI and DHS have recently popularized the phrase “homegrown violent extremist” (HVE). It
separates domestic terrorists from U.S.-based terrorists motivated by the ideologies of foreign
terrorist organizations. (HVEs include some of the actors this report considers as “homegrown
violent jihadists.”) According to DHS and the FBI, a HVE is “a person of any citizenship who has
lived and/or operated primarily in the United States or its territories who advocates, is engaged in,
or is preparing to engage in ideologically-motivated terrorist activities (including providing
support to terrorism) in furtherance of political or social objectives promoted by a foreign terrorist
organization, but is acting independently of direction by a foreign terrorist organization.”39
36 Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Domestic Terrorism: Anarchist Extremism, A Primer,” December 16, 2010,
http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2010/november/anarchist_111610/anarchist_111610. The focus of this piece, as the
title suggests, is anarchist extremism, not necessarily defining the term “extremism.” Hereafter: Federal Bureau of
Investigation, “Anarchist Extremism.” This type of formulation—extremism consists of adherence to ideologies and
criminal activity committed in the name of these ideologies—is replicated in the definitions provided within
Department of Homeland Security, “Domestic Terrorism and Homegrown.”
37 Making things more complex, the broader concept of “violent extremism” has been used by the Obama
Administration. According to the administration, “violent extremists” are “individuals who support or commit
ideologically-motivated violence to further political goals.” See Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent
Extremism in the United States, August 2011, p. 1, http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/
empowering_local_partners.pdf.
38 Peter R. Neumann, Prisons and Terrorism: Radicalisation and De-Radicalisation in 15 Countries, International
Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence, London, 2010, p. 12, http://www.icsr.info/publications/
papers/1277699166PrisonsandTerrorismRadicalisationandDeradicalisationin15Countries.pdf. In its Guidebook on
Extremism for Law Enforcement, Hereafter: Neumann, Prisons and Terrorism. The Anti-Defamation League has
defined extremists as: “people who subscribe to extreme ideologies.” The group goes on to say, “extreme ideologies are
those that promote world views so radical that most other people will not agree with them.” See Anti-Defamation
League, Guidebook, p. 3.
39 This definition appears to differ from the conceptualization of “homegrown jihadists” used in this report by (1) only
(continued...)
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According to the FBI and DHS, an HVE is not a domestic terrorist—they are two distinct
categories of terrorist actors.40
The Lack of an Official Public List
The federal government does not generate an official and public list of domestic terrorist
organizations or individuals.41 The development of such a list may be precluded by civil liberties
concerns (i.e. inclusion in a publicly available list may impinge on a group’s exercise of free
speech or its other constitutionally protected activities). However, a lack of official lists or
processes to designate groups or individuals as domestic terrorists makes it difficult to assess
domestic terrorism trends and evaluate federal efforts to counter such threats. An unnamed DHS
official cited in a news report stated that “unlike international terrorism, there are no designated
domestic terrorist groups. Subsequently, all the legal actions of an identified extremist group
leading up to an act of violence are constitutionally protected and not reported on by DHS.”42
Constitutionality aside, the lack of a list may also contribute to a certain vagueness in the public
realm about which groups the federal government considers domestic terrorist organizations.
While the government does not provide an official and public list of domestic terrorist
organizations, it does include domestic terrorists (along with international terrorists) in its
Terrorist Screening Database, commonly known as the “Terrorist Watchlist.”43
The government is much less vague regarding foreign terrorist organizations. They are officially
designated as such according to a well-established legally and procedurally proscribed regimen.
According to the Department of State’s Bureau of Counterterrorism, as of January 2012 the
Secretary of State had designated 49 foreign terrorist organizations according to Section 219 of
the Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended.44
(...continued)
including individuals not directed by a foreign organization and by (2) including all sorts of terrorists motivated by
foreign ideologies, not just violent jihadists. See Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of
Investigation, Joint Intelligence Bulletin, “Use of Small Arms: Examining Lone Shooters and Small-Unit Tactics,”
August 16, 2011, p. 3.
40 Ibid.
41 See Christopher Bellavita, “Does the U.S. Have Any Domestic Terrorist Groups?” Homeland Security Watch, June
29, 2010, http://www.hlswatch.com/2010/06/29/does-the-us-have-any-domestic-terrorist-groups/. Hereafter Bellavita,
“Domestic Terrorist Groups.” See also: R. Jeffrey Smith, “Homeland Security Department Curtails Home-Grown
Terror Analysis,” Washington Post, June 7, 2011, http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/homeland-security-
department-curtails-home-grown-terror-analysis/2011/06/02/AGQEaDLH_story_1.html. Hereafter: Smith, “Homeland
Security.” David E. Heller, “Designating Domestic Terrorist Individuals or Groups,” (Master’s Thesis, Naval
Postgraduate School, 2010). Hereafter: Heller, “Designating Domestic.”
42 Smith, “Homeland Security.”
43 Federal Bureau of Investigation, Terrorist Screening Center, “Frequently Asked Questions,” http://www.fbi.gov/
about-us/nsb/tsc/tsc_faqs. See also: Timothy J. Healy, Director, Terrorist Screening Center, Federal Bureau of
Investigation, Statement Before the House Judiciary Committee, Washington, D.C., March 24, 2010,
http://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/sharing-and-analyzing-information-to-prevent-terrorism?searchterm=
Timothy+J.+Healy; Bellavita, “Domestic Terrorist Groups.”
44 For the legal criteria used to designate a foreign terrorist organization, the legal ramifications of designation, and
ancillary effects of designation see Department of State, “Foreign Terrorist Organizations,” January 27, 2012,
http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/other/des/123085.htm. Hereafter: Department of State, “Foreign Terrorist Organizations.”
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Toward a Practical Definition: Threats Not Groups
As discussed above, DOJ and the FBI do not list domestic terrorist organizations publicly and
officially. This may complicate the understanding that federal policymakers have of what exactly
the government considers “domestic terrorism.” While not naming specific groups, DOJ and the
FBI have openly delineated domestic terrorist threats. DOJ has identified domestic terrorism
threats to include criminal activity by “animal rights extremists, eco-terrorists, anarchists, anti-
government extremists such as ‘sovereign citizens’ and unauthorized militias, [b]lack separatists,
[w]hite supremacists, and anti-abortion extremists.”45
The actors who constitute each of the domestic terrorist “threats” outlined by DOJ draw upon
ideologies whose expression largely involves constitutionally protected activity. The FBI
safeguards against cases focused solely on constitutionally protected activities. All FBI
investigations have to be conducted for an authorized national security, criminal, or foreign
intelligence collection purpose.46 The purpose of an investigation may not be to solely monitor
First Amendment rights.47
However, it is unclear how DOJ or the FBI arrive at their list of domestic terrorism threats. This
poses at least two fundamental questions:
• How does a particular brand of dissent become ripe for description by DOJ and
the FBI as driving a “domestic terrorism” threat?
What criteria are involved in such a process?
How many crimes or plots attributed to a specific ideology have to occur to stimulate
the identification of a new extremist threat? Is the severity of the crimes linked to an
ideology taken into consideration?
• At what point do ideologically driven domestic terrorism threats cease to exist?
Should there be a means for public petitioning of the government to eliminate various
threats as investigative priorities?
The below discussion of domestic terrorism threats will follow the order in which DOJ listed
them. This does not necessarily presume the priority of one over the other. It is also important to
note that instances of animal rights extremism and eco-terrorism within the last 10 years are
45 Department of Justice, White Paper, p. 59. See also: Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Domestic Terrorism.” The
FBI’s domestic terrorism investigations likely cover these categories as well as lone wolves (lone offenders): extremists
who commit crimes without the support of a formal organization or network. Some lone wolves are motivated by the
ideologies behind the threats outlined by DOJ, but they can fashion their own ideologies as well. In the past, in the area
of domestic terrorism, the FBI has distinguished between “special interest terrorism” and “traditional right-wing and
left-wing terrorism: “Special interest terrorism differs from traditional right-wing and left-wing terrorism in that
extremist special interest groups seek to resolve specific issues, rather than effect widespread political change. Special
interest extremists continue to conduct acts of politically motivated violence to force segments of society, including the
general public, to change attitudes about issues considered important to their causes. These groups occupy the extreme
fringes of animal rights, pro-life, environmental, anti-nuclear, and other movements.” It is unclear whether the FBI still
uses the categories of “special interest,” “left-wing,” and “right-wing” terrorism. See Jarboe, Testimony.
46 Federal Bureau of Investigation, Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, redacted, October 15, 2011, p. 4—1
through p. 4—2.
47 Ibid.
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more readily available in the public record than cases involving other types of domestic
terrorism. The extensive use of such examples in this report does not imply the prominence of
animal rights extremism or eco-terrorism over other domestic terrorist threats.
Animal Rights Extremists and Environmental Extremists
The term “animal rights extremism” covers criminal acts committed in the name of animal
rights.48 Environmental extremism—most often referred to as “Eco-terrorism”—includes criminal
acts committed in the name of the environment.49 These terms are not applied to groups or
individuals involved with environmental movements or animal welfare protection/rights activism
within the “confines of civil society and the rule of law.”50
Many of the crimes committed by both animal rights extremists and eco-terrorists are perpetrated
by independent small cells or individuals who harass and intimidate their victims.51 These cells or
lone actors engage in crimes such as vandalism, theft, the destruction of property, and arson. Most
animal rights and eco-extremists also eschew physical violence directly targeting people or
animals. Regardless, crimes committed by eco-terrorists and animal rights extremists have caused
millions of dollars in property damage, and some have involved the intimidation and harassment
of victims.52 These two types of extremism are often discussed together, because the two broader
radical movements from which they draw their philosophical underpinnings have similar beliefs
and overlapping membership.
The two movements—the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF)—
have the greatest reach among animal rights extremists and eco-terrorists. The ALF and the ELF
are too diffuse to be called groups. Neither the ALF nor the ELF maintain formal rosters or
leadership structures, for example.53 However, each communicates a sense of shared identity and
attracts people who commit crimes in its name. They achieve this via “above-ground” wings.
Largely using websites, ALF and ELF supporters publish literature highlighting movement
philosophies, tactics, and accounts (press releases) of recent movement-related criminal activity.
Much of this involves protected speech and occurs in the public realm. Press releases allow
“underground” extremists to publicly claim responsibility for criminal activity in the name of
either movement while maintaining secrecy regarding the details of their operations. The ALF
and the ELF do not work alone. Members of other entities such as Stop Huntingdon Animal
Cruelty (SHAC) have committed crimes in the name of animal rights, for example.
48 Department of Homeland Security, “Domestic Terrorism and Homegrown.”
49 For the purposes of this paper, “eco-terrorists,” “eco-extremists,” and “environmental extremists” are synonymous.
These terms and “animal rights extremism” describe individuals engaged in criminal activity in the name of radical
environmental ideologies or animal rights. It is unclear why environmental extremists are frequently dubbed “eco-
terrorists” while animal rights extremists do not have a similar commonplace usage applied to them.
50 See Kevin R. Grubbs, “Saving Lives or Spreading Fear: The Terroristic Nature of Eco-Extremism,” Animal Law, vol.
16, no. 2 (2010), p. 353-57. Hereafter: Grubbs, “Saving Lives.”
51 See Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Putting Intel to Work Against ELF and ALF Terrorists,” June 30, 2008,
http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2008/june/ecoterror_063008. Hereafter: FBI, “Putting Intel.”
52 Ibid.
53 Both the ALF and the ELF focus on criminal activity as central tenets of their philosophies or operational guidelines,
and the FBI emphasizes that criminal activity is a key element in the identities of these movements. See FBI, “Putting
Intel.”
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Additional factors tangle our understanding of the ALF and the ELF. People can simultaneously
participate in both. This may partly be true because the movements are so amorphous. The two
movements also share similar agendas, and in 1993 they declared solidarity.54 All of this can play
out confusingly in the real world. For example, an individual can commit a crime and claim
responsibility for it online in the name of both the ALF and the ELF. One case especially
highlights intersections between the ALF and the ELF.
In late 2005 and early 2006, the FBI dismantled a network that, according to DOJ, committed
violent acts in the name of both the ALF and the ELF. The group included about 20 individuals
and called itself “the Family.” It was reportedly responsible for at least 25 criminal incidents
totaling approximately $48 million in damages in the late 1990s and early 2000s and disbanded at
some point in 2001, due to law enforcement pressure on the group. The Family was responsible
for an arson attack in 1998 at the Vail Ski Resort. Eight simultaneous fires damaged radio towers,
ski lift towers, restaurants, and the ski patrol office at the Colorado site and totaled over $24
million in losses.55
Philosophical Underpinnings
Both the ALF and the ELF rely on and borrow from a number of philosophical underpinnings to
rationalize their beliefs and actions. These help forge a common identity among individuals in
each movement. These ideas are also key principles professed by more mainstream animal rights
or environmental activists engaged in legal protest.
The ALF: Animal Rights and Speciesism. The ALF’s moral code includes the belief that
animals possess basic inalienable rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and this
suggests that animals cannot be owned. According to the ALF, the U.S. legal system—which
describes animals as property—is corrupt, and there exists a “higher law than that created by and
for the corporate-state complex, a moral law that transcends the corrupt and biased statutes of the
US political system.”56 Simply put, the rights of one species do not trump the rights of others. To
suggest otherwise is to be prejudiced, according to animal rights adherents.
For the ALF and other animal rights supporters, the favoring of one species, particularly humans,
over others has a name: speciesism. For the ALF, speciesism is a “discriminatory belief system as
ethically flawed and philosophically unfounded as sexism or racism, but far more murderous and
consequential in its implications.”57 Thus, the movement couches the theft or illegal release of
54 U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, “Statement of Carson Carroll, Deputy
Assistant Director, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives,” Eco-Terrorism Specifically Examining the
Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front, 109th Cong., 1st sess., May 18, 2005, S. Hrg. 109-947
(Washington: GPO, 2007), p. 43. Hereafter: Statement of Carson Carroll.
55 Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Operation Backfire: Help Find Four Eco-Terrorists,” November 19, 2008,
http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2008/november/backfire_11908; Department of Justice, press release, “Eleven
Defendants Indicted on Domestic Terrorism Charges,” January 20, 2006, http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2006/January/
06_crm_030.html. Hereafter: Department of Justice, “Eleven Defendants.” See also: United States v. Joseph Dibee et.
al, Sentencing Memorandum, CR 06-60069-AA, CR 06-60070-AA, CR 06-60071-AA, CR 06-60078-AA, CR 06-
60079-AA, CR 06-60080-AA, CR 06-60120-AA, CR-06-60122-AA, CR-06-60123-AA, CR-06-60124-AA, CR-06-
60125-AA, CR-60126-AA, U.S. District Court, District of Oregon, May 4, 2007, pp. 6, 8, 19, 20-21. Hereafter: U.S. v.
Dibee et al.
56 North American Animal Liberation Press Office, “History of the Animal Liberation Movement,”
http://www.animalliberationpressoffice.org/Background.htm. Hereafter: NAALPO, “History.”
57 Steven Best and Anthony J. Nocella, II, “Behind the Mask: Uncovering the Animal Liberation Front,” in Terrorists
(continued...)
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animals used in research or for economic gain as “liberation.” The ALF views the destruction of
laboratory infrastructure or tools as the elimination of items used to enslave species who have the
same rights as humans. Intimidation of scientists and employees of businesses tied to animal
research or testing is rationalized as confrontation with “oppressors” or those who, in the eyes of
movement adherents, abuse and murder animals.58
The ELF: An Ideological Mélange. Eco-terrorists are motivated by a mélange of environmental
philosophies. There is no single formula for what constitutes the ideological makeup of an ELF
follower, but several concepts likely play key roles in the movement. These are biocentrism, deep
ecology, social ecology, and green anarchism. Biocentrism argues for the equality of all
organisms.59 Deep ecology suggests that all species are part of “the larger super-organism that is
nature.”60 It criticizes industrialization and views modern human impact on the earth as negative
and hearkens back to small communities centered around subsistence agriculture.61 Social
ecology suggests that hierarchical human society leads to social inequalities and environmental
harm. Green anarchism ascribes environmental harm to civilization and domestication and
embraces the notion of “rewilding,” or rejecting civilization and returning to a hunter-gatherer
state to preserve one’s natural surroundings.62
Anarchist Extremists
According to the FBI, anarchist extremists commit crimes in the name of anarchist ideals.63 These
ideals include belief that
individual autonomy and collective equality are fundamental and necessary for a functional,
civilized society. [Anarchism] resists the existing hierarchical structure of society that gives
some people authority and control over others. [According to anarchists] authority imbues
power, and power always is used in illegitimate and self-serving ways by those who have
it.64
Anarchist extremists as well as anarchists engaging in constitutionally protected activity can
oppose government, business, or social interests that they view as dangerous. As this suggests,
anarchists advocate some form of revolution that realigns authority and power in the societies
(...continued)
or Freedom Fighters? Reflections on the Liberation of Animals, ed. Steven Best and Anthony J. Nocella, II (New York:
Lantern Books, 2004), p. 24. Hereafter: Best and Nocella, “Behind the Mask.” Best reportedly advises NAALPO, see
http://naalpo.posterous.com/our-task-new-essay-by-press-office-advisor-st. P. Michael Conn and James V. Parker, The
Animal Research War (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), p. xix. Hereafter: Conn and Parker, The Animal. See
also: NAALPO, “History” which excerpts Best and Nocella’s work.
58 NAALPO, “History.”
59 Stefan H. Leader and Peter Probst, “The Earth Liberation Front and Environmental Terrorism,” Terrorism and
Political Violence, vol. 15, no. 4 (Spring/Summer 2005), pp. 39-40. Hereafter: Leader and Probst, “The Earth
Liberation Front.”
60 Conn and Parker, The Animal, xx.
61 Leader and Probst, “The Earth Liberation Front,” pp. 39-40.
62 Sean Parson, “Understanding the Ideology of the Earth Liberation Front,” Green Theory and Praxis: The Journal of
Ecopedagogy, vol. 4, no. 2 (2008), pp. 54-58.
63 Ibid.
64 Randy Borum and Chuck Tilby, “Anarchist Direct Actions: A Challenge for Law Enforcement,” Studies in Conflict
and Terrorism, vol. 28, no. 3, (2005), p. 202. Hereafter: Borum and Tilby, “Anarchist Direct Action.”
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they desire to transform. However, adherents cannot agree to a single means for attaining
revolutionary change.65
As one may assume, anarchist activity is decentralized. In fact, a basic, temporary organizational
structure—the affinity group—likely plays a larger role in shaping the work of U.S. anarchists
than any formal long-lasting entities or networks.66 Affinity groups are “autonomous militant
unit[s] generally made up of between five-to-twenty individuals who share a sense of the causes
worth defending and the types of actions they prefer to engage in. The decision-making process is
anarchist, that is to say, egalitarian, participatory, deliberative, and consensual.”67 An affinity
group often consists of a circle of friends. The friends coalesce around a specific objective and
break apart when they achieve their desired ends. Individual groups can band together in
“clusters” and clusters can coordinate their efforts, if need be.68 The ends can be legal or illegal,
violent or non-violent, covert or open. These structures have a long history among anarchists, but
other movements use them as well.69 Also, anarchists can engage in what they call “black bloc”
tactics. These involve secretive planning for public—often criminal—activity in which
participants, typically dressed in black, act en-masse.70 Adding to the sprawling nature of the
anarchist movement, some adherents also participate in the ALF and the ELF. These three
movements share general philosophical tenets such as opposition to globalization and
capitalism.71
The FBI has described anarchist extremists as typically being “event driven,” meaning
they show up at political conventions, economic and financial summits, environmental
meetings, and the like. They usually target symbols of Western civilization that they perceive
to be the root causes of all societal ills—i.e., financial corporations, government institutions,
multinational companies, and law enforcement agencies. They damage and vandalize
property, riot, set fires, and perpetrate small-scale bombings. Law enforcement is also
concerned about anarchist extremists who may be willing to use improvised explosives
devices or improvised incendiary devices.72
Anarchist extremists in the United States have been involved in illegal activity during mass
protests surrounding events such as the 1999 World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference in
Seattle, WA.
Anarchist extremists reportedly committed crimes during the 2008 Republican National
Convention in St. Paul, MN.73 To coordinate their protests during the convention, some anarchists
65 Ibid., p. 203.
66 Ibid., p. 207.
67 Francis Dupuis-Déri, “Anarchism and the Politics of Affinity Groups,” Anarchist Studies, vol. 18, no. 1 (2010), p.
41. Hereafter: Dupuis-Déri, “Anarchism.”
68 CrimethInc. Workers’ Collective, Recipes for Disaster: An Anarchist Cookbook, (Olympia, WA: CrimethInc.
Workers’ Collective, 2004), pp. 28-34. Hereafter: Anarchist Cookbook.
69 Dupuis-Déri, “Anarchism,” p. 43.
70 Anarchist Cookbook, pp. 127-130.
71 Borum and Tilby, “Anarchist Direct Action,” p. 208.
72 Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Anarchist Extremism.”
73 Ibid. For information on reported anarchist criminal activity related to the 2008 Republican National Convention, see
Department of Justice, press release, “Michigan Man Sentenced for Possessing Molotov Cocktails,” March 10, 2009,
http://www.fbi.gov/minneapolis/press-releases/2009/mp031009.htm; Department of Justice, press release, “Texas Man
(continued...)
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formed what they called the “RNC Welcoming Committee” (RNCWC).74 In September 2007, the
RNCWC developed a plan to broadly organize the activities of affinity groups intending to
disrupt the convention. Law enforcement infiltrated and undermined these efforts, arresting 800
people, including eight involved with the RNCWC.75 Initially, in Minnesota state court, the eight
“had been charged with felonies: first-degree damage to property and second-degree conspiracy
to riot. Prosecutors added a more serious charge of conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism,
which was later dismissed.”76 Five of the eight pled guilty to gross misdemeanor charges in 2010.
The others had all of the charges they faced dismissed.77
On April 30, 2012, five men who reputedly had anarchist sympathies were arrested for
purportedly scheming to blow up a bridge near Cleveland, OH.78 The plot was apparently timed
to coincide with peaceful protest activity arranged by Occupy Cleveland, an offshoot of the
Occupy Wall Street movement. Occupy Cleveland representatives have stated that the alleged
would-be bombers “were in no way representing or acting on behalf of Occupy Cleveland.”79 An
FBI sting operation led to the quintet’s arrest.80 Purportedly, the group relied on an undercover
FBI employee to supply them with two inert bombs that the conspirators believed
were functional.81
Criminal acts involving anarchist extremists do not have to be event-driven. For example, Joseph
Konopka, the self-dubbed “Dr. Chaos,” allegedly led a group of boys he called “The Realm of
Chaos” in a series of crimes involving vandalism to radio and cell phone towers in the late 1990s
and early 2000s. In 2002, he was arrested in Chicago for storing more than a pound of deadly
cyanide powder in a passageway in a Chicago Transit Authority subway tunnel.82 He had obtained
(...continued)
Sentenced on Firearms Charges Connected to the Republican National Convention,” May 21, 2009,
http://www.fbi.gov/minneapolis/press-releases/2009/mp052109a.htm; Department of Justice, press release, “Austin,
Texas Man Sentenced for Possessing Molotov Cocktails During the Republican National Convention,” May 14, 2009,
http://www.fbi.gov/minneapolis/press-releases/2009/mp051409.htm. For information on a matter possibly related to the
anarchist criminal activity at the 2008 convention, see James C. McKinley, Jr., “Anarchist Ties Seen in ‘08 Bombing of
Texas Governor’s Mansion,” New York Times, February 22, 2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/us/23texas.html.
74 For an archived version of the group’s website see http://web.archive.org/web/20080907081250/http://
www.nornc.org./.
75 Pat Pheifer, “Guilty Pleas Close Book on ‘08 Convention Protests,” Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, October 19,
2010, http://www.startribune.com/templates/Print_This_Story?sid=105311223. Hereafter: Pheifer, “Guilty Pleas.” See
also: Fred Burton and Scott Stewart, “The Lessons of St. Paul,” STRATFOR, September 10, 2008,
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/lessons_st_paul?ip_auth_redirect=1.
76 Pheifer, “Guilty Pleas.”
77 Ibid.
78 Department of Justice, press release, “Five Men Arrested in Plot to Bomb Ohio Bridge,” May 1, 2012,
http://www.fbi.gov/cleveland/press-releases/2012/five-men-arrested-in-plot-to-bomb-ohio-bridge. Hereafter:
Department of Justice, “Five Men.” David Ariosto, “5 Arrested in Alleged Plot to Blow Up Cleveland-Area Bridge,”
CNN, May 1, 2012, http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/01/justice/ohio-bridge-arrests/index.html.
79 Henry J. Gomez, “Bridge Bomb Plot: Suspects Were Active in Occupy Cleveland, Even As Movement Slowed to a
Crawl,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 2, 2012, http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2012/05/
bridge_bomb_plot_suspects_were.html.
80 Department of Justice, “Five Men.”
81 Ibid.
82 Juliet Williams, Federal appeals Court Overturns Dr. Chaos Conviction,” Associated Press, May 31, 2005; Mike
Robinson, “Federal Prosecutors Want ‘Dr. Chaos’ to Remain Locked Up,” Associated Press, March 13, 2002; Meg
Jones and Jesse Garza, “‘Anarchist’ Charged Over Cache of Cyanide,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 12, 2002.
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the material (potassium cyanide and sodium cyanide) from an abandoned warehouse.83 In 2002,
Konopka pled guilty in federal court to possessing chemical weapons, and in 2005 he pled guilty
to 11 felonies, including conspiracy, arson, creating counterfeit software, and interfering with
computers in Wisconsin.84
White Supremacist Extremists
The term “white supremacist extremism” (WSE) describes people or groups who commit
criminal acts in the name of white supremacist ideology. At its core, white supremacist ideology
purports that the white race ranks above all others. WSE draws on the constitutionally protected
activities of a broad swath of racist hate-oriented groups active in the United States ranging from
the Ku Klux Klan to racist skinheads. Some of these groups have elaborate organizational
structures, dues-paying memberships, and media wings. Additionally, many individuals espouse
extremist beliefs without having formal membership in any specific organization.
A large proportion of white supremacists dualistically divide the world between whites and all
other peoples who are seen as enemies.85 Particular animus is directed toward Jews and African
Americans. In fact, a common racist and revisionist historical refrain is that the civil rights
movement succeeded only because Jews orchestrated it behind the scenes.86
Scholars indicate that white supremacists believe in racial separation and that society
discriminates against them. To them, whites have lost “ground to other groups and ... extreme
measures are required to reverse the trend.”87 All of this has been encapsulated in a slogan known
as the “Fourteen Words”: “We must secure the existence of our race and a future for white
children.” This was coined by David Lane, a member of a violent terrorist group active in the
1980s. The Fourteen Words have been described as “the most popular white supremacist slogan
in the world.”88
Neo-Nazism and its obsession with Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany is also a prominent
component of white supremacist extremism in the United States.89 The father of American neo-
Nazism, George Lincoln Rockwell, became publicly active in the late 1950s. According to one
scholar, Rockwell laid down three concepts that have shaped neo-Nazism ever since. For his
followers, he reconfigured the racial notion of “white,” broadening it beyond “Aryan” to include
people of Southern and Eastern European descent. Additionally, Rockwell denied the Holocaust.
83 “Man Pleads Guilty to Storing Cyanide,” Associated Press, November 21, 2002.
84 “Judge Sentences ‘Dr. Chaos’ to Prison for Damage to Wisconsin Power Systems, Associated Press, November 30,
2005.
85 Chip Berlet and Stanislav Vysotsky, “Overview of U.S. White Supremacist Groups,” Journal of Political and
Military Sociology, vol. 34, no. 1 (Summer 2006), p. 13. Hereafter: Berlet and Vysotsky, “Overview.”
86 Leonard Zeskind, Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the
Mainstream (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2009), p. 40. Hereafter: Zeskind, Blood and Politics.
87 Rory McVeigh, “Structured Ignorance and Organized Racism in the United States,” Social Forces, vol. 82, no. 3
(March 2004), pp. 898-899.
88 Anti-Defamation League, Guidebook, p. 16. Lane died in 2007 while serving 190 years in prison for his involvement
with a terrorist group named the Order. See “Founder of Terrorist Group Dies in Prison,” Terre Haute Tribune-Star,
May 29, 2007, http://tribstar.com/local/x1155692948/Founder-of-terrorist-group-dies-in-prison. Among other writings,
Lane also drafted an influential racist ideological tract titled The 88 Precepts.
89 Anti-Defamation League, Guidebook, p. 15.
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He also encouraged tying neo-Nazism to religion, and some of his followers took up the obscure
creed of Christian Identity.90
Conflict and Conspiracy
Aside from racial superiority, a dualistic view of the world, and neo-Nazism, at least two other
broad concepts shape white supremacy in the United States. They are the inevitability of violent
conflict, and a belief that conspiracies hostile to white supremacy shape the existing world.91 It
can be said that WSE broadly shares these concepts with the militia movement (discussed below).
The FBI has stated that white supremacists “commonly anticipate” waging war against their
opponents.92 For example, the inevitability of RAHOWA—an acronym for “racial holy war”—is
a central tenet of the neo-Nazi Creativity Movement, which has its roots in the Church of the
Creator, a racist group founded by Ben Klassen in 1973.93 Klassen, who committed suicide in
1993, argued that whites had no choice but to wage war against non-whites.94 Likewise, some
white supremacists use racism to interpret apocalyptic imagery from Norse mythology embodied
in Odinism.95 Most Odinists are not racists, however.96
Conspiracism has been defined as “the idea that most major historic events have been shaped by
vast, long-term, secret conspiracies that benefit elite groups and individuals.”97 Conspiracy
theories are not the province of a particular movement or group. Regardless, conspiracy theories
can particularly shape the outlooks and actions of white supremacist extremists. Media sources
90 Fredrick J. Simonelli, “The Neo-Nazi Movement,” Southern Poverty Law Center, http://www.splcenter.org/get-
informed/intelligence-files/ideology/neo-nazi/the-neo-nazi-movement. See also: Charles S. Clark, “An American
Nazi’s Rise and Fall,” American History, vol. 40, no. 6 (February 2006), pp. 60-66; Simonelli, “The American Nazi
Party,” Historian, vol. 57, no. 3 (Spring 1995), pp. 553-566. A follower assassinated Rockwell in 1967. For
information on Christian Identity, see Kevin Borgeson and Robin Valeri, Terrorism in America (Sudbury, MA: Jones
and Bartlett, 2009), pp. 47-72; Martin Durham, “Christian Identity and the Politics of Religion,” Totalitarian
Movements and Political Religions, vol. 9, no. 1 (March 2008), pp. 79-91; Tanya Telfair Sharpe, “The Identity
Christian Movement: Ideology of Domestic Terrorism,” Journal of Black Studies, vol. 30, no. 4 (March 2000), pp. 604-
623; Anti-Defamation League, “Christian Identity,” http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/Christian_Identity.asp?xpicked=
4&item=Christian_ID.
91 Berlet and Vysotsky, “Overview,” pp. 12-13 highlights dualism, conspiracism, and apocalypticism as key themes.
92 The Bureau has noted that “warfare” is reflected in beliefs drawn from Christian Identity, the Creativity Movement,
neo-Nazism, and Odinism. See Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Supremacist Recruitment of Military Personnel
since 9/11, July 7, 2008, p. 4. Hereafter: Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Supremacist.
93 After Klassen’s 1993 death, the Church of the Creator was revived in an altered form by Matt Hale. For more
information see Southern Poverty Law Center, “Church of the Creator,” http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/
intelligence-files/groups/creativity-movement. See also: Dobratz, “The Role,” p. 290; and Federal Bureau of
Investigation, White Supremacist, p. 4.
94 Ben Klassen, “RAHOWA: The Fighting Slogan of the White Race,” Racial Loyalty, no. 32 (February 1986),
http://www.archive.org/details/RahowaThisPlanetIsAllOurs.
95 Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Supremacist, p. 4. Odinism has been defined as either a combination of old
Norse religion and Christianity or a belief system that draws exclusively on Nordic mythology. See Jonathan White,
“Political Eschatology: A Theology of Antigovernment Extremism,” The American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 44, no. 6,
(February 2001), p. 939.
96 Berlet and Vysotsky, “Overview,” p. 30.
97 Berlet and Vysotsky, “Overview,” p. 12. For more on conspiracy theories and terrorism see Jamie Bartlett and Carl
Miller, The Power of Unreason: Conspiracy Theories, Extremism, and Counter-Terrorism, Demos, London, August
29, 2010. Barlett and Miller (p. 24.) suggest that conspiracy theories “are one of a number of factors that can lead to
extremism, and can turn extremism to violence.”
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have stated that Richard Poplawski—convicted of shooting and killing three Pittsburgh police
officers in April 2009—believed that a Zionist conspiracy controlled government and major
corporations in the United States.98
As in Poplawski’s example, anti-Semitism plays a prominent role in the racist conspiracies of
many white supremacists.99 These people—as well as anti-government extremists—believe in
something they call the Zionist Occupied Government (ZOG).100 ZOG refers to the federal
government, which adherents contend is “controlled or manipulated by international Jewish
interests.”101 On its website, one WSE group has sold versions of a video game titled “ZOG’s
Nightmare.” Gameplay involves shooting nonwhites while being chased by a police agency
controlled by Jews.102 Racists explain all sorts of personal or social grievances by invoking
ZOG.103 One scholar has described ZOG as
an omnipresent and omnipotent cabal involving at its heart varying constellations of Jews,
Illuminati, Freemasons, plutocrats, and multinational corporations. It operates through many
social ‘front’ institutions, from the United Nations to Parent-Teacher Associations.... ZOG
can be used to explain not only the existence of affirmative action, environmental pollution,
and pornography but also why a certain individual made poor grades in school, lost his job,
or seems unable to find a partner.104
According to adherents, ZOG is said to control the media, arts, religion, science, and education.105
Recent Loss of Prominent Leaders
In the 1980s and 1990s, a small number of figures dominated white supremacist circles. They
were intimately linked to their own relatively cohesive organizations. By the early 2000s, these
groups fragmented as they lost their leaders. This fragmented situation likely persists. In fact, one
study from 2006 has described “a recent crisis of leadership in the hate movement.”106
Two particularly well-known white supremacist figures died in the last decade. William Pierce,
head of the National Alliance died in 2002. Richard Butler, leader of Aryan Nations, died in 2004.
Both Peirce and Butler articulated clear ideologies that attracted followers and drew upon
98 Timothy McNulty, Paula Reed Ward and Sadie Gurman, “Jury Decides Poplawski Should Die for Killing 3
Officers,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 28, 2011. Hereafter: McNulty, et al., “Jury Decides.” See also: Anti-
Defamation League, “Richard Poplawski: The Making of a Lone Wolf,” April 8, 2009, http://www.adl.org/learn/
extremism_in_the_news/White_Supremacy/poplawski%20report.htm. Hereafter: Anti-Defamation League, “Richard
Poplawski.” Sean D. Hamill, “Man Accused in Pittsburgh Killings Voiced Racist Views Online,” New York Times,
April 7, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/us/07pittsburgh.html. Hereafter: Hamill, “Man Accused.”
99 Berlet and Vysotsky, “Overview,” p. 13.
100 Also seen as “Zionist Occupation Government.”
101 Institute for Intergovernmental Research, Investigating Terrorism, p. 93; Mattias Gardell, Gods of the Blood: The
Pagan Revival and White Separatism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), pp. 11, 54, 68-69. Hereafter:
Gardell, Gods.
102 Anti-Defamation League, The National Socialist Movement, http://www.adl.org/Learn/Ext_US/nsm/tactics.asp?
LEARN_Cat=Extremism&LEARN_SubCat=Extremism_in_America&xpicked=3&item=nsm.
103 Gardell, Gods, p. 68.
104 Ibid.
105 Ibid.
106 Jack Levin, Domestic Terrorism (New York: Infobase Publishing, 2006), pp. 48-49.
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resources such as rural headquarters/compounds to sustain their organizations.107 By the early
2000s, the National Alliance even had a substantial revenue stream estimated at $1 million
annually generated from a publishing company and record labels it owned as well as dues.108 The
deaths of Butler and Pierce exacerbated the downfall of both organizations. The decline of these
groups also resulted from a number of other forces, such as infighting among members and
pressure from law enforcement and watchdog groups.109
Two prominent white supremacist movements are discussed below.
National Socialist Movement (NSM)
One white supremacist organization active in the United States is the National Socialist
Movement (NSM). It has benefitted from the decline of these other groups as well as new
leadership in the form of Jeff Schoep.110 The NSM also capitalized on the expansion of the
Internet in the early 2000s. The group, which emerged in 1974, is a descendant of the American
Nazi Party, and until the 1990s and early 2000s “it operated only on the fringes of the neo-Nazi
movement.”111 As of 2008, the group had around 500 members and close associates throughout
the United States.112 The NSM is flexible about membership, allowing its members to also
participate in other white supremacist organizations.113
Individuals allegedly tied to the NSM at some point in their lives have run afoul of the law.
• In Minnesota in April 2012, Joseph Benjamin Thomas was indicted on drug-
related charges, and Samuel James Johnson was indicted on weapons-related
charges. Purportedly the two were tied to NSM—at one point Johnson had served
as its leader in Minnesota. The duo had reportedly formed their own white
supremacist group, gathering weapons and ammunition and planning to attack
the government and other targets.114
• In January 2011, William White, a onetime member of the NSM and founder of
his own white supremacist organization, was convicted115 of soliciting violence
107 Freilich, Chermak, and Caspi, “Critical Events,” 511.
108 Ibid., pp. 512, 513.
109 Ibid., p. 516.
110 Anti-Defamation League, American Stormtroopers: Inside the National Socialist Movement, (2008), p. 3. Hereafter:
Anti-Defamation League, American Stormtroopers.
111 Ibid.
112 Ibid.
113 Southern Poverty Law Center, “National Socialist Movement,” http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-
files/groups/national-socialist-movement.
114 Department of Justice, press release, “Mendota Heights Man Indicted for Distributing Methamphetamine,” April 27,
2012, http://www.fbi.gov/minneapolis/press-releases/2012/mendota-heights-man-indicted-for-distributing-
methamphetamine; Department of Justice, press release, “Austin Felon Indicted for Possessing Firearms,” April 27,
2012, http://www.fbi.gov/minneapolis/press-releases/2012/austin-felon-indicted-for-possessing-firearms; Amy Forliti,
“Affidavit: 2 Men With Supremacist Ties Had Weapons,” Associated Press, April 27, 2012, http://abcnews.go.com/
US/wireStory/affidavit-men-supremacist-ties-weapons-16229960?singlePage=true#.T6LAcdVVLts.
115 Department of Justice, press release, “Self-Proclaimed White Supremacist William White Convicted of Soliciting
Violence Against Hale Jury Foreman,” January 5, 2011, http://www.fbi.gov/chicago/press-releases/2011/
cg010511a.htm.
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online against the jury foreman in U.S. v. Matthew Hale.116 In April 2011, a
federal judge reversed White’s conviction. The judge ruled that prosecutors had
failed to prove that White actually intended to harm the foreman and that White’s
web posting regarding the foreman was protected by the First Amendment.117 In
an unrelated case, in December 2009, White was convicted of four counts of
communicating threats in interstate commerce and one count of witness
intimidation. One of the convictions for communicating threats in interstate
commerce was later reversed.118 The witness intimidation charges involved White
reportedly attempting to “delay or prevent the testimony” of African Americans
in a discrimination case.119 According to publicly available information, in 2005
and 2006 White was involved with NSM, for a time serving as its national
spokesman.120 His activity with NSM ceased after he had a falling out with
Schoep.121
116 Matthew Hale was convicted of soliciting the murder of U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow. In the mid
1990s, Hale revived the Church of the Creator fortunes. He changed the organization’s name to the World Church of
the Creator, and according to a watchdog group, by 2002 it had more chapters in the United States than any other neo-
Nazi organization. Judge Lefkow had originally ruled in favor of Hale in a trademark infringement case involving the
name “World Church of the Creator.” Her ruling was reversed on appeal, and as a result, she had to enforce the higher
court’s reversal. Via email and during a conversation, Hale discussed with his security chief the idea of killing Lefkow.
Hale did not know that his security chief was an FBI informant. In 2003, Hale was arrested for soliciting the murder of
Judge Lefkow, and this, as well as his subsequent conviction on charges related to the case, hastened a downturn in
fortune for his World Church of the Creator. Hale is serving a 40-year prison term. After another name change, the
group—currently known simply as the Creativity Movement—shows signs of revival under new leadership. See
Michael, Theology of Hate, pp. 120-133, 173-188; Southern Poverty Law Center, “Creativity”; Chris Dettro, “Follow-
Up File: White Supremacist Finds Quiet Life in Prison,” The State Journal-Register, Springfield, Il, October 25, 2010;
Larry Keller, “From the Ashes,” Intelligence Report, Southern Poverty Law Center, no. 140 (winter 2010), pp. 12-14;
Federal Bureau of Investigation, “A Different Breed of Terrorist,” June 6, 2004, http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2004/
june/hale060904.
117 Laurence Hammack, “Judge Tosses William A. White Verdict,” The Roanoke Times, April 20, 2011,
http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/283883.
118 Department of Justice, press release, “Roanoke, Virginia Neo-Nazi Sentenced for Threats, Witness Intimidation,”
April 14, 2010, http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/April/10-crt-410.html.
119 Ibid.
120 Laurence Hammack, “White’s Life on Fringe Puts Him at Center of Storm,” The Roanoke Times, July 26, 2009,
http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/213109.
121 Ibid; Southern Poverty Law Center, “Bill White,” 2011, http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/
profiles/bill-white. For other cases involving individuals allegedly tied to NSM, see Department of Justice, press
release, “Valley Man Enters Guilty Plea for Possession and Transport of an Improvised Explosive Device,” September
27, 2011, http://www.fbi.gov/phoenix/press-releases/2011/valley-man-enters-guilty-plea-for-possession-and-transport-
of-an-improvised-explosive-device?utm_campaign=email-Immediate&utm_medium=email&utm_source=phoenix-
press-releases&utm_content=34188; Department of Justice, press release, “Valley Man Indicted for Possessing and
Transporting Improvised Explosive Devices,” January 26, 2011, http://phoenix.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel11/
px012611.htm; Rudabeh Shahbazi, “Documents Show Apache Junction Man Planned To Take IEDs to the Border,”
ABC 15, http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/region_southeast_valley/apache_junction/documents-show-apache-junction-
man-planned-to-take-ieds-to-the-border; Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Domestic Terrorism: Tip Leads to Sting,
Prison for Plotter,” November 29, 2006, http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2006/november/terror_112906.
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Racist Skinheads
In the United States, racist skinheads have a legacy stretching back to the early 1980s.122
However, skinhead culture originated in the United Kingdom in the late 1960s and today has a
global reach.123 Since the early 2000s, the movement in the United States has been characterized
by a proliferation of regional groups or crews rather than a united core organization.124 In law
enforcement circles, racist skinheads have a reputation for violence. This is “reinforced by hate-
filled white power music and literature.” “[T]hey foster [their reputed toughness] through their
appearance (shaved heads or close-cropped hair, white power tattoos) and dress (bomber jackets,
‘braces’ (suspenders), steel-toed boots.”125
Skinheads emerged as a non-racist movement among British working-class youth in the late
1960s. These early skinheads rejected the hippie lifestyle and embraced elements of Jamaican
culture, particularly reggae and ska music. As immigration from South Asia to the U.K. grew,
some white British skinheads embraced racism and neo-Nazism. This racist skinhead variant of
the subculture materialized in the U.S. Midwest and in Texas in the early 1980s.126
In the mid-1990s, many U.S.-based racist skinhead groups allied with one another to form the
Hammerskin Nation (HSN). HSN eventually developed chapters throughout the United States
and in Europe. It had its own annual meeting/concert called Hammerfest, ran a record label, and
had a publishing company. In the early 2000s, other groups such as the Outlaw Hammerskins,
Hoosier State Hammerskins, and Ohio State Skinheads challenged HSN for preeminence. These
groups saw HSN as “elitist.”127 In 2011, by one measure, 133 skinhead groups were active in the
United States.128
In January 2010, the FBI released a bulletin that, among other things, emphasized that some racist
skinheads formed the most violent segment of WSE adherents.129 This supported the findings in a
2008 FBI assessment.130 Between 2007 and 2009, skinheads were involved in 36 of the 53 violent
incidents the FBI identified in the United States as being tied to WSE proponents.131 The Bureau
has stated that “violence is an integral part of the racist skinhead subculture.”132 Elements within
122 Southern Poverty Law Center, Skinheads in America: Racists on the Rampage, p. 3, http://www.splcenter.org/sites/
default/files/downloads/publication/Skinhead_Report.pdf. Hereafter: Southern Poverty Law Center, Skinheads.
123 Ibid.
124 Ibid, p. 13; Federal Bureau of Investigation, Rage and Racism, p. 8.
125 Federal Bureau of Investigation, Rage and Racism, pp. 5-6.
126 Michael R. Ronczkowski, Terrorism and Organized Hate Crime: Intelligence Gathering, Analysis, and
Investigations, 2nd ed. (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group, 2007), pp. 40-41. Hereafter:
Ronczkowski, Terrorism. Southern Poverty Law Center, Skinheads, pp. 3-4.
127 Southern Poverty Law Center, Skinheads, p. 5.
128 See Mark Potok, “The Year in Hate and Extremism,” Intelligence Report, Southern Poverty Law Center, no. 145
(Spring 2012), p. 46. Hereafter: Potok, “The Year.” Potok notes that this count of skinhead groups “understates their
numbers” because “skinheads are migratory and often not affiliated with groups.”
129 Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Supremacist Extremist Violence Possibly Decreases But Racist Skinheads
Remain the Most Violent, January 28, 2010. Hereafter: Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Supremacist Extremist
Violence.
130 Federal Bureau of Investigation, Rage and Racism: Skinhead Violence on the Far Right, December 10, 2008.
Hereafter: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Rage and Racism..
131 Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Supremacist Extremist Violence, p. 4.
132 Federal Bureau of Investigation, Rage and Racism, p. 5.
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the fractious movement even target one another.133 These criminal acts are typically unrehearsed
and opportunistic, targeting nonwhites and “other religious and social minorities.”134
An apparent recent exception involved greater levels of planning. One man was convicted and
two others pled guilty in a Connecticut case that involved the illegal sale of firearms and
homemade grenades. The scheme included multiple meetings between late 2008 and early 2010
to negotiate the transactions, prepare the firearms, and assemble the grenades. The trio was tied to
a skinhead group known as Battalion 14 (originally called the Connecticut White Wolves). They
sold the weapons to a convicted felon working as an FBI cooperating witness. The informant
posed as a member of the Imperial Klans of America, a Ku Klux Klan organization. Two others in
the case, including the leader of Battalion 14 and a man not tied to the group, were acquitted
of charges.135
Anti-Government Extremists
As mentioned above, DOJ considers both unauthorized militias and sovereign citizens as anti-
government extremists. Neither militia membership nor advocacy of sovereign citizen tenets
makes one a terrorist or a criminal. However, in some instances both militia members and
sovereign citizens have committed crimes driven in part by their ideologies.
Militia Extremists
The militia movement emerged in the 1990s as a collection of armed, paramilitary groups formed
to stave off what they perceived as intrusions of an invasive government.136 Central to this is a
fear of firearm confiscation by a federal government thought to be out of control. Some adherents
also believe in anti-Semitic and racist ideologies.137 Regardless, most militia members engage in
constitutionally protected activity.
Militia groups typically coalesce around a specific leader. Groups can run training compounds
where they rehearse paramilitary tactics, practice their survival skills, and receive weapons
instruction and lessons in movement ideology. Some militia groups also maintain websites for
recruitment and fundraising.138 Extremists within the movement who run afoul of law
133 Southern Poverty Law Center, Skinheads, pp. 5, 16.
134 Federal Bureau of Investigation, Rage and Racism, p. 5.
135 Department of Justice, press release, “Milford Man Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison for Making Grenades and
Selling Guns Intended for White Supremacist Group,” May 5, 2011, http://newhaven.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel11/
nh050511.htm; Michael P. Mayko, “Two Acquitted in White Wolves Conspiracy Case,” Connecticut Post, December
2, 2010, http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Two-acquitted-in-White-Wolves-conspiracy-case-850538.php; Michael P.
Mayko, “White Wolves Called ‘Home Grown Terrorists,’” Connecticut Post, November 16, 2010,
http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/White-Wolves-called-home-grown-terrorists-812091.php; Anti-Defamation
League, “Connecticut White Supremacists Indicted on Firearms and Explosives Charges,” March 24, 2010;
http://www.adl.org/learn/extremism_in_the_news/White_Supremacy/ct_arrets_batallian_14.htm?LEARN_Cat=
Extremism&LEARN_SubCat=Extremism_in_the_News.
136 Institute for Intergovernmental Research, Investigating Terrorism and Criminal Extremism: Terms and Concepts,
Version 1.0, (Tallahassee, Florida: Institute for Intergovernmental Research, 2005), p. 49; Hereafter: Institute for
Intergovernmental Research, Investigating Terrorism.
137 Arizona Counter-Terrorism Information Center, “Sovereign Citizens and Militia Information,” August 19, 2008, p.
1.
138 Lane Crothers, “The Cultural Foundations of the Modern Militia Movement,” New Political Science, vol. 24, no. 2
(continued...)
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enforcement “tend to stockpile illegal weapons and ammunition, trying illegally to get their hands
on fully automatic firearms or attempting to convert weapons to fully automatic. They also try to
buy or manufacture improvised explosive devices. ”139
Segments of the militia movement believe that the U.S. government is either run by some hidden
conspiracy or is an overreaching sham. Some see a “New World Order” controlling U.S.
institutions such as the media and the federal government. They contend that this is partly
fostered by international organizations such as the United Nations. From this perspective, these
organizations sap American sovereignty. Some militia supporters believe that agents of an un-
authentic “Shadow Government” are interested in seizing lawfully owned firearms as part of a
plan to undermine democracy.140 Importantly, others in the militia movement hold that the federal
government has overstepped its constitutional bounds.141 One scholar has noted that some militia
members assert that they have “the right to organize, purchase and use firearms, and enforce the
law against agents of the government who behave unconstitutionally.”142
A small minority of Americans who held anti-government fears formed militias largely in
response to two incidents in the early 1990s. These were confrontations between federal law
enforcement and private citizens at Ruby Ridge, ID, and at a site near Waco, TX.143 Both involved
warrants related to firearms violations.
• In August 1992, Randy Weaver and his family were engaged in an 11-day
standoff with federal law enforcement agents. Randy Weaver had failed to appear
in court on firearms-related charges in 1991. Subsequently, an unsuccessful
operation to arrest Weaver led to the death of his 14-year-old son and a U.S.
Marshal. It also precipitated the standoff. During the standoff, Weaver and a
friend were shot and wounded. An FBI sniper also shot and killed Weaver’s wife,
Vicki.144 Weaver was eventually found guilty of failing to appear in court on the
gun charges that played a role in the standoff. In October 1993, he was sentenced
to 18 months in jail and a $10,000 fine. In 1995, Weaver received a $3.1 million
settlement in a wrongful death suit filed against the U.S. government.145 The
(...continued)
(2002), p. 231. Hereafter: Crothers, “The Cultural.”
139 Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Domestic Terrorism: Focus on Militia Extremism,” September 22, 2011,
http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/september/militia_092211/militia_092211.
140 Lane Crothers, Rage on the Right: The American Militia Movement from Ruby Ridge to Homeland Security
(Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003), p. 57. Hereafter: Crothers, Rage on the Right.
141 Crothers, “The Cultural,” pp. 226-228.
142 Ibid., p. 228.
143 Ibid., pp. 230-231. See also: Michael Barkun, “Appropriated Martyrs: The Branch Davidians and the Radical
Right,” Terrorism and Political Violence, vol. 19, no. 1 (2007), p. 120. Hereafter, Barkun, “Appropriated Martyrs.” See
also: Steven M. Chermak, Searching for a Demon: The Media Construction of the Militia Movement, (Boston:
Northeastern University Press, 2002).
144 Stuart A. Wright, Patriots, Politics, and the Oklahoma City Bombing (New York: Cambridge University Press,
2007), pp. 142-148. Hereafter: Wright, Patriots. Weaver has been described as a survivalist who believed in the
Christian Identity religion. See Barkun “Appropriated Martyrs,” p. 118. He has also been described as holding white
supremacist beliefs and was not a militia member. See Crothers, Rage on the Right, pp. 78-79.
145 Crothers, Rage on the Right, p. 90.
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events at Ruby Ridge helped precipitate the militia movement, whose members
tend to view Randy Weaver as a hero and demonize the federal government.146
• The militia movement also emerged because of the 51-day standoff between
federal law enforcement and a religious sect named the Branch Davidians near
Waco.147 On February 28, 1993, an unsuccessful attempt by ATF agents to arrest
the sect’s leader, David Koresh, initiated the events near Waco. He was wanted
on suspicion of federal firearms and explosives violations.148 Four ATF agents
and six Branch Davidians died in a gunfight during the operation.149 Protracted
discussions followed between federal negotiators and Koresh. These failed. On
April 19, federal agents assaulted the Davidian compound, which caught on fire.
At least 75 Branch Davidians perished in the assault.150
If the incidents involving the Weavers and the Branch Davidians helped form the militia
movement, Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma
City on April 19, 1995, helped usher in a temporary decline.151 In the bombing’s aftermath, militia
groups received greater law enforcement scrutiny.152 The bombing claimed 168 lives, and until
9/11 was the largest single act of terrorism on U.S. soil. The militia movement included 441
groups in 1995. By 2000, this number was reportedly down to 72.153 Although McVeigh’s
bombing cannot fully account for a dip in militia activity, it impacted the movement by causing
some groups to temper their rhetoric while others grew more extreme, and militias became more
marginalized.154
The militia movement has experienced a recent resurgence. One watchdog group has attributed
this partly to a rise in anti-government anger since 2008.155 According to another organization, the
number of militias in the United States jumped from 42 in 2008 to 334 in 2011 (see Figure 1).
The recent resurgence may exhibit a key difference from its precursor. Social networking
websites have encouraged looser organization of smaller, largely web-based cells.156
Several examples highlight how some militia adherents have allegedly engaged in criminal
activity since 9/11.
146 Wright, Patriots, pp. 149-152; Crothers, Rage on the Right, pp. 92-97; Barkun, “Appropriated Martyrs,” pp. 120-
121.
147 Crothers, Rage on the Right, p. 104.
148 Department of Justice, Report to the Deputy Attorney General on the Events at Waco, Texas, October 8, 1993,
http://www.justice.gov/publications/waco/wacoexec.html. The Branch Davidian sect emerged from the Seventh-Day
Adventist Church and was formed in 1929. The two severed official ties with one another in 1934. David Koresh was
not a militia member. See Crothers, Rage on the Right, pp. 100-101.
149 Crothers, Rage on the Right, p. 105.
150 Crothers, Rage on the Right, p. 110.
151 McVeigh was not a militia member, but he interacted with others who were.
152 Devlin Barett and Eileen Sullivan, “FBI Sees Little Chance of Copycat Militia Plots,” Associated Press, March 31,
2010.
153 Potok, “The Year,” p. 42.
154 Crothers, Rage on the Right, p. 138, 147.
155 Anti-Defamation League, Rage Grows in America: Anti-Government Conspiracies, the Resurgence of the Militia
Movement, November 16, 2009, http://www.adl.org/special_reports/rage-grows-in-America/militia-movement.asp.
156 Ibid.
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• In November 2011, the FBI arrested four retirees, Samuel J. Crump, Ray H.
Adams, Dan Roberts, and Frederick W. Thomas, who allegedly formed a fringe
militia group and planned violent attacks on government officials. The group,
based in northern Georgia, purportedly had ties to an unnamed militia
organization. According to DOJ, the quartet “discussed multiple criminal
activities, ranging from murder; theft; manufacturing and using toxic agents; and
assassinations in an effort to undermine federal and state government and to
advance their interests.”157 Between June and November 2011, Roberts and
Thomas met with an FBI undercover agent to negotiate the purchase of matériel
for the plot: “a silencer for a rifle and conversion parts to make a fully automatic
rifle, as well as explosives.”158 In October, plotters reportedly discussed making
ricin, a deadly poison derived from castor beans.159 In April 2012, Roberts and
Thomas pled guilty to conspiring to obtain an unregistered explosive device and
silencer.160
• In March 2011 and January 2012, four individuals were indicted in Anchorage,
AK, on federal conspiracy and firearms charges.161 They were members of the
Alaska Peacemaker’s Militia based in Fairbanks and also held sovereign citizen
beliefs (described elsewhere in this report). The purported leader of the group,
Francis “Schaeffer” Cox, and his followers allegedly plotted “a potential
retaliatory response to any attempt by law enforcement to arrest Cox, who had an
outstanding bench warrant for not attending a trial over a misdemeanor weapons
charge.”162 The plotters supposedly codenamed their plan “241 (two for one),”
because they reputedly intended to kill two government officials for every militia
member killed in the operation.163 DOJ has indicated that two of the indicted
militia members also plotted to murder a federal district judge and an Internal
157 Department of Justice, press release, “North Georgia Men Arrested, Charged in Plots to Purchase Explosives,
Silencer and to Manufacture a Biological Toxin,” November 1, 2011, http://www.fbi.gov/atlanta/press-releases/2011/
north-georgia-men-arrested-charged-in-plots-to-purchase-explosives-silencer-and-to-manufacture-a-biological-toxin.
158 Ibid.
159 Craig Schneider, “Documents: Men with Castor Beans, Guns Worried about Getting Caught,” Atlanta Journal-
Constitution, November 6, 2011, http://www.ajc.com/news/documents-men-with-castor-1218644.html.
160 Department of Justice, press release, “North Georgia Men Plead Guilty to Plot to Purchase Explosives and a
Silencer,” April 10, 2012, http://www.fbi.gov/atlanta/press-releases/2012/north-georgia-men-plead-guilty-to-plot-to-
purchase-explosives-and-a-silencer?utm_campaign=email-Immediate&utm_medium=email&utm_source=atlanta-
press-releases&utm_content=86514.
161 Department of Justice, press release, “Superseding Indictment Returned by Federal Grand Jury Against Fairbanks-
Area Men for Conspiracy to Kill Federal Officers,” January 23, 2011, http://www.fbi.gov/anchorage/press-releases/
2012/superseding-indictment-returned-by-federal-grand-jury-against-fairbanks-area-men-for-conspiracy-to-kill-federal-
officers; Department of Justice, press release, “Couple Charged with Conspiracy to Murder Judge and Federal Firearms
Crimes, Two Others Indicted for Conspiracy to Possess Destructive Devices and Illegal Weapons,” March 17, 2011,
http://www.fbi.gov/anchorage/press-releases/2011/couple-charged-for-conspiracy-to-murder-judge-and-federal-
firearms-crimes. Hereafter: Department of Justice, “Couple Charged.”
162 Sam Friedman, “Details Emerge in Alleged Plot to Kill Alaska State Troopers, Judge,” Fairbanks Daily News-
Miner, March 3, 2011, http://www.newsminer.com/view/full_story/12322747/article-Details-emerge-in-alleged-plot-
to-kill-Alaska-State-Troopers—judge?instance=home_news_window_left_top_2. Hereafter: Friedman, “Details
Emerge.” Cox has also been described as a sovereign citizen (discussed below). See Sam Friedman, “The Schaeffer
Cox File: The Trail of a Young Man,” Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, April 10, 2011, http://www.newsminer.com/view/
full_story/12739189/article-The-Schaeffer-Cox-File—The-trail-of-a-young-man?instance=home_most_popular2.
163 Ibid.
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Revenue Service (IRS) employee.164 A fifth individual has been arrested in
connection with the plot.165
The above alleged activities are not necessarily indicative of trends toward violence in the larger
militia movement, and in one prominent case, DOJ failed to convince the presiding judge of
serious charges revolving around a purported violent plot. In March 2012, a federal judge
acquitted members of a Michigan Militia group known as the Hutaree on charges of seditious
conspiracy or rebellion against the United States and conspiring to use weapons of mass
destruction. The judge also cleared the accused Hutaree members of weapons crimes related to
the conspiracies.166
The case garnered headlines in March 2010, when nine Hutaree members were indicted for
allegedly preparing to violently confront U.S. law enforcement. 167 Their supposed plotting
included the murder of a local law enforcement officer and an attack on fellow officers who
gathered in Michigan for the funeral procession. According to DOJ, the Hutaree discussed the use
of explosives against the funeral procession.168 Audio recordings by an undercover FBI agent of
reputed Hutaree leader David Brian Stone capture him discussing the New World Order and how,
“it’s time to strike and take our nation back so we will be free of tyranny.... The war will come
whether we are ready or not.”169 According to DOJ, the group had a hit list that included federal
judges, among others.170 However, during the trial an Assistant U.S. Attorney acknowledged that
the Hutaree had not formed a “specific plan” to attack government targets.171 U.S. District Judge
Victoria Roberts stated that, “The court is aware that protected speech and mere words can be
164 Department of Justice, “Couple Charged.”
165 Friedman, “Details Emerge.” For examples of other militia adherents involved in crime, see Meghann M. Cuniff,
“Health Problems Reduce Militia Leader’s Sentence,” The Spokesman-Review, August 11, 2011,
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2011/aug/11/health-problems-reduce-militia-leaders-sentence/; Bill Morlin, “Idaho
Militia Leader Sentenced for Weapons, Bombs,” Hatewatch, Southern Poverty Law Center, August 9, 2011,
http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2011/08/09/idaho-militia-leader-sentenced-for-weapons-bombs/?ondntsrc=
MBQ110870HTW&newsletter=HW081111; David Cole, “Militia Member Sentenced on Federal Firearms and
Explosives Charges,” Coeur d'Alene Press, August 9, 2011, http://www.cdapress.com/news/local_news/
article_0cb55774-c2dc-11e0-9136-001cc4c03286.html; Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Preventing Terrorist Attacks
on U.S. Soil: The Case of the Wrong Package Falling into the Right Hands,” April 9, 2004, http://www.fbi.gov/news/
stories/2004/april/krar040904; Scott Gold, Case Yields Chilling Signs of Domestic Terror Plot,” Los Angeles Times,
January 7, 2004.
166 Ed White, “Michigan Militia Members Cleared of Conspiracy,” Associated Press, March 27, 2012,
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/critical-charges-dropped-michigan-militia-16013255?singlePage=
true#.T3MB5kd_lLc. Hereafter: White, “Michigan Militia.”
167 Department of Justice, press release, “Nine Members of a Militia Group Charged with Seditious Conspiracy and
Related Charges,” March 29, 2010, http://www.fbi.gov/detroit/press-releases/2010/de032910.htm.
168 Ibid.
169 Corey Williams and Jeff Karoub, “Prosecutor: Undercover FBI Agent Infiltrated Militia,” Associated Press, March
31, 2010.
170 Dan Harris, Emily Friedman, and Tahman Bradley, “Undercover Agent Key Witness Against Hutaree Militia
Members,” ABC News, April 1, 2010, http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/undercover-agent-credited-hutaree-militia-bust/
story?id=10257584.
171 Robert Snell and Christine Ferretti, “Key Charges Dropped Against Hutaree Militia,” Detroit News, March 28,
2011, http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120328/METRO/203280376/Key-charges-dropped-against-Hutaree-
militia?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|s.
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sufficient to show a conspiracy. In this case, however, they do not rise to that level,”172 Three
Hutaree members pled guilty to firearms charges.173
Sovereign Citizen Movement
The FBI defines the sovereign citizen movement as “anti-government extremists who believe that
even though they physically reside in this country, they are separate or ‘sovereign’ from the
United States. As a result, they do not accept any government authority, including courts, taxing
entities, motor vehicle departments, or law enforcement.”174 However, simply holding these views
is not a criminal act, and numerous movement adherents solely exercise their beliefs via
constitutionally protected activities.
The ideas behind the movement originated during the 1970s with a group known as the Posse
Comitatus and enjoyed some popularity in extremist circles during the 1980s and 1990s.175 Early
on, the movement featured white supremacist elements, but this has not kept some African
Americans from subscribing to its ideals in recent years.176 In the 1990s, the movement attracted
250,000 followers and was marked by the FBI’s standoff with a group known as the Montana
Freemen that lasted 81 days.177 Current estimates suggest a membership of 300,000.178
For the most part, the sovereign citizen movement is diffuse and includes few organized
groups.179 The FBI suggests that sovereigns “operate as individuals without established leadership
172 White, “Michigan Militia.”
173 See Department of Justice, Press Release, “Members of the Hutaree Militia Plead Guilty to Weapons Charges,”
March 29, 2012, http://www.fbi.gov/detroit/press-releases/2012/members-of-the-hutaree-militia-plead-guilty-to-
weapons-charges?utm_campaign=email-Immediate&utm_medium=email&utm_source=detroit-press-releases&
utm_content=83489; Matthew Dolan, “Defendant in Michigan Militia Case Changes Plea to Guilty,” December 6,
2011, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204083204577080630555077796.html?mod=googlenews_wsj.
When the Hutaree suspects were arrested in the case, some militia members in Michigan did not support the group’s
alleged scheming. For example, a member of another militia group in Michigan provided information to authorities
regarding the whereabouts of a fugitive Hutaree militia member. See Kirk Johnson, “Militia Draws Distinctions
Between Groups,” New York Times, March 31, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/us/01michigan.html. Also, a
militia leader from Michigan has said that the Hutaree case, “caused a rift in the militia movement about whether this is
the sort of group we want to rally behind or if what they were doing was outside the scope of what’s acceptable.” See
Robert Snell, “Militias Split over Defending Hutaree,” Detroit News, March 31, 2011.
174 Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Domestic Terrorism: The Sovereign Citizen Movement,” April 13, 2010,
http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2010/april/sovereigncitizens_041310. Hereafter: Federal Bureau of Investigation,
“Sovereign Citizen.”
175 Anti-Defamation League, “Sovereign Citizen Movement,” http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/scm.asp?xpicked=4;
Casey Sanchez, “Return of the Sovereigns,” Intelligence Report, Southern Poverty Law Center, no. 133 (spring 2009),
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2009/spring/return-of-the-sovereigns.
176 Sarah Netter, “Anti-Government Sovereign Citizens Taking Foreclosed Homes Using Phony Deeds, Authorities
Say,” ABC News, August 23, 2010, http://abcnews.go.com/US/georgia-battling-sovereign-citizens-squatting-
foreclosed-homes/story?id=11445382. See Leah Nelson, “Sovereigns in Black,” Intelligence Report, Southern Poverty
Law Center, no. 143 (Fall 2011), http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2011/fall/
-sovereigns-in-black.
177 Patrik Jonsson, “‘Sovereign citizens’: Is Jared Loughner a sign of revived extremist threat?” Christian Science
Monitor, March 9, 2011, http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0309/Sovereign-citizens-Is-Jared-Loughner-a-sign-of-
revived-extremist-threat.
178 Ibid.
179 One sovereign citizens group is the “Republic for the united States of America” (RuSA) which is based in Alabama.
RuSA is a successor to a group known as the Guardians of the Free Republics (GFR), which in 2010 mailed letters to
the governors of all 50 U.S. states urging them to leave office. See Southern Poverty Law Center, “Sovereign
(continued...)
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and only come together in loosely affiliated groups to train, help each other with paperwork
[critical to some of their schemes], or socialize and talk about their ideology.”180 The movement
involves leaders described as “gurus” who proselytize online, in print publications, or via in-
person seminars. These gurus rouse followers into believing a conspiracy theory in which the
legitimate federal government has been replaced by a government designed to take away the
rights of ordinary citizens.181 This shares the same broad interplay between concepts of legitimate
and illegitimate rule seen in the New World Order and WSE theories about ZOG. Gurus can also
promote illegal techniques that individuals can use to supposedly cut their ties to the federal
government or avoid its reach, particularly when it comes to taxation.182
Sovereign citizens reject the legitimacy of much of the U.S. legal system.183 Many believe that
the 14th Amendment “shifted the nation from its original common-law roots with states’ rights to
a federal corporation that legally enslaved everyone.”184 According to movement members, the
amendment ushered in an illegitimate federal government by supposedly abrogating individual
rights and replacing them with a system that “grant[ed] privileges through contracts such as
marriage and driver’s licenses, gun permits, and property codes.”185
By ignoring all sorts of laws, avoiding taxes, disregarding permit requirements, and destroying
government-issued identification documents, some sovereign citizens have tried to cut formal ties
with what they perceive as an illegitimate regime.186 Sovereigns have filed court documents
stating that they are not U.S. citizens.187 They have also created bogus financial documents to
harass or defraud their enemies. (For more information, see the “Paper Terrorism”: Liens,
Frivolous Lawsuits, and Tax Schemes” section in this report).
Sovereign citizens have in some instances created fictitious entities and used fake currency,
passports, license plates, and driver licenses. In 2009, a federal jury found three men guilty of
conspiring to use and sell fraudulent diplomatic credentials and license plates that they believed
allowed “their customers [to] enjoy diplomatic immunity and [to] no longer ... pay taxes or be
(...continued)
President,” Intelligence Report, Southern Poverty Law Center, no. 143 (Fall 2011), http://www.splcenter.org/get-
informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2011/fall/-sovereign-president.
180 Federal Bureau of Investigation, Counterterrorism Analysis Section, “Sovereign Citizens: A Growing Domestic
Threat to Law Enforcement,” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, (September 2011), http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/
publications/law-enforcement-bulletin/september-2011. Hereafter: FBI Counterterrorism Analysis Section, “Sovereign
Citizens.”
181 Anti-Defamation League, The Lawless Ones: The Resurgence of the Sovereign Citizen Movement, August 9, 2010,
pp. 2-6, http://www.adl.org/learn/sovereign_movement/sovereign_citizens_movement_report.pdf. Hereafter: Anti-
Defamation League, The Lawless.
182 Ibid., p. 6.
183 However, this reportedly does not keep some sovereign citizen extremists from cashing government paychecks. See
J.J. McNabb, “Working for the Man: Anti-Government Extremists Who Cash Government Paychecks,” Forbes, March
5, 2012, http://www.forbes.com/sites/jjmacnab/2012/03/05/working-for-the-man-anti-government-extremists-who-
cash-government-paychecks/2/.
184 Tom Morton, “Sovereign Citizens Renounce First Sentence of 14th Amendment,” Casper Star-Tribune, April 17,
2011, http://trib.com/news/local/casper/article_a5d0f966-7ed0-549f-a066-b1b2c91f9489.html.
185 Ibid.
186 Anti-Defamation League, The Lawless, pp. 4-5.
187 Lance Griffin, “‘Sovereigns’ Gain Attention of Law Enforcement,” Dothan Eagle, May 21, 2011,
http://www2.dothaneagle.com/news/2011/may/21/3/sovereigns-gain-attention-law-enforcement-ar-1872889/.
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subject to being stopped, detained, or arrested by law enforcement personnel.”188 In 2003, Ronald
K. Delorme developed the Pembina Nation Little Shell Band of North America189 into a sovereign
citizen group.190 It is a sham Native American tribe that anyone can join to try and avoid taxes
and government-imposed costs, such as auto registration fees. For example, news reports indicate
that in June 2010, a sheriff’s deputy in Florida pulled over John McCombs when the law
enforcement official noticed a Pembina Nation Little Shell license plate on the motorcycle
McCombs was driving. According to publicly available sources, McCombs presented a fraudulent
letter of diplomatic immunity and an invalid Pembina Nation Little Shell vehicle registration.191
Some sovereign citizen fraud appears to be motivated by economic opportunism rather than
ideology. 192 This includes “pyramid schemes, other investment schemes, bogus trust scams, real
estate fraud, and various types of tax frauds [as well as] more esoteric scams ... ranging from
immigration fraud to malpractice insurance fraud.”193 In November 2011, husband and wife
Monty and Patricia Ervin were convicted in federal court of conspiring to defraud the United
States as well as three counts of tax evasion. In addition, the federal jury convicted Patricia of
structuring transactions to avoid bank reporting requirements.194 The couple allegedly had not
filed federal income tax returns between 2000 and 2008, denied their U.S. citizenship, and
dubbed themselves “sovereign” when the IRS investigated.195 The Ervins earned more than $9
million from investment properties they owned.196 A group of self-proclaimed sovereign citizens
in North Georgia was indicted in March 2011 for using sovereign schemes to allegedly steal
millions of dollars worth of real estate.197
In a few recent cases, avowed sovereign citizens have been involved in violent altercations with
law enforcement officers. According to a September 2011 FBI publication, since 2000 “lone-
offender sovereign-citizen extremists have killed six law enforcement officers,” and the Bureau
sees sovereign citizens as a growing threat to U.S. law enforcement.198
• Perhaps the most publicized example of alleged sovereign violence directed at
police occurred in 2010. In May of that year, two self-professed sovereign
188 Department of Justice, press release, “Jury Convicts Three Men of Conspiracy To Use Fake Diplomatic
Identification,” August 31, 2009, http://www.state.gov/m/ds/rls/128533.htm.
189 The group is not a federally recognized tribe.
190 Anti-Defamation League, The Lawless; Chris Gerbasi, “Tribal Claims Causing Charlotte Controversy,” Sarasota
Herald Tribune, July 25, 2010; “Punta Gorda Man Arrested for Driving with Pembina Nation Plate,” WINK News, June
1, 2010, http://www.winknews.com/Local-Florida/2010-06-01/Punta-Gorda-man-arrested-for-driving-with-Pembina-
Nation-plate.
191 Ibid.
192 For a discussion of redemption as a scam, see Federal Bureau of Investigation, Common Fraud Schemes,
http://www.fbi.gov/scams-safety/fraud.
193 Anti-Defamation League, The Lawless, p. 24.
194 Department of Justice, press release, “Self-Proclaimed ‘Governor’ of Alabama and Wife Convicted of Tax Fraud,”
November 4, 2011, http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/November/11-tax-1459.html. Hereafter: Department of Justice,
“Self-Proclaimed.”
195 Ibid; United States v. Patricia Ervin and Monty Ervin, Superseding Indictment, 1:11-CR-07-MHT, District Court,
Middle District of Alabama, February 17, 2011.
196 Department of Justice, “Self-Proclaimed.”
197 Megan Matteucci, “12 ‘sovereign citizens’ indicted,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, March 15, 2011,
http://www.ajc.com/news/dekalb/12-sovereign-citizens-indicted-873458.html.
198 FBI Counterterrorism Analysis Section, “Sovereign Citizens.”
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citizens were involved in a violent confrontation with West Memphis, TN, police
officers. During a traffic stop, Joe Kane fired an AK-47 assault rifle and killed
two officers. Kane and his father Jerry fled the scene. Law enforcement sighted
their vehicle in a nearby parking lot 90 minutes later. The duo died in the ensuing
shootout, which also wounded two more officers.199 The FBI had investigated
Jerry Kane five years before the murders because he was allegedly traversing the
United States peddling what the FBI termed a “debt elimination scheme.”200
Other cases have garnered attention. For example, in July 2011 James M. Tesi allegedly shot at a
local police officer trying to arrest him near Fort Worth, TX. Tesi was reportedly wounded in the
altercation. Outstanding “arrest warrants for speeding, driving without a license in possession,
and failure to appear” prompted the attempted apprehension.201 Court documents described in
news reporting note that Tesi linked himself to a sovereign citizen group.202 In February 2012,
Tesi was found “guilty of aggravated assault on a public servant with a deadly weapon.”203 In
June 2011, a police officer in Page, AZ, shot and killed William Foust while responding to a
domestic violence 911 call. The shooting reportedly occurred during a physical struggle in which
Foust attempted to “gain control of” the police officer’s Taser.204 According to a press account,
Foust had declared his sovereign citizen status in court proceedings in Kenab, UT (about 75 miles
from Page), related to a speeding ticket.205
Black Separatist Extremists
DOJ includes black separatism in its list of movements that potentially spawn domestic
terrorists.206 However, most black separatists solely engage in constitutionally protected behavior.
Since 9/11, there has been little public discussion of federal investigations involving black
separatist extremists. One group exhibiting what can be described as black separatist views, the
New Black Panther Party for Self Defense (NBPP), received national scrutiny over voter
intimidation allegations involving members of its Philadelphia chapter during the 2008 federal
general election.
199 Cindy Wolff, “West Memphis Police Sued by Widow of Man Killed in Shootout,” The Commercial Appeal, April
21, 2011, http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/apr/21/west-memphis-police-sued-by-kanes-widow/; Kristina
Goetz, Cindy Wolff, “Grieving West Memphis Chief Raises National Curtain on Sovereign Citizens,” The Commercial
Appeal, April 17, 2011, http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/apr/17/west-memphis-police-chief-sovereign-
citizens/.
200 Scott Knoll, “The Warning That Never Came: What the FBI Knew About Jerry Kane,” WREG, March 2, 2011,
http://www.wreg.com/wreg-fbi-file-reveals-feds-investigated-kane-story,0,4377626.story.
201 Domingo Ramirez Jr., “Man in ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Group is Wounded in Shootout,” July 22, 2011, http://www.star-
telegram.com/2011/07/21/3238352/man-in-sovereign-citizen-group.html.
202 Ibid.
203 Steve Norder, “‘Sovereign Citizen’ Gets 35 Years for Assault on Officer,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, February 1,
2012, http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/01/31/3702338/sovereign-citizen-found-guilty.html.
204 Todd Glasenapp and Larry Hendricks, “Page Officer Kills Man in DV Incident,” Arizona Daily Sun, June 21, 2011,
http://azdailysun.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/article_61e27d9d-6d47-5655-8a71-d28b846d8e3e.html.
205 Ibid.
206 Department of Justice, White Paper, p. 59.
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The NBPP emerged in the early 1990s, and it is not tied to the Black Panthers from the 1960s.207
Watchdog groups have described the NBPP as “a virulently racist and anti-Semitic organization
whose leaders have encouraged violence against whites, Jews, and law enforcement officers,”208
as well as “the largest organized anti-Semitic and racist black militant group in America.”209 The
NBPP, which denies that it is a hate group, engages in “high-profile” rhetoric at rallies or
demonstrations intended to encourage confrontation with authorities. The group’s actions occur
“on behalf of the poor or disadvantaged, involving the ready display of firearms. ”210 As an
example of the rhetoric the group uses, an NBPP representative characterized the March 2011
shooting death of a drug suspect in Jacksonville, FL, as “a violent act of terrorism” committed by
police.211 Soon after the shooting, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said that the confrontation
involved undercover officers serving a search warrant at an apartment. Officers claimed that
inside the apartment, the victim—an alleged drug dealer with a criminal record—was holding a
firearm.212
In 2008, the Philadelphia, PA, chapter of the NBPP was involved in a case that generated public
controversy. A 2009 civil suit filed by DOJ claimed that two NBPP members wearing the group’s
paramilitary uniforms loitered around the entrance to a 2008 federal general election polling
station in Philadelphia. One of the NBPP members allegedly carried a nightstick. According to
DOJ, some poll watchers feared for their safety because of this activity. Philadelphia police
officers responding to claims of voter intimidation removed the nightstick-wielding NBPP
member and allowed the other to remain (the latter was a certified poll watcher). Police asked
people at the polling station whether they had been threatened by the two individuals. All those
questioned replied that they had not. However, at least one individual claimed that the presence of
the two NBPP members had been intimidating.213 The NBPP disavowed the actions of its two
members.214 In May 2009, DOJ voluntarily dismissed claims against defendants in the case, and a
July 2009 letter from 10 members of Congress to DOJ’s Inspector General questioned the
decision to do so. DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) investigated, and in March
2011, OPR issued a report which argued that DOJ officials did not act inappropriately regarding
the matter.215
207 D.J. Mulloy, “New Panthers, Old Panthers, and the Politics of Black Nationalism in the United States,” Patterns of
Prejudice, vol. 44, no. 3 (2010), pp. 217, 219, 229-236. Hereafter: Mulloy: “New Panthers.”
208 Southern Poverty Law Center, “New Black Panther Party,” http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/
new-black-panther-party.
209 Anti-Defamation League, “New Black Panther Party for Self Defense,” June 1, 2011, http://www.adl.org/
main_Extremism/new_black_panther_party.htm.
210 Mulloy: “New Panthers,” p. 223, 233.
211 “Black Panthers Protest Police Shooting,” October 14, 2011, http://www.news4jax.com/news/Black-Panthers-
Protest-Police-Shooting/-/475880/1962744/-/qs5j0xz/-/index.html; “Black Panthers Protest Police Shooting,” First
Coast News, March 19, 2011, http://www.firstcoastnews.com/rss/article/197113/3/Black-Panthers-Protest-Police-
Shooting.
212 Ibid.
213 Department of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility, Report, Investigation of Dismissal of Defendants in
United States v. New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, Inc., et al., March 17, 2011, pp. 6-8. Hereafter, DOJ, OPR,
Investigation of Dismissal.
214 Mulloy: “New Panthers,” p. 217-218.
215 DOJ, OPR, Investigation of Dismissal, pp. 1-3.
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Anti-Abortion Extremists
The vast majority of anti-abortion activists engage in constitutionally protected activity. However,
anti-abortion extremism involves crime committed in the name of the anti-abortion movement.
Sixty-six instances of “extreme violence” targeting abortion providers and clinics occurred in the
United States from 1997 through 2010, according to one group that supports abortion rights and
tracks criminal activity intended to limit access to abortion services.216 These cases involved
shootings, bombings, arson incidents, and acid attacks.217 Since 1993, eight clinic workers have
been murdered by anti-abortion extremists in the United States.218 Because of a wave of violence
focused on abortion providers in the 1980s and early 1990s, Congress passed and President
Clinton signed into law the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act) (18 U.S.C.
§248) in 1994.219 As with other types of domestic terrorism investigations, it is unclear exactly
which incidents of violence perpetrated against abortion providers the FBI considers terrorist acts.
The 2009 murder of George Tiller, an abortion provider, received sizeable public attention. On
January 29, 2010, Scott Roeder was convicted of first-degree murder and two counts of
aggravated assault for killing Tiller. Roeder shot Tiller while the latter was at church on May 31,
2009. Roeder was sentenced to “life in prison with no possibility of parole for 50 years.”220
A number of other unrelated schemes targeting abortion clinics have been uncovered since
Roeder’s arrest. These incidents appear to involve individuals largely operating alone.
• In January 2012, Bobby Joe Rogers was charged in the firebombing of a
Pensacola, FL, abortion clinic on New Year’s Day 2012. The bombing destroyed
the clinic, which had been targeted in the past.221 In February 2012, a federal
grand jury indicted him on two counts—arson and damaging a reproductive
health facility.222
216 National Abortion Federation, “Clinic Violence,” http://www.prochoice.org/about_abortion/violence/
history_extreme.asp. See also: “NAF Violence and Disruption Statistics,” http://www.prochoice.org/pubs_research/
publications/downloads/about_abortion/stats_table2010.pdf.
217 Ibid.
218 NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation, press release, “Anti-Choice Violence and Intimidation,” January 1, 2011,
http://www.naral.org/media/fact-sheets/abortion-anti-choice-violence.pdf.
219 This is not a terrorism-related statute. In fact, DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, prosecutes both criminal and civil cases
involving the FACE Act. See http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/crm/overview.php; http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/spl/
face.php. The FACE Act (18 U.S.C. §248), “protects the exercise of free choice in obtaining reproductive health
services, and the exercise of First Amendment religious freedoms. Section 248 makes it unlawful for a person to use
force, threat of force, or physical obstruction to intentionally injure or intimidate a person because he/she is or has been
obtaining or providing reproductive health services. Section 248 also makes it unlawful for a person to use force, threat
of force, or physical obstruction to intentionally injure or intimidate a person because he/she is lawfully exercising the
right of religious freedom at a place of worship. Finally, Section 248 makes it unlawful for a person to intentionally
damage or destroy the property of a facility because it provides reproductive health services, or because it is a place of
worship. Section 248 also prohibits anyone from attempting to commit any of the above.”
220 Ron Sylvester, “Scott Roeder Gets Hard 50 in Murder of Abortion Provider George Tiller,” Wichita Eagle, April 1,
2010, http://www.kansas.com/2010/04/01/1249310/roeder-to-be-sentenced-thursday.html. Hereafter: Sylvester, “Scott
Roeder.” Roeder reportedly also adhered to anti-government beliefs beginning in the 1990s. See Ron Sylvester,
Abortion Issue Front and Center in Roeder Murder Trial,” January 10, 2010, Wichita Eagle, http://www.kansas.com/
2010/01/10/1130385/abortion-issue-front-and-center.html#storylink=cpy.
221 “Man Indicted for Abortion Clinic Firebombing,” Associated Press, February 23, 2012.
222 Department of Justice, press release, “Arson Indictment Returned Regarding American Family Planning Clinic,”
February 23, 2012, http://www.fbi.gov/jacksonville/press-releases/2012/arson-indictment-returned-regarding-american-
(continued...)
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• In May 2011, Ralph Lang was arrested after allegedly accidently firing his
handgun through the door of the hotel room in Madison, WI. He was reportedly
planning to kill abortion providers in the area.223
One underground network that supports attacks on abortion clinics is the Army of God (AOG).224
The loosely structured organization openly promotes anti-abortion violence.225 However, its
members deny that they are terrorists. They also deny that attacks against clinics and abortion
providers constitute violent activity, because they see it as “Godly work.”226 AOG first made
headlines with the 1982 kidnapping of a doctor and his wife, both of whom ran an abortion clinic
in Illinois. Three individuals who claimed membership in AOG were responsible.227 The group
disseminates a manual that “is a ‘how to’ for abortion clinic violence. It details methods for
blockading entrances, attacking with butyric acid, arson, bomb making, and other illegal
activities. The manual contains anti-abortion language as well as anti-government and anti-
gay/lesbian language. The manual begins with a declaration of war on the abortion industry. ”228
Eric Rudolph, who in the late 1990s bombed an abortion clinic near Atlanta, GA, and one in
Birmingham, AL, “published his writings on the Army of God website.”229
(...continued)
family-planning-clinic.
223 Kevin Murphy, Feds Mull Felony Charge for Suspect Ralph Lang of Marshfield in Abortion Clinic Shooting Plot,”
Marshfield News, May 28, 2011; Department of Justice, press release, “Wisconsin Man Charged with FACE Act
Violations,” May 26, 2011, http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/May/11-crt-695.html. For other examples of
individuals involved in abortion-related violence, see Department of Justice, press release, “Man Pleads Guilty to Civil
Rights Violation in Connection with Arson at Planned Parenthood and Vandalism of Mosque in Madera, California,”
October 7, 2011, http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/October/11-crt-1336.html. Mower also threw a brick at a mosque
in Madera. Ryan Seals, “Update: Concord Man Charged in Plot to Bomb Abortion Clinic,” Greensboro News and
Record, September 9, 2010, http://www.news-record.com/content/2010/09/09/article/
concord_man_charged_with_plotting_to_bomb_nc_abortion_clinic; “Man Guilty of Bombing Plot Gets 30 Months,”
Salisbury Post, March 2, 2011, http://www.salisburypost.com/news/030211-moose-sentencing-today-qcd.
224 National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), “Terrorist Organization
Profile: Army of God,” http://www.start.umd.edu/start/data_collections/tops/terrorist_organization_profile.asp?id=28.
Hereafter: START, “Army of God.”
225 Mireille Jacobson and Heather Royer, “Aftershocks: The Impact of Clinic Violence on Abortion Services,” National
Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 16603, (January 7, 2010), p. 6.
226 Jennifer Jefferis, Armed for Life: The Army of God and Anti-Abortion Terror in the United States (Santa Barbara,
CA: Praeger, 2011), p. xvi. Hereafter: Jefferis, Armed for Life.
227 Ibid., p. 23. The victims were released unharmed after eight days of captivity. See; “Abortion Opposition Stressed in
Kidnapping Trial in Illinois,” New York Times, January 26, 1983.
228 START, “Army of God.”
229 Beau Seegmiller, “Radicalized Margins: Eric Rudolph and Religious Violence,” Terrorism and Political Violence,
vol. 19, no. 4 (October 2007), p. 524. The 1998 bombing in Birmingham killed a police officer and injured a nurse. On
May 31, 2003, Rudolph was arrested and charged with the clinic bombings, bombing the Centennial Olympic Park
during the 1996 summer Olympic games in Atlanta (claiming one life), and attacking a gay club—Atlanta’s Otherside
Lounge—in 1997. Rudolph admitted to the bombing spree in April 2005. He claimed that the 1996 attack at Centennial
Olympic Park was intended to shame the U.S. government for what Rudolph saw as its support of abortion rights. See
“Rudolph Pleads Guilty in Series of Bombings,” Associated Press at MSNBC, April 13, 2005,
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7486021/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/rudolph-pleads-guilty-series-bombings/
#.TwN9CUdO3y0; “Rudolph Agrees to Plea Agreement,” CNN, April 12, 2005, http://articles.cnn.com/2005-04-08/
justice/rudolph.plea_1_emily-lyons-eric-robert-rudolph-atlanta-attacks?_s=PM:LAW.
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Protected Activities vs. Terrorism—Divergent Perceptions of
the ALF
The boundary between constitutionally protected legitimate protest and terrorist activity has
received much attention in public discussions of domestic terrorism. As an example of this, the
next several sections of this report explore such considerations regarding the ALF.
A Serious Domestic Concern or “Green Scare?”
U.S. law enforcement, some business groups, and some scientists—among others—have stressed
that animal rights extremists (and eco-terrorists) are a security and law enforcement concern. In
2008, the FBI stated that animal rights extremists and eco-terrorists together posed a serious
domestic terrorism threat for several reasons, including the number of crimes attributed to animal
rights extremists and eco-terrorists (between 1,800 and 2,000 incidents accounting for more than
$110 million230 in damages from 1979 to early 2009), the broad pool of victims (such as large
pharmaceutical corporations, scientific laboratories, ski resorts, automobile dealerships,
individual researchers, and lumber companies), and the movement’s rhetoric and destructive
tactics.231 In March 2012, the FBI suggested that the threat from eco-terrorists may be declining
in recent years.232
As articulated by some scientific researchers, the monetary toll on legitimate businesses and
laboratories in the United States exacted by animal rights and eco extremists is compounded by
less tangible issues. For example, animal rights extremists and eco-terrorists have impacted the
work of scientists. In some cases, special equipment and research materials have been destroyed
in attacks. The consequences of criminal activity in the name of movements such as the ALF can
also be more personal. Two advocates of animal research conducted strictly according to federal
regulations have noted that the actions of animal rights extremists have pushed some scientists to
quit lab work involving animals. Often, this work relates to products and procedures that some
maintain cannot feasibly be marketed without animal testing.233 In 2006, a UCLA professor of
behavioral neuroscience declared he was stopping his research on monkeys because of what he
230 ELF claims that it has caused over $150 million in damages, although the geographic range and timeframe for this
figure are unknown. Earth Liberation Front.org, “What Is the Earth Liberation Front?”
http://www.earthliberationfront.org/elffaqs.htmlHereafter: ELF, “What Is the Earth?” See also:
http://www.animalliberationfront.com/ALFront/ELF/ELFPressOffice.htm.
231 There is some imprecision in the FBI’s public statements regarding the number of crimes committed by animal
rights extremists and eco-terrorists. In April 2009, the FBI estimated that “to date [animal rights and eco-] extremists
have been responsible for more than 1,800 criminal acts.” Ten months earlier, in June 2008, the FBI placed the number
of criminal acts at “over 2,000 since 1979.” See Michael J. Heimbach, Assistant Director, Counterterrorism Division,
Federal Bureau of Investigation, press conference, April 21, 2009, http://www.fbi.gov/news/speeches/new-most-
wanted-terrorist-announced. Hereafter: Heimbach, press conference. See also: FBI, “Putting Intel.” The $110 million
figure remained the same in both publicly released documents.
232 Juliet Eilperin, “As Eco Terrorism Threat Wanes, Governments Keep Eyes on Activists,” Washington Post, March
11, 2012, http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/as-eco-terrorism-wanes-governments-still-target-
activist-groups-seen-as-threat/2012/02/28/gIQAA4Ay3R_story.html. Hereafter: Eilperin, “As Eco Terrorism.”
233 Conn and Parker, The Animal, pp. xii, xvi. See also: 21 C.F.R. §314.610 (regarding approval based on evidence of
effectiveness from studies in animals).
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described as harassment by animal rights groups.234 Additionally, animal rights extremists are said
to be driving out students from research programs.235
Critics of U.S. efforts to fight animal rights extremism and eco-terrorism have suggested that the
threat is overblown by law enforcement and that the government’s pursuit of purported extremists
perpetuates a “green scare,” chilling the exercise of protected speech by protesters.236 Some say
that the government conflates property crime with terrorism.237 Others add that people engaged in
what the government describes as animal rights extremism or eco-terrorism do not deserve the
terrorist label.
Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (P.L. 109-374)
The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (P.L. 109-374; AETA) expanded the federal government’s
legal authority to combat animal rights extremists who engage in criminal activity. Signed into
law in November 2006, it amended the 1992 Animal Enterprise Protection Act (P.L. 102-346;
AEPA). Namely, the AETA
Amends the federal criminal code to revise criminal prohibitions against damaging or
interfering with the operations of an animal enterprise to include intentional damage or loss
to any real or personal property and intentional threats of death or serious bodily injury
against individuals (or their family members, spouses, or intimate partners) who are involved
with animal enterprises. 238
The AETA expanded the AEPA to include both successful and attempted conspiracies. It also
prohibits intentionally placing a person in “reasonable fear” of death or serious bodily injury
while damaging or interfering in the operations of an animal enterprise. The AETA revised and
increased monetary and criminal penalties. It also stipulates that it does not prohibit First
Amendment-protected activity.
DOJ successfully prosecuted individuals on charges relating to animal enterprise terrorism for the
first time under the AEPA in 2006 (the case had been built before the AETA had been signed into
law). 239 Six individuals were convicted for what DOJ described as “their roles in a campaign to
terrorize officers, employees, and shareholders of HLS [Huntingdon Life Sciences, a research
234 Samantha Henig, “UCLA Professor Halts Monkey Research,” Chronicle of Higher Education, vol. 53, no. 2
(September 1, 2006), p. 21.
235 Michael Conn and James Parker, “Winners and Losers in the Animal Research Wars,” American Scientist, vol. 96,
no. 3 (May-June 2008), p. 184.
236 See Will Potter, Green Is the New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement Under Siege, (San Francisco:
City Lights Books, 2011), p. 61.
237 Coalition to Abolish the AETA, “AETA v. AEPA: A Side-by-Side Comparison,” October 16, 2008,
http://abolishtheaeta.org/web/aeta-v-aepa-a-side-by-side-comparison/; Center for Constitutional Rights, factsheet, “The
Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA),” http://ccrjustice.org/learn-more/faqs/factsheet%3A-animal-enterprise-
terrorism-act-(aeta).
238 P.L. 109-374, CRS summary. Instead of damage and interference, the AEPA focused on the “physical disruption to
the functioning of an animal enterprise.” According to AETA, “animal enterprise” means: “(A) a commercial or
academic enterprise that uses or sells animals or animal products for profit, food or fiber production, agriculture,
education, research, or testing; (B) a zoo, aquarium, animal shelter, pet store, breeder, furrier, circus, or rodeo, or other
lawful competitive animal event; or (C) any fair or similar event intended to advance agricultural arts or sciences.”
239 Department of Justice, press release, “Three Militant Animal Rights Activists Sentenced to Between Four and Six
Years in Prison,” September 21, 2006.
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corporation that performs animal research and has U.K. and U.S. facilities]. ”240 These individuals
belonged to an animal rights campaign named Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC)241 and
the entity SHAC USA, Inc. SHAC involves both legal protests and criminal activity against HLS.
Reportedly, the six incited threats, harassment, and vandalism and on this basis were convicted of
violating the AEPA.242 DOJ has noted that SHAC’s stated mission was to work “outside the
confines of the legal system.”243 DOJ proved in court that the group managed websites that
encouraged others “to direct their intimidation, harassment, and violence against HLS and its
targeted employees, as well as secondary targets—companies and employees who did business
with HLS. ”244
DOJ has also successfully applied the AETA. For example, on February 14, 2011, Scott DeMuth
was sentenced to six months in prison on one count of misdemeanor conspiracy to commit animal
enterprise terrorism. He was involved in a raid that released about 200 ferrets at a Minnesota farm
in 2006. Activists had claimed the action in the name of the ALF.245 In another case, William
James Viehl and Alex Hall were sentenced to 24 months and 21 months in prison, respectively,
under AETA. The duo had released 650 minks, destroyed breeding records, and vandalized
structures at the McMullin Ranch in South Jordan, UT, in 2008.246
DOJ has experienced at least one setback in its application of the AETA. In February 2009, the
FBI announced the arrests of what it described as “four animal rights extremists.” The four (two
women, two men, all in their 20s) allegedly violated the AETA by using “force, violence, or
240 Ibid. See also: “The SHAC 7,” http://www.shac7.com/case.htm.
241 An undercover British television report on the treatment of animals at a British company, Huntingdon Life Sciences
(HLS), sparked the creation of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) in the United Kingdom in 1999. Active in a
number of countries around the world, including the United States, the campaign has tried to compel business and
financial firms to cut ties to HLS. It has involved both legal protests and crime. John P. Martin, “Animal Rights and
Wrongs,” Newark Star-Ledger, November 28, 2004; Anti-Defamation League, Ecoterrorism. For more on SHAC from
a movement perspective, see “History of the Animal Liberation Front,” http://www.animalliberationfront.com/
ALFront/Premise_History/ALF_History.htm. The SHAC campaign made its way to the United States in 2000. See
Heimbach, press conference.
242 Four of the six were guilty of other charges related to the case as well. Department of Justice, “Militant Animal
Rights Group, Six Members Convicted in Campaign to Terrorize Company, Employees, and Others,” March 2, 2006,
http://www.justice.gov/usao/nj/press/files/shac0302_r.htm. Hereafter: Department of Justice, “Militant Animal Rights.”
Anti-Defamation League, “Animal Rights Group Sentenced for Inciting Violence and Stalking,” September 22, 2006,
http://www.adl.org/NR/exeres/7FBDB1FE-9176-4802-8704-54F8EAC3C215,18AA02A5-13A1-44F3-B4D4-
6176E1ECC36C,frameless.htm. Hereafter: Anti-Defamation League, “Animal Rights Group.”
243 Department of Justice, White Paper, p. 60.
244 Ibid. The convictions in the case were upheld by a federal appeals court in 2009. See Lisa Coryell, “Convictions of
Animal Rights Activists Upheld,” Times of Trenton, October 14, 2009, http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2009/10/
convictions_of_animal_rights_a.html. Subsequently, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the case. See Center for
Constitutional Rights, “U.S. v. SHAC 7,” http://ccrjustice.org/us-v-SHAC7; Will Potter, “Supreme Court Will Not
Hear SHAC 7 Case,” March 7, 2011, http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/shac-7-supreme-court/4447/.
245 Ryan J. Foley, “Minn. Man Gets 6 Months for Raid on Ferret Farm,” Associated Press, February 14, 2011. Jennifer
Kotila, “Minneapolis Man To Be Sentenced for Releasing HL Ferrets He Thought Were Mink,” Delano Herald
Journal, (Minnesota) December 20, 2010, http://www.herald-journal.com/archives/2010/stories/latzig-ferrets-scott-
demuth.html.
246 Dennis Romboy, “Man Who Raided South Jordan Mink Farm Sentenced,” Deseret News, July 1, 2010,
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700044577/Man-who-raided-South-Jordan-mink-farm-sentenced.html;
Department of Justice, press release, “Viehl Pleads Guilty to Damaging, Interfering with Animal Enterprise in
Connection with McMullin Mink Farm Incident,” September 3, 2009, http://www.justice.gov/usao/ut/press/releases/
viehl%20cop.pdf.
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threats to interfere with the operation of the University of California.”247 The incidents leading to
the indictment included protests at the houses of researchers from the University of California,
Berkeley and University of California, Santa Cruz. According to the FBI’s press release, in one
instance, three of the indicted individuals tried to forcibly enter the home of a researcher, whose
husband was hit by an object while confronting the protesters.248 In July 2010, a federal judge
dismissed the indictment against the four. According to the ruling, the indictment failed to
specifically describe crimes allegedly committed by the defendants.249 Opponents of the
prosecution stress that the case involved over-broad application of AETA to First Amendment-
protected behaviors.250
Criticisms of federal government efforts to counter animal rights extremists have focused on the
AETA itself and First Amendment-related issues. Opponents of the AETA suggest that it
expanded the AEPA too much by making it easier to prosecute individuals who wage protest
campaigns against secondary or tertiary targets—companies or people (such as insurers)
indirectly tied to an animal enterprise.251 Opponents also take issue with the inclusion of
“reasonable fear” in the AETA, suggesting that protected speech or activities may possibly be
interpreted as provoking “reasonable fear” in some instances. Echoing critiques of the AETA, one
observer emphasizes that while activities linked to U.S.-based animal rights extremists have
caused significant property damage, none of these criminal acts has physically harmed people.
This critic suggests that describing vandalism or arson as terrorism and not ordinary crime
dampens constitutionally protected protest activity by people who support animal rights or radical
environmentalism but do not engage in criminal activity.252 In essence, this position argues that
the U.S. government is encouraging a “green scare” by labeling the activity of movements such
as the ALF and the ELF as terrorism or extremism.253 After serving 40 months in prison for her
involvement with SHAC USA, Lauren Gazzola argued that she was not a terrorist, claiming, “I
hadn’t hurt anyone or vandalized any property. In fact, the indictment didn’t allege that I’d
committed any independent crime at all, only that I’d ‘conspired’ to publish a website that
advocated and reported on protest activity against a notorious animal testing lab in New
Jersey.”254
The U.S. Code’s definition of “domestic terrorism” has been seen by some as potentially chilling
to legitimate animal rights and environmental protest activities.255 As mentioned, the current
247 Federal Bureau of Investigation, press release, “Four Extremists Arrested for Threats and Violence Against UC
Researchers,” February 20, 2009, http://sanfrancisco.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel09/sf022009.htm.
248 Ibid.
249 “S.C. Animal Activists Won’t Face Charges,” The Monterey County Herald, July 14, 2010.
250 Will Potter, “Breaking: AETA 4 Case Dismissed, But Re-Indictment Possible,” GreenIstheNewRed.com, July 12,
2010, http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/aeta-4-case-thrown-out-dismissed/3015/; Bill Quigley and Rachel
Meeropol, “Victory for Animal Rights Dissent,” Huffington Post, July 16, 2010, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-
quigley/victory-for-animal-rights_b_648852.html. Hereafter: Quigley and Meeropol, “Victory for Animal.”
251 The AETA makes it illegal to damage or interfere with the operations of an animal enterprise. Presumably this
covers tertiary targets.
252 Will Potter, “The Green Scare,” Vermont Law Review, vol. 33, no. 4 (June 2009), pp. 672-673.
253 Ibid; Quigley and Meeropol, “Victory for Animal.”
254 Lauren Gazzola, “Animal Rights Activists Like Me Aren’t Terrorists,” EGP News, January 12, 2012,
http://egpnews.com/?p=33714.
255 American Civil Liberties Union, “How the USA PATRIOT Act Redefines “Domestic Terrorism,” December 6,
2002, http://www.aclu.org/national-security/how-usa-patriot-act-redefines-domestic-terrorism. For an additional view
suggesting that the activities of movements such as the ALF and the ELF should not be treated as terrorism, see
(continued...)
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delineation of domestic terrorism in the U.S. Code includes criminal acts “dangerous to human
life” that appear to intend to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or influence governmental
policy via intimidation or coercion. This line of reasoning suggests that the crimes committed by
animal rights extremists and eco-terrorists cannot be compared to clearly violent attacks by
groups such as Al Qaeda. An opposing commentary stresses that such discussion is irrelevant and
miss[es] the mark. The ALF ideology encourages members to instill fear in those who
engage in the activities that the ALF opposes: fear of harm to themselves and their families,
and fear of personal and professional economic loss. Additionally, these arguments assume
that “true terrorism” is fundamentally different from animal rights terrorism. While it is true
that animal rights terrorism, as a whole, does not engage in the same scale of violence as
other extremist groups, those working in academia, research, agriculture, and food service
industries are no less fearful when their homes and workplaces are firebombed; violent
tactics can instill fear even when they are used infrequently.256
Assessing Domestic Terrorism’s Significance
Domestic terrorist attacks have come nowhere near the devastation of 9/11. However, it is worth
noting that (as mentioned above) Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal
Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, claimed 168 lives and injured more than 500
others. It ranks as the second-deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil, behind only the devastation
wrought by Al Qaeda on 9/11. Domestic terrorists feature prominently among the concerns of
some law enforcement officers. For example, Los Angeles Deputy Police Chief Michael P.
Downing recently described violent Islamists such as Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Hamas as Los
Angeles’s main terrorist threats “along with three other terrorist categories: black separatists,
white supremacist/sovereign citizen extremists, and animal rights terrorists.”257 In one 2008 study,
state police agencies “overwhelmingly reported” dangerous domestic extremist groups present in
their jurisdictions.258 Of course, as one expert reminds us, most followers of extremist viewpoints
pose no threat: “Most of them are not going to do anything but bore their relatives and friends
with ridiculous papers and treatises.”259
Five themes speak to the possible threat posed by domestic terrorists. First, domestic terrorists
likely have been responsible for more than two dozen incidents since 9/11, and there appears to
be a growth in anti-government extremist activity as measured by watchdog groups in the last
several years. Second, a large number of those labeled as domestic terrorists do not necessarily
use major terrorist tactics such as bombings or airplane hijackings. Third, domestic terrorists—
much like their violent jihadist analogues—are often Internet savvy and use the medium as a
resource for their operations. Fourth, domestic terrorism can be seen as a somewhat decentralized
threat often involving lone wolves and movements operating under the model of leaderless
(...continued)
DeMond Shondell Miller, Jason David Rivera, and Joel C. Yelin, “Civil Liberties: The Line Dividing Environmental
Protest and Ecoterrorists,” Journal for the Study of Radicalism, vol. 2, no. 1 (2008), pp. 109-123.
256 Grubbs, “Saving Lives,” pp. 364-365.
257 Bill Gertz, “L.A. Police Use Intel Networks Against Terror,” Washington Times, April 11, 2011,
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/apr/11/la-police-use-intel-networks-against-terror/?page=all#pagebreak.
258 “Far Right Domestic Terrorism on Par with Foreign Threat, Experts Say,” CNN, July 25, 2011,
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/07/25/domestic.extremism/.
259 Ibid.
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resistance. Finally, prison has been highlighted as an arena in which terrorist radicalization can
occur, and WSE plays a role in the activities of several U.S. prison gangs. Sovereign citizen
theories have also taken root in U.S. prisons.
Counting Incidents
Animal rights extremists, eco-terrorists, anarchist extremists, sovereign citizen extremists, militia
extremists, black separatist extremists, white supremacist extremists, and anti-abortion extremists
target American citizens, businesses, and institutions. The National Counterterrorism Center’s
Worldwide Incidents Tracking System (WITS) publicly lists 35 terrorist incidents260 involving all
types of terrorists as occurring in the United States between the beginning of 2004 and the end of
September 2011.261 Twenty-five of these can be linked to domestic terrorists. Of the 25, the vast
majority, 22, can be attributed to environmental or animal rights extremists.262 Even so, the FBI
has publicly noted a decline in eco-terrorism especially after a wave of successful prosecutions in
2007. The Bureau also reportedly attributes the perceived dip to activists possibly viewing “a
Democratic administration as more sympathetic to their goals and [thus] be less inclined to take
radical steps.”263 This latter factor fails to explain high levels of activity in the 1990s. Five of the
35 incidents documented in WITS can be associated with violent jihadists either operating in the
United States or attacking the homeland from abroad. For five other incidents, the ideological
backgrounds of those involved were unknown.264
These numbers may be too low to make any useful generalizations about the violent threats to the
homeland posed by either violent jihadists or domestic terrorists. Other sources—not necessarily
databases—indicate that the number of domestic terrorist incidents may be even higher. These
sources do not necessarily focus on the same period covered by the WITS. Also, some center on
specific categories of domestic terrorist activity. Examples of such sources include the following:
• A September 2011 study by the New America Foundation and Syracuse
University’s Maxwell School of Public Policy found 114 individuals involved in
non-jihadist terrorist acts in the 10 years following 9/11. However, the study did
not limit its findings to animal rights extremists, eco-terrorists, anarchist
extremists, sovereign citizens, unauthorized militias, black separatists, white
supremacists, and anti-abortion extremists. It included incidents by what it
described as left-wing and right-wing terrorists. 265
260 The WITS methodology describes “incidents” as when “subnational or clandestine groups or individuals
deliberately or recklessly attacked civilians or noncombatants (including military personnel and assets outside war
zones and war-like settings).” For the WITS methodology, see http://www.nctc.gov/witsbanner/
wits_subpage_criteria.html.
261 This is based on CRS analysis of information drawn from the WITS on February 1, 2012. The search used for this
report drew from the entire time period covered in WITS as of February 1, 2012. The search results included only
incidents described in the database as having occurred in the United States.
262 The three remaining domestic terrorism incidents break down thusly: two likely involved anti-abortion extremists.
One involved a WSE adherent.
263 Eilperin, “As Eco Terrorism.”
264 Some of the WITS entries include information regarding the terrorist groups involved in committing the incidents.
Where possible, publicly-available reporting was used to corroborate this information. For incidents where the WITS
did not provide terrorist identifying information, public sources were used to ascertain the possible ideologies of those
involved. In five cases this was not possible. These five instances are described as the “unknown” incidents above.
265 Peter Bergen et al. Right- and Left-Wing Terrorism Since 9/11, New America Foundation, September 10, 2011,
(continued...)
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• An unclassified 2008 DHS report includes a table that lists selected criminal acts
perpetrated by people involved in the animal rights extremist and eco-terrorist
movements. This list counts 74 criminal acts between 9/11 and March 2008.266
• As noted above, the FBI estimated that animal rights extremist and eco-terrorists
together committed between 1,800 and 2,000 criminal incidents accounting for
more than $110 million in damages from 1979 to early 2009.267
• An unclassified FBI intelligence bulletin estimates that 53 acts of violence were
committed by what it calls “white supremacist extremists” between 2007 and
2009 in the United States. Victims included other white supremacists, African
Americans, and Latinos. Most of the incidents involved assaults. The bulletin
bases these findings on law enforcement and media reporting.268
In the WITS dataset, domestic terrorist incidents may outrank violent jihadist incidents by a
factor of four to one. However, within the 35 terrorist incidents, the ones perpetrated by violent
jihadists appear more lethal. Overall, 16 people died and 58 were injured in all terrorist incidents
described by WITS. Most of the fatalities came from a single homegrown jihadist attack—Army
Major Nidal Hasan’s alleged mass shooting at Fort Hood, TX, in November 2009. It claimed 13
of the deaths.269 Forty-three people were injured in this attack as well. One other death was tied to
a homegrown violent jihadist, Abdulhakim Muhammad. In June 2009, he shot to death a soldier
at the U.S. Army-Navy Career Center in Little Rock, AR.270 Muhammad was charged in state
court with capital murder, attempted capital murder, and 10 counts of unlawful discharge of a
firearm.271 In July 2011, he pled guilty to these charges.272
The last two deaths associated with the WITS incidents came at the hands of apparent domestic
terrorists:
(...continued)
http://homegrown.newamerica.net/overview. Hereafter: Bergen et al. Right- and Left-Wing.
266 Department of Homeland Security, Ecoterrorism: Environmental and Animal-Rights Militants in the United States,
Universal Adversary Dynamic Threat Assessment, May 7, 2008. Table 1 from the report is a “compilation of material
from ALF and ELF communiqués and publications, media reports, and law enforcement” listing selected criminal acts
perpetrated by the ALF and the ELF from 1984 to March 2008. Table 1 from the DHS report is not a comprehensive
list of crimes tied to the ALF and the ELF. Hereafter: Department of Homeland Security, Ecoterrorism.
267 Heimbach, press conference; Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Putting Intel.”
268 Federal Bureau of Investigation, White Supremacist Extremist Violence, pp. 1-2. The FBI bulletin defines “acts of
violence” to include “arson; assaults and murders; and acts designed to threaten or intimidate due to a person’s
ethnicity, religious beliefs, or lifestyle.” See Federal Bureau of Investigation, Rage and Racism p. 5.
269 For more information on Hasan, see Senator Joseph Lieberman and Senator Susan Collins, A Ticking Time Bomb:
Counterterrorism Lessons from the U.S. Government’s Failure to Prevent the Fort Hood Attack, Senate Committee on
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, February 2011, http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/_files/Fort_Hood/
FortHoodReport.pdf; and CRS Report R41416, American Jihadist Terrorism: Combating a Complex Threat, by Jerome
P. Bjelopera. Hereafter: Bjelopera, American Jihadist Terrorism.
270 For more information on Muhammad, see Bjelopera, American Jihadist Terrorism, pp. 91-93.
271 James Dao, “Man Claims Terror Ties in Little Rock Shooting,” New York Times, January 22, 2010,
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/22littlerock.html. Hereinafter: Dao, January 22, 2010.
272 “Man Pleads Guilty to Recruiting Center Killing, Gets Life,” CNN.com, July 25, 2011, http://articles.cnn.com/2011-
07-25/justice/arkansas.recruiter.shooting_1_capital-murder-quinton-ezeagwula-carlos-bledsoe?_s=PM:CRIME.
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• On January 29, 2010, Scott Roeder was convicted of first-degree murder and two
counts of aggravated assault for killing abortion provider George Tiller.273
• Described as a neo-Nazi and white supremacist, James von Brunn reportedly shot
and killed a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in
Washington, DC, in June 2009. In January 2010, the 89-year-old von Brunn died
in federal prison, before he could be tried.274
Caution regarding these incident counts and the related fatalities is suggested by other factors. For
example, it is unclear why the aforementioned incidents involving Richard Poplawski as well as
Jerry and Joe Kane are not counted in WITS. If they were counted in WITS, these incidents
would raise the number of fatalities attributed to domestic terrorists by five. Additional caution
regarding the number of fatalities attributed to domestic terrorists is suggested in the
aforementioned study by the New America Foundation and Syracuse University’s Maxwell
School of Public Policy. It counted “[a]t least 14 people ... killed in right- and left-wing terrorism-
related incidents [in the 10 years since 9/11].”275 The reader is also reminded that within a
relatively small pool of incidents, Hasan’s purported shooting was far more violent than any other
incident—jihadist inspired or not.
Additionally, most of the 35 incidents—as underscored above—have been linked to either animal
rights extremists or eco-terrorists. This further complicates any comparative discussion of levels
of violence. As highlighted elsewhere in this report, many animal rights extremists and eco-
terrorists claim to avoid violent acts that directly target people. The attacks by these individuals
can often be described as property crimes involving arson or vandalism.
Growth in Hate Groups and Anti-Government Extremism
Beyond counting terrorist incidents, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)276 has noted both a
steady rise in the number of hate groups from 2000-2011 and a marked expansion in the militia
movement (discussed elsewhere in this report) over the same period. Between 2009 and 2011,
militia groups resurged to levels not seen since the 1990s.277 The SPLC’s figures likely capture a
range of activity broader than that described by DOJ and the FBI as domestic terrorism.
Regardless, the SPLC argues that the rise is “driven by resentment over the changing racial
demographics of the country, frustration over the government’s handling of the economy, and the
mainstreaming of conspiracy theories and other demonizing propaganda aimed at various
273 Sylvester, “Scott Roeder.”
274 Anti-Defamation League, “James von Brunn: An ADL Backgrounder,” http://www.adl.org/main_Extremism/
von_brunn_background.htm.
275 Bergen et al. Right- and Left-Wing.
276 The Southern Poverty Law Center has been criticized regarding its labeling of the Family Research Council, as a
hate group for its opposition to gay rights. See Family Research Council, press release, “FRC, Members of Congress,
Governors, and Conservative Leaders Release Open Letter Calling for Civil Debate, End to Character Assassination,”
December 15, 2010, http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=PR10L07&f=RF07B02; Mark Potok, “SPLC Responds to Attack by
FRC, Conservative Republicans,” December 15, 2010, http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2010/12/15/splc-responds-to-
attack-by-frc-conservative-republicans/; Sean Lengell, Washington Times, “Family Research Council Labeled a ‘Hate
Group,’” November 24, 2010, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/nov/24/frc-labeled-a-hate-group/.
277 Ibid., p. 42.
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minorities.”278 SPLC also assesses that 2010 was the first year ever that the number of hate
groups topped 1,000 (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Hate Groups and Militia Groups, 2000-2010
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center
1200
1002
1018
1000
888
926
932
803
844
751
762
800
676
708
602
600
400
330
334
200
127
72
73
54
45
52
35
52
43
42
0 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
Hate Groups
Militia Groups
Source: Mark Potok, “The Year in Hate and Extremism,” Southern Poverty Law Center, Intelligence Report, no.
145 (Spring 2012).
Notes: The Southern Poverty Law Center includes Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazi, white nationalist, racist skinhead,
Christian Identity, neo-Confederate, black separatist, and general hate groups in its hate group category. The
organization goes on to elaborate that “Christian Identity describes a religion that is fundamentally racist and
anti-Semitic. Black Separatist groups are organizations whose ideologies include tenets of racially based hatred.
Neo-Confederate groups seek to revive many of the racist principles of the antebel um South. White Nationalist
groups espouse white supremacy or white separatism but general y avoid anti-Semitism. General Hate groups
espouse ideologies of hatred and include the sub-categories of Anti-Gay groups, Anti-Immigrant groups,
Holocaust Denial groups, Racist Music labels, [and] Radical Traditionalist Catholic groups (which reject core
Catholic teachings and espouse anti-Semitism).” The SPLC describes patriot groups and militias as anti-
government, “engaging in groundless conspiracy theorizing or advocat[ing] or adher[ing] to extreme anti-
government doctrines.” The patriot or militia organizations counted by Southern Poverty Law Center do not
necessarily “advocate or engage in violence or other criminal activities.” Neither are they necessarily racist.
“Non-Violent” Strategies
While some domestic terrorism suspects engage in violent plotting, others commit much different
crimes that do not physically harm people. This latter group differs from their homegrown violent
jihadist counterparts, who are often bent on killing or harming people. Two types of activities that
avoid visiting violence upon people but are commonly associated with subjects of domestic
terrorism investigations stand out. First, many animal rights extremists, eco-terrorists, and
anarchist extremists believe in “direct action.” This typically involves what movement members
would characterize as non-violent but criminal protest or resistance activities furthering the
278 Potok, “The Year,” p. 41.
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movement’s ideology. While direct action has a long legacy among anarchists, in recent years the
ALF and the ELF have played a large role in articulating its meaning. Second, “paper terrorism”
is a term used to describe some of the non-violent criminal activity committed by sovereign
citizens involving the filing of fraudulent documents in the hopes of harassing enemies or bilking
state or federal tax authorities.
Direct Action
Anarchist extremists, animal liberation extremists, and environmental extremists refer to much of
their operational activity as “direct action.” This term has a long history, and it can be used to
describe legitimate protest such as letter writing campaigns or work stoppages. However, this
report uses “direct action” to describe criminal activities such as sabotage and arson. 279
ALF and ELF members understand that criminality and direct action are one and the same. The
Animal Liberation Primer, a movement resource, highlights criminality in the actions of
supporters: “anyone working in the ALF is a criminal. You have to begin to think like a criminal.”
ALF and ELF members also generally view direct action as nonviolent and heroic. Using
politically charged language, the ALF allegedly styles itself along the lines of the Underground
Railroad, freedom fighters in Nazi Germany, anti-Apartheid protestors, U.S. civil rights activists,
and Palestinian groups opposing Israel.280 The ELF views constitutionally protected protest as
“state sanctioned” and eschews such activity. The ELF, much like the ALF, also wraps itself in the
mantle of reformers and describes itself as inheriting the spirit of Luddites, abolitionists,
suffragists, and even the American revolutionary-era Boston Tea Party. 281
The ALF: “Live Liberations” and “Economic Sabotage”
The ALF’s version of direct action is framed as what it considers to be “economic sabotage” or
“ethical vandalism.” The ALF supports the destruction of property and intimidation of individuals
and businesses considered by the movement to be involved in the exploitation of animals. Cells
and individuals linked to the ALF also engage in trespassing and theft, or what they perceive as
“live liberations” or “rescuing” animals from “the horrors of exploitation”282 and human use283 by
stealing them from places such as legitimate research facilities or farms. Economic sabotage can
be virtual. The North American Animal Liberation Press Office (NAALPO) has carried claims of
cyber hacking incidents in the name of animal rights.284 NAALPO is one of the web-based
279 According to the DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General, the FBI “generally” defines “direct action” as, “criminal
activity designed to cause economic loss or to destroy property or operations.” See Department of Justice, Office of the
Inspector General, Oversight and Review Division, A Review of the FBI’s Investigations of Certain Domestic Advocacy
Groups, (September 2010), p. 97, http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/s1009r.pdf; Darren Thurston, The ALF Primer,
n.d. p. 4. DOJ believes Thurston authored the Primer, although he is not attributed as an author in the document.
Hereafter, Thurston, The ALF Primer. See also: Guide to Direct Action, 2010, http://www.animalliberationfront.com/
ALFront/Activist%20Tips/Direct_Action-Guide.htm; Earth Liberation Front.org, “Earth Liberation Front Frequently
Asked Questions,” Hereafter: ELF, “FAQs.” See also: http://www.animalliberationfront.com/ALFront/ELF/elf_faq.pdf.
280 NAALPO, “History.”
281 ELF, “FAQs.”
282 NAALPO, “History.” A section of The ALF Primer describes both economic sabotage and live liberation as
legitimate strategies. See Thurston, The ALF Primer, p. 2.
283 Conn and Parker, The Animal, p. xvii.
284 Communiqué, July 13, 2007, http://www.animalliberationpressoffice.org/communiques/2007/2007-07-
13_lagrange_hls.htm.
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vehicles used by ALF supporters to publicize criminal activities claimed on behalf of the
movement.
The ELF: “Monkeywrenching”
Like the ALF, the ELF’s discussions of direct action also revolve around economic sabotage. The
ELF rejects legal protest tactics partly for what it views as pragmatic reasons—“because they
have been proven not to work, especially on their own.”285 Economic sabotage in the name of
environmentalism has a long history, perhaps stretching back to the 1950s,286 and has been called
“monkeywrenching,” a term taken from a 1975 novel, The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward
Abbey. The book depicts such activity.287 A guidebook that describes monkeywrenching offers
what can be interpreted as a call to arms for would-be extremists:
It is time for women and men, individually and in small groups to act heroically in the
defense of the wild, to put a monkeywrench into the gears of the machine that is destroying
natural diversity. Though illegal, this strategic monkeywrenching can be safe, easy, and—
most important—effective. 288
The guidebook also defines monkeywrenching as nonviolent by stressing that it should never
target people or “other forms of life.”289
Arson and Explosive Devices
Federal officials are especially concerned about the use of incendiary devices and explosives by
animal rights extremists and eco-terrorists. In congressional testimony from 2005, then-ATF
Deputy Assistant Director Carson Carroll stated that the “most worrisome” trend regarding
animal rights extremists and eco-terrorists was their “willingness to resort to incendiary and
explosive devices.”290
This pronouncement came on the heels of two related incidents that occurred near San Francisco,
CA, and involved explosive devices. An entity called the Revolutionary Cells of the Animal
Liberation Brigade claimed responsibility for both attacks, which the FBI has also linked to a man
named Daniel San Diego. In August 2003, two ammonium nitrate pipe bombs exploded at the
campus of the biotechnology firm Chiron but caused little damage and no injuries. In October
2003, a reputed 10-pound ammonium nitrate bomb damaged the offices of Shaklee, a health,
beauty, and household product company. No one was injured. The perpetrator(s) believed that
both companies did business with Huntingdon Life Sciences (the same firm targeted by SHAC
285 ELF, “FAQs.”
286 Bron Taylor, “The Tributaries of Radical Environmentalism,” Journal for the Study of Radicalism, vol. 2, no. 1
(2008), p. 45.
287 Edward Abbey, The Monkey Wrench Gang, 3rd ed. (Salt Lake City, UT: Dream Garden Press, 1985).
288 Dave Foreman, “Strategic Monkeywrenching,” in Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching, ed. Dave
Foreman and Bill Haywood, 3rd ed. (Chico, CA: Abzug Press, 1993), p. 8. Hereafter: Foreman, “Strategic
Monkeywrenching.” Foreman was a founder of Earth First! See Anti-Defamation League, Ecoterrorism.
289 Dave Foreman, “Strategic Monkeywrenching,” p. 9.
290 Statement of Carson Carroll, p. 43.
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and discussed above). A related communiqué stressed that, “all customers and their families are
considered legitimate targets.”291
One commentator has suggested that the combination of “fire” as a tactic and instilling “fear” as a
goal ensures eco-terrorists will continue to warrant the terrorist label.292 Both animal rights
extremists and eco-terrorists have histories of using incendiary devices to damage or destroy
property—the Vail, CO, fire (mentioned elsewhere in this report) setting a prominent example for
extremists. In fact, one of the hallmark publications circulated in extremist circles is a handbook
on how to fashion incendiary devices titled Arson Around with Auntie ALF.293 A recent example
underscores this focus on arson.
• In January 2012, NAALPO issued a communiqué in which “unnamed activists”
claimed responsibility for setting fires that damaged 14 tractor trailer rigs at the
Harris Ranch, a cattle feedlot in Coalinga, CA. The perpetrators used containers
of accelerant, kerosene-soaked rope, and digital timers to set the blazes.
According to the communiqué, the fires apparently embodied a reaction to “the
horrors and injustices of factory farming.”294
Some ELF adherents have focused on targets they perceive as emblematic of urban sprawl295 or
the excesses of industrialized society. Since 2000, a number of ELF actions have involved the
torching of housing projects as well as activities such as the damaging and destruction of sports
utility vehicles and other emblems of industrialized society and urban sprawl.296 Between August
291 Stacy Finz, “Militants Say They Planted Shaklee Bomb,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 1, 2003,
http://articles.sfgate.com/2003-10-01/bay-area/17512148_1_pipe-bombs-shaklee-chiron; Stacy Finz, Bernadette
Tansey, “2 Bombs Shatter Biotech Firm’s Windows,” August 29, 2003, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/
a/2003/08/29/MN173487.DTL&type=printable. The FBI assessed that the devices may have been intended to harm
people. The second Chiron bomb was timed to explode after the first, “an apparent strike at first responders,” while the
Shaklee bomb was wrapped in nails, “to significantly increase its lethality to anyone in the area at the time of the
detonation.” See U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, “Statement of John E. Lewis,
Deputy Assistant Director, Counterterrorism Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Eco-Terrorism Specifically
Examining Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (“SHAC”), 109th Cong., 1st sess., October 26, 2005, 109-1005
(Washington: GPO, 2008), p. 7. In April 2009, the FBI placed Daniel San Diego on its Most Wanted Terrorists List for
his involvement in the bombings. See Heimbach, press conference. The Bureau also tied him to SHAC. He had slipped
away from FBI surveillance in October 2003. See Federal Bureau of Investigation, “New Most Wanted Terrorist,”
April 21, 2009, http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/wanted_terrorists/daniel-andreas-san-diego. Hereafter: FBI, “New Most
Wanted”; “Daniel Andreas San Diego,” America’s Most Wanted, http://www.amw.com/fugitives/case.cfm?id=25800.
292 Grubbs, “Saving Lives,” p. 370.
293 Auntie ALF, Uncle ELF, and the Anti-Copyright Gang, Arson-Around with Auntie ALF: Your Guide for Putting the
Heat on Animal Abusers Everywhere, 2001. Hereafter: Arson-Around.
294 See http://www.animalliberationpressoffice.org/communiques/2012/2012-01-10_harrisranch.htm; Henry K. Lee,
“14 Cattle Trucks Burned in Arson at Harris Ranch,” San Francisco Chronicle, January 11, 2012;
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/10/BABM1MN8BU.DTL. For other examples, see Peter
Young, “Fire and Explosions Rock Oregon Mink Farm,” July 28, 2010, http://www.animalliberationpressoffice.org/
press_releases/2010/pr_2010_07_27_astoriafurfarm.htm; J.M. Brown, “A Year after Firebombings, No Arrests,
Though Awareness Remains among Scientists,” Santa Cruz Sentinel, August 2, 2009; John Coté, “Firebombings
Suggest New Tactic for Animal Activists,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 5, 2008; Shanna McCord, “FBI to Take
Over Santa Cruz Firebombs Case,” Monterey County Herald, August 4, 2008; Anti-Defamation League, ‘“Justice
Department’ Claims Responsibility for Threats against UCLA Animal Researcher,” December 3, 2010,
http://www.adl.org/learn/extremism_in_america_updates/movements/ecoterrorism/justice_department_ucla.htm.
Hereafter: Anti-Defamation League, ‘“Justice Department.’”
295 Brad Knickerbocker, “Firebrands of ‘Ecoterrorism’ Set Sights on Urban Sprawl,” Christian Science Monitor,
August 6, 2003, http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0806/p01s02-ussc.html. Hereafter: Knickerbocker, “Firebrands.”
296 Anti-Defamation League, “Radical Environmentalist Group Suspected in San Diego Arson,” August 8, 2003,
(continued...)
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and October 2002, three individuals tied to the ELF damaged construction vehicles and sports
utility vehicles, and vandalized fast food restaurants in Virginia. In one incident, these individuals
vandalized two homes under construction, spray painting “sprawl” on one of the structures. In
November 2005, the ELF claimed responsibility for fires set in five townhomes under
construction in Hagerstown, MD.297 Similar activity has occurred on the West Coast.298
Guidelines
Both the ALF and the ELF have established guidelines and posted them on the Web for cells or
lone wolves to follow. The guidelines are straightforward and short for both movements (see
Figure 2). A key point in the guidelines for both the ALF and the ELF is to avoid harming any
animal, human and non-human.299 The ALF’s guidelines also stipulate that individuals professing
affiliation with the movement must be vegetarians or vegans.
Interestingly, the ALF employs a number of caveats in its understanding of violence. On the one
hand, it supports intimidation as a tactic. On the other, the movement does not see intimidation as
potentially involving violence.300 The ALF also views arson as “violence against property,” not
people.301 Beyond this, ALF does not greatly elaborate on its notion of violence.
(...continued)
http://www.adl.org/learn/news/San_Diego_Arson.asp; Knickerbocker, “Firebrands”; Chris Dixon, “Arrest in
Vandalism of S.U.V.s,” New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/10/us/national-briefing-west-california-
arrest-in-vandalism-of-suv-s.html?ref=earthliberationfront.
297 Federal Bureau of Investigation, Terrorism 2002-2005, http://209.235.0.153/publications/terror/
terrorism2002_2005.htm.
298 “Activists Topple Towers, Claim Dangers of AM Radio Waves,” CNN.com, September 4, 2009,
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-09-04/justice/washington.towers.terrorism_1_elf-radio-station-radio-waves?_s=
PM:CRIME; “Officials: No Explosive Devices Found at Scene of Seattle-Area House Fires,” Fox News, March 4,
2008, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,334875,00.html; Debera Carlton Harrell, Aubrey Cohen, and Paul
Shukovsky, “‘Street of Dreams’ Houses Torched; Eco-Terrorists Suspected,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, March 4, 2008;
“Camano Island Mansion Fire Ruled Ecoterrorist Arson,” KOMO News.Com, January 20, 2006,
http://www.komonews.com/news/archive/4175026.html.
299 For ALF guidelines, see http://www.animalliberationpressoffice.org/Background.htm. For ELF guidelines, see
http://www.animalliberationfront.com/ALFront/ELF/elf_faq.pdf.
300 Ibid.
301 See North American Animal Liberation Front, “Frequently Asked Questions About the North American Animal
Liberation Press Office,” http://www.animalliberationpressoffice.org/faq.htm#7.
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Figure 2. ALF and ELF Guidelines
An
A imal Libe
imal Lib ration Fr
tion ont
Envi
Env ronme
nm ntal Libe
l
ration
rati
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To be
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be ate an
e
imals
an
fr
imals om
o plac
pla es
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Notes: For ALF guidelines, see http://www.animalliberationpressoffice.org/Background.htm. For ELF guidelines,
see http://www.animalliberationfront.com/ALFront/ELF/elf_faq.pdf
Exceptions
Some animal rights extremists support violence. For example, in February 2012 Meredith Lowell
was arrested for allegedly using a Facebook page she created (under an assumed name) to solicit
a hit man to kill “someone who is wearing fur.”302 In the investigation, the FBI used an
undercover employee to pose as a hit man and communicate with Lowell online. She was arrested
before anyone could be harmed.303
An animal rights extremist entity named the “Justice Department” believes in the efficacy of
violence against humans.304 Founded in the United Kingdom in 1993, the “Justice Department”
has been described as an offshoot of the ALF.305 In 1999, the first incident claimed in its name on
U.S. soil involved the mailing of more than 80 envelopes containing razor blades allegedly
positioned to cut recipients. Some of the razors may have been covered in rat poison. The letters
were received by animal researchers, hunting guides, and others in the United States and
Canada.306 In November 2010, individuals asserting ties to the “Justice Department” mailed two
communiqués to NAALPO. The missives claimed that “Justice Department” extremists had
302 James Ewinger, “Cleveland Heights Woman Charged with Using Facebook to Hire Killer,” Cleveland Plain Dealer,
February 21, 2012, http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2012/02/heights_woman_charged_with_usi.html.
303 Ibid.
304 North American Animal Liberation Press Office, press release, “Liberationist Group ‘Justice Department’
Increasingly Vocal on Animal Abuse,” November 23, 2010, http://www.animalliberationpressoffice.org/press_releases/
2010/pr_2010_11_23_jd.htm. Hereafter: NAALPO, “Liberationist Group.”
305 Anti-Defamation League, ‘“Justice Department.’”
306 Ibid; Southern Poverty Law Center, “Eco-Violence: The Record,” Intelligence Report, Southern Poverty Law
Center, no. 107 (Fall 2002), http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2002/fall/
from-push-to-shove/eco-violence-the-rec.
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mailed AIDS-tainted razors to two scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles.307 One
of the communiqués read:
We are the past generation of animal liberationists, but we will now be the future, striking at
the heart of the vivisection industry, and if we have to go back to egg timers and insence
[sic] sticks then we will. Mark our words, we will destroy all who fall into our focus.308
Presumably, allusion to egg timers and incense sticks suggests timing devices and fuses for
explosive or incendiary devices.309
“Paper Terrorism”: Liens, Frivolous Lawsuits, and Tax Schemes
Sovereign citizens have committed non-violent crimes based on their ideological
underpinnings.310 These are often bundled under the concept of “paper terrorism.”311 This concept
can include forging documents (fake money orders and bad personal checks, for example), failing
to pay taxes, phony tax filings, and presenting sham legal arguments in court. Sovereign citizens
have filed fraudulent property liens against their foes. 312 Some sovereigns hold illegal courts and
target officials with fake criminal indictments. They can also “issue warrants for judges and
police officers.” 313
Retaliatory Filings
While these acts may not be violent, they are frequently “designed to intimidate or defraud
targeted individuals, private institutions, or government entities.”314 Thus, some sovereigns saddle
their opponents with time-consuming legal efforts to wipe out sham retaliatory court filings. As a
307 NAALPO, “Liberationist Group.”
308 Ibid.
309 Arson-Around, pp. 16-17 describes assembly of an incendiary device incorporating incense sticks as a fuse. Incense
sticks have been used as fuses for incendiary devices by ELF and ALF activists. See Federal Bureau of Investigation,
Terrorism 2000-2001, 2004, p. 4, http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terror/terrorism-2000-2001 for an
example of an ELF incident. For additional examples involving the cell known as “The Family” active with both the
ALF and the ELF, see U.S. v. Dibee et al. Kitchen timers are discussed in William Rodgers and Stanislas Meyerhoff,
Setting Fires with Electrical Timers: An Earth Liberation Front Guide, May 2001, pp. 15-17. Although the document
lists no authors, DOJ believes that Rodgers and Meyerhoff wrote it. They were members of “The Family” which also
used kitchen timers in its incendiary devices. See United States v. Joseph Dibee et. al, Indictment, CR 06-60011-AA,
District Court, District of Oregon, January 19, 2006.
310 Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Sovereign Citizen Group Calls for
Removal of U.S. Governors, March 29, 2010, p. 2. Hereafter: “Sovereign Citizen Group Calls.”
311 For an example of the use of this oft-used term, see Department of Justice, press release, “Member of Anti-
Government Movement Pleads Guilty to Laundering Money for FBI Undercover Agents,” March 25, 2011,
http://www.fbi.gov/lasvegas/press-releases/2011/lv032511.htm.
312 One source has defined a lien as “a claim encumbrance or charge on property for payment of a debt or obligation.”
Liens can be consensual or nonconsensual. They can be statutory or derive from common law. An example of a
nonconsensual common law lien is “when a mechanic refuses to return a car until repairs are paid for.” See Robert
Chamberlain and Donald P. Haider-Markel, “‘Lien on Me’: State Policy Innovation in Response to Paper Terrorism,”
Political Research Quarterly, vol. 58, no. 3 (September 2005), p. 450.
313 Ibid.; Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Sovereign Citizen.” See also: Christopher A. Young, “Minnesota Has New
Weapons in the Fight Against ‘Paper Terrorism,’” Hennepin Lawyer, August 28, 2007,
http://hennepin.timberlakepublishing.com/article.asp?article=1148.
314 “Sovereign Citizen Group Calls,” p. 2.
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result, sovereign foes incur court fees and their credit ratings potentially suffer. In some cases,
these proceedings arise from what most citizens might consider fairly mundane run-ins with law
enforcement authorities. Some sovereigns do not necessarily see violations like parking tickets
and trespassing arrests as run-of-the-mill. They can react to such encounters with police by
challenging the very authority and jurisdiction of U.S. law enforcement and by harassing officials
with dubious liens, for example.
• In November 2011, Kenneth W. Leaming, from Spanaway, WA, was arrested for
allegedly issuing billions of dollars in frivolous liens to intimidate public officials
enforcing laws against sovereign citizens. Reportedly, he has been tied to other
sovereign citizen adherents and groups. Also, he purportedly planned to harass
the children of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. 315
Redemption
Sovereign citizen guru Roger Elvick is the reputed founder of “redemption,”316 a concept that
blurs the line between sovereign citizen ideology and pure scam. Redemption suggests that when
the United States left the gold standard during the Great Depression, the nation found a way to
monetize people. According to the theory, each child who is born in the United States and has a
birth certificate also has a U.S. Treasury account “valued from $630,000 to more than $3
million”317 viewed as collateral against the nation’s debts. Redemption supporters hold that by
filing certain forms with state or federal authorities, people can draw money from these accounts.
To do so, they occasionally attempt to pass bogus checks.318
On a broad level, redemption can be viewed as an ideologically driven tactic meant to illegally
wrangle money from the U.S. government via the IRS. According to DOJ, in some instances this
involves the filing of “a series of false IRS forms, including tax returns, amended returns, and
315 Levi Pulkkinen, “FBI: Spanaway ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Planned to Track Down Justice’s Children,” Seattle Post-
Intelligencer, November 28, 2011, http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/FBI-Spanaway-sovereign-citizen-planned-to-
2299295.php; Anti-Defamation League, “Little Shell Pembina Band,” http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/little_shell.asp?
learn_cat=extremism&learn_subcat=extremism_in_america&xpicked=3&item=little_shell. For other examples, see
Rick Montgomery, “Sovereign Citizens: Crackpots, Crooks, or Defenders of Liberty?” Kansas City Star, November 26,
2011, http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/26/3288115/sovereign-citizens-bulldogs-guarding.html.
315 Marnie Eisenstadt, “Fringe Group Terrorizes Small-Town Officials with False Liens,” The Post Standard, May 23,
2011; Rick Montgomery, “Sovereign Citizens: Crackpots, Crooks, or Defenders of Liberty?” Kansas City Star,
November 26, 2011, http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/26/3288115/sovereign-citizens-bulldogs-guarding.html;
Marnie Eisenstadt, “Fringe Group Terrorizes Small-Town Officials with False Liens,” The Post Standard, May 23,
2011; “Two Admit Scheme to Defraud Public Employees,” Daily Freeman, January 14, 2011,
http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2011/01/14/blotter/doc4d2fb54d3189f270459164.txt; Michael Virtanen, “NY
Man’s Sentencing Put Off in Liens Case,” Associated Press, July 12, 2011.
316 “His ‘Straw Man’ Free, a Scammer Finds the Rest of Him Isn’t,” Intelligence Report, Southern Poverty Law Center,
Issue 118, (Summer 2005), http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2005/summer/
patriots-for-profit. Hereafter: Southern Poverty Law Center, “His Straw Man Free.”
317 FBI Counterterrorism Analysis Section, “Sovereign Citizens.”
318 Elvick promoted his ideas in the 1980s, and was jailed for much of the 1990s as well as in the next decade because
of passing bad checks, forgery, extortion, and corruption. See Ibid.; Southern Poverty Law Center, “His Straw Man
Free”; For a description of redemption, see Institute for Intergovernmental Research, Investigating Terrorism, pp. 70-
71.
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Forms 1099 (including Form 1099-OID) or Forms W-2, to request fraudulent tax refunds based
on phony claims of large income tax withholding.”319
In addition, DOJ describes some redemption adherents as scammers who dupe customers into
filing false IRS forms to redeem money via the purported secret accounts the government holds
for its citizens.320 One guru recently pled guilty to money laundering charges.321 In another case,
in December 2009 Audie Watson received a 14-year prison sentence for his involvement in an
immigration benefit fraud scheme that sold membership in the Pembina Nation Little Shell Band
to illegal aliens. Watson and co-conspirators charged individuals $1,500 and couples $2,000.
They conned clients into believing that membership could be used to avoid removal from the
United States.322
• In March 2011, DOJ announced that the U.S. District Court for the Western
District of Missouri had permanently barred Gerald A Poynter “from preparing
tax returns for others and from promoting” a redemption scam.323 Poynter
informed his customers that he could obtain tax refunds for them, charged them
for his services, and then produced fraudulent IRS forms claiming $64 million in
refunds for 165 customers.324
The Internet and Domestic Terrorists
In the counterterrorism world, there has been much concern regarding violent jihadist use of the
Internet.325 However, domestic terrorists also are computer savvy and active online. One count
suggested that 657 U.S.-based hate websites existed in 2010.326 A Web presence may help
extremist groups—sometimes relatively small, with rosters in the 100s or fewer—educate their
319 Department of Justice, press release, “Government Files Seven Lawsuits Nationwide to Block Alleged Scheme
Involving Fraudulent Tax-Refund Claims,” October 28, 2009, http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2009/October/09-tax-
1161.html.
320 Ibid.
321 Carri Greer Thevenot, “Idaho Man Pleads Guilty to Money Laundering,” Las Vegas Review-Journal, March 25,
2011, http://www.lvrj.com/news/sovereign-movement-leader-pleads-guilty-to-money-laundering-118685369.html.
322 Immigration and Customs Enforcement, press release, “South Florida Man Sentenced to 14 Years in Prison for
Immigration Fraud,” December 8, 2009, http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/0912/091208miami.htm.
323 Department of Justice, press release, “Federal Court Shuts Down Missouri Tax Preparer Who Promoted Tax Scam,”
March 28, 2011, http://www.justice.gov/tax/txdv11382.htm. For the injunction, see http://www.justice.gov/tax/
Poynter_Injunction.pdf.
324 Ibid.
325 For example, see Edna Erez, Gabriel Weimann, and A. Aaron Weisburd, “Jihad, Crime, and the Internet: Content
Analysis of Jihadist Forum Discussions,” October 31, 2011, Report submitted to the National Institute of Justice in
fulfillment of requirements for Award Number 2006-IJ-CX-0038; Akil N. Awan, “The Virtual Jihad: An Increasingly
Legitimate Form of Warfare,” CTC Sentinel, vol. 3, no. 5 (May 2010), p. 11, http://www.ctc.usma.edu/sentinel/
CTCSentinel-Vol3Iss5.pdf; Gilbert Ramsay, “Relocating the Virtual War,” Defence Against Terrorism Review, vol. 2,
no. 1 (Spring 2009), p. 34, http://www.tmmm.tsk.tr/publications/datr3/03_Gilbert%20Ramsay.pdf; Tim Stevens,
“Regulating the ‘Dark Web:’ How a Two-Fold Approach Can Tackle Peer-to-Peer Radicalisation,” The RUSI Journal,
vol. 154, no. 2 (Apr. 2009), p. 29; Gabriel Weimann, Terror on the Internet: The New Arena, the New Challenge
(Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2006); Maura Conway, “Terrorism and Mass
Communication: Nitro to the Net,” The World Today, vol. 60, no. 8/9 (Aug/Sep 2004), pp. 19-22, http://doras.dcu.ie/
513/1/nitro_to_net_2004.pdf.
326 Potok, “The Year,” p. 50. This count included web pages “from Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazi, White Nationalist, Racist
Skinhead, Christian Identity, Neo-Confederate, Black Separatist, and General Hate groups.”
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existing membership and forge a group identity. Also, in many instances they can use websites to
focus on outsiders to propagandize, socialize, and recruit new adherents.327 A few domestic
terrorists also have exploited the Web to harm their targets.
White supremacists have long been using computer technology to communicate and interact. As
one study has suggested, white supremacists “were among the very early users of the electronic
communication network that eventually evolved into the Internet.”328 Among a variety of
findings, the study indicated that white supremacist extremist websites were possibly an effective
recruiting tool that the groups exploited. Membership forms are available on some sites. Others
exhibit multimedia material, and some actually retail items such as music and video games.329
The Internet allows individuals and groups to connect with one anther and to disseminate
ideology.330 It also enables groups to manage how others perceive them. Many white supremacist
sites claim that their sponsoring groups are non-violent and not even racist.331
Some white supremacists may be unwilling to affirm their views in public spaces such as work,
school, or in street demonstrations. To them, the virtual realm is an important antidote. As one
study has suggested, “free spaces” in both the real and virtual worlds—where conflict with non-
believers will be minimized—are important for adherents. In them they can “meet, articulate, and
support their views.”332 Supremacists can turn to virtual free spaces to receive indoctrination into
movement culture, key narratives outlining movement grievances, adopt ideologies, and “talk of
violence against ‘racial enemies.’”333
Much of this online ideological activity involves constitutionally protected speech. A number of
examples stand out.
• The ALF and the ELF have their long-established guidelines posted on the Web
for independent groups or individuals to follow.334 Movement websites virtually
connect like-minded individuals. As mentioned elsewhere in this report, key
ideological texts are also made available online.335 The websites of animal rights
extremists and eco-terrorists also post press releases publicizing crimes
perpetrated on behalf of the movements.336
327 Jeffrey Kaplan, Leonard Weinberg, and Ted Oleson, “Dreams and Realities in Cyberspace: White Aryan Resistance
and the World Church of the Creator,” Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 37, no. 2 (2003), pp. 149-150.
328 Phyllis B. Gerstenfeld, Diana R. Grant, Chau-Pu Chiang, “Hate Online: A Content Analysis of Extremist Internet
Sites,” Analysis of Social Issues and Public Policy, vol. 3, no. 1, (2003), p. 29. Hereafter Gerstenfeld et. al., “Hate
Online.”
329 Ibid.
330 See Josh Adams and Vincent J. Roscigno, “White Supremacists, Oppositional Culture, and the World Wide Web,”
Social Forces, vol. 84, no. 2 (December 2005), pp 759-778.
331 Gerstenfeld et. al., “Hate Online,” pp. 33-41.
332 Pete Simi, Robert Futrell, “Cyberculture and the Endurance of White Power Activism,” Journal of Political and
Military Sociology, vol. 34, no. 1 (Summer 2006), p. 117. Hereafter: Simi and Futrell, “Endurance.”
333 Ibid, 122-126, 131. Some free spaces exist in the real world. Examples include the privacy of the home, supremacist
events such as conferences, isolated compounds or communities, and ideologically-focused musical concerts.
334 See http://www.animalliberationpressoffice.org/Background.htm; ELF, “What Is the Earth?”
335 Anti-Defamation League, Ecoterrorism: Extremism in the Animal Rights and Environmentalist Movements,
http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/ecoterrorism.asp. Hereafter: Anti-Defamation League, Ecoterrorism.
336 See http://www.animalliberationfront.com/; http://www.animalliberationpressoffice.org/; and
http://www.earthliberationfront.org/.
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• Reverend Donald Spitz administers the Army of God’s website.337 Among other
things, the site includes lists of people who support “violent opposition to
abortion” as well as listing people incarcerated because of anti-abortion crimes
they committed.338
• The National Socialist Movement sponsors its own social networking site, the
“New Saxon Social Network.”339
Some domestic terrorists also engage in cyber attacks. According to DOJ, an animal rights
extremist cell (SHAC USA, Inc.) active between 2001 and 2004 listed online the personal
information—names, addresses, phone numbers—of workers at a firm it was targeting. (The
business uses animals in its research.) The extremist cell likely devised the list to help focus the
activities of the group’s online followers. In some cases, the published information included the
names of spouses and children of employees, license plate numbers, churches attended by the
employees, as well as the schools their children attended. The websites used by the extremist cell
also posted suggestions for action by supporters—including what it described as the “top 20 terror
tactics.”340 Supporters across the United States vandalized victims’ homes and automobiles and
engaged in cyber attacks against the research firms and other companies tied to it, among other
activities.341
In January 2009, in an unclassified assessment available on the Internet, DHS stated that
“leftwing” extremists were likely to increasingly use cyber attacks. The assessment noted that
animal rights extremists engaged in cyber attacks such as “deletion of user accounts, flooding a
company’s server with e-mails, and other types of e-mail assaults intended to force businesses to
exhaust resources.”342
A Decentralized Threat
Domestic terrorism can be described as a decentralized threat. As this report has already
suggested, domestic terrorism suspects generally operate on their own or in small, independent
cells. In other words, they do not necessarily belong to organizations with cohesive, well-
articulated leadership structures or cadres.
337 Jefferis, Armed for Life, p. 53.
338 Ibid., p. 77.
339 See http://newsaxon.org/.
340 Department of Justice, White Paper, p. 60; United States v. Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty USA, Inc., et. al,
Superseding Indictment, CR 04-373, District Court, District of New Jersey, n.d. http://www.justice.gov/usao/nj/press/
files/pdffiles/shacind2.pdf. Hereafter: Department of Justice, United States v. Stop Huntingdon. The “top 20 terror
tactics” included activity such as: “demonstrations at one’s [a target’s] home using a loudspeaker; abusive graffiti,
posters and stickers on one’s car and house; invading offices and, damaging property and stealing documents; chaining
gates shut, and blocking gates; physical assault including spraying cleaning fluid into one’s eyes; smashing the
windows of one’s house while the individual’s family was at home; flooding one’s home while the individual was
away; vandalizing one’s car; firebombing one’s car; bomb hoaxes; threatening telephone calls and letters including
threats to kill or injure one’s partner or children; e-mail bombs in an attempt to crash computers; sending continuous
black faxes causing fax machines to burn out; telephone blockades by repeated dialing to prevent the use of the
telephone; and arranging for an undertaker to call to collect one’s body.”
341 According to the superseding indictment in the case, the cell also placed reports of intimidation and vandalism on its
websites to encourage its followers. See Department of Justice, United States v. Stop Huntingdon.
342 Department of Homeland Security, Leftwing Extremists Likely to Increase Use of Cyber Attacks over the Coming
Decade, January 26, 2009.
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However, independently acting domestic terrorism suspects are not necessarily isolated, adrift,
and cut off from any outside contact or influence. Some take ideological cues from broader
movements or groups espousing extremist ideas. These groups or movements publicly disavow
violent criminal behavior and engage in constitutionally protected activities. This dynamic—the
interplay between above-ground groups or movements proffering extremist dogma or ideology
(protected speech) that is then consumed and acted upon by independent underground groups or
cells who commit crimes—is a critical feature of domestic terrorism.
Leaderless Resistance
Within the domestic terrorism realm, the notions of decentralized activity received attention in the
1980s and early 1990s when white supremacist Louis Beam circulated his theories of “leaderless
resistance.”343 He saw leaderless resistance as a means to transform the white supremacy
movement. Beam described it as a means of avoiding law enforcement infiltration of white
supremacist groups, and he suggested two levels of leaderless movement activity. First, on an
operational level, militant, underground, ideologically motivated cells or individuals (lone
wolves) engage in movement-related illegal activity without any centralized direction or control
from an organization that maintains traditional leadership positions and membership rosters.
Second, on another level, the above-ground public face (the “political wing”) of the movement
propagandizes and disseminates ideology—engaging in protected speech. In this system,
underground cells or lone wolves would be responsible for their own actions, and the public face
of the movement would not be held accountable.344
Online comments from the leadership of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement (NSM) offer
a specific example of an above-ground movement avoiding violence and the terrorist label. The
NSM’s leader has posted the following statement on the group’s website:
I want it made perfectly clear to all of our members, supporters, prospective members,
readers, etc. that the National Socialist Movement condemns illegal actions and in such we
do not endorse any acts of violence or terrorism. The NSM is a White Civil Rights
Movement that adheres to Political activism, and a legal means to restore America to its
former glory. Acts of violence or terrorism against America, or its Citizens is unacceptable,
and not tolerated within the ranks of the National Socialist Movement.345
343 He was a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and Aryan Nations activist.
344 Paul Joosse, “Leaderless Resistance and Ideological Inclusion: The Case of the Earth Liberation Front,” Terrorism
and Political Violence, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 2007), pp 351-368. Hereafter: Joosse, “Leaderless Resistance.” Fred
Burton, “The Challenge of the Lone Wolf,” STRATFOR, May 30, 2007, http://www.stratfor.com/challenge_lone_wolf;
Hereafter: Burton, “The Challenge.” Southern Poverty Law Center, “Louis Beam,” http://www.splcenter.org/get-
informed/intelligence-files/profiles/louis-beam; Anti Defamation League, “Louis Beam,” http://www.adl.org/learn/
ext_us/beam.asp?xpicked=2&item=beam. Beam secretly discussed leaderless resistance among white supremacists and
anti-government extremists as early as 1983. See Wright, Patriots, p. 87. Forms of leaderless resistance likely have a
long history. For example, late-nineteenth-century anarchists can be seen as having engaged in a type of leaderless
resistance in their rejection of organized authority. See Jean-Marc Flükiger, “The Radical Animal Liberation
Movement: Some Reflections on Its Future,” Journal for the Study of Radicalism, vol. 2, no. 2 (2009), pp. 112.
Hereafter: Flükiger, “The Radical.” See also: Ramón Spaaij, “The Enigma of Lone Wolf Terrorism: An Assessment,”
Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, vol. 33, no. 9 (2010), p. 859. Hereafter: Spaaij, “The Enigma.”
345 Jeff Schoep, “CDR Jeff Schoep Denounces Violence & Domestic Terrorism,” http://www.nsm88.org/
commandersdesk/.
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“The Turner Diaries”
One of the key texts read by neo-Nazis and anti-government extremists is The Turner Diaries, a
1978 novel by William Pierce, the deceased founder of the neo-Nazi group National Alliance.346
This book can be seen as an above-ground product that motivates underground cells or
individuals to commit crimes. The book has partly inspired a number of violent acts by white
supremacist extremists and anti-government extremists.
The Turner Diaries predates the widespread acceptance of the “leaderless resistance” concept.
However, its lasting place in the neo-Nazi and anti-government extremist movements highlights
how leaderless resistance works. Peirce’s book has been described as “the most widely read book
among far-right extremists.”347 The novel reflects the author’s own racist religious
philosophies.348 Perhaps 500,000 copies of the book have been sold.349 In it, Pierce emphasized
that the current racial order of things had to be cataclysmically destroyed and reborn in
accordance with white supremacist ideals.350 To convey this message, he devised his book as the
edited diaries of neo-Nazi character Earl Turner. As such, Turner’s story is annotated by a
fictionalized editor, one Andrew Macdonald. The novel describes Turner leading a terrorist group
whose actions trigger a race war that results in the overthrow of the government—controlled by
Jews in Pierce’s construction. Turner also initiates a nuclear war that wipes out earth’s non-white
human inhabitants. The atomic apocalypse allows for the rebirth of a revitalized white race.351
The book has informed the activities of domestic terrorists. In September 1983, white supremacist
Robert Mathews formed a small underground group known as The Order. Its inspiration came
from passages in The Turner Diaries. The group planned for and engaged in what it viewed as a
revolution.352 Over the next 15 months, The Order went on a violent crime spree. Among other
crimes, it robbed banks, armored cars, electronic stores, a truck stop, and a video store, and
allegedly gave some of the spoils to Richard Butler, who was at the time the leader of the WSE
group Aryan Nations. The Order also bombed a synagogue and murdered a Jewish talk show
host, Alan Berg, before it was dismantled by federal law enforcement.353
346 Renee Brodie, “The Aryan New Era: Apocalyptic Realizations in The Turner Diaries,” Journal of American
Culture, vol. 21, no. 3, (fall 1998), pp. 13-22.
347 Anti-Defamation League, “The Turner Diaries,” 2005, http://www.adl.org/learn/Ext_US/turner_diaries.asp.
348 See Brad Whitsel, “The Turner Diaries and Cosmotheism: William Pierce’s Theology,” Nova Religio: The Journal
of Alternative and Emergent Religions, vol. 1, no. 2 (April 1998), pp. 183-197. Hereafter: Whitsel, “The Turner
Diaries.”
349 Freilich, Chermak, and Caspi, “Critical Events,” p. 505. Another estimate dating back to 2001 places the number
sold at 300,000. See Rob McAlear, “Hate, Narrative, and Propaganda in The Turner Diaries,” The Journal of American
Culture, vol. 32, no. 3 (September 2009), p. 192. Hereafter: McAlear, “Hate, Narrative.”
350 George Michael, “The Revolutionary Model of Dr. William L. Pierce,” Terrorism and Political Violence, vol. 15,
no. 3 (Autumn 2003), p. 75.
351 Whitsel, “The Turner Diaries,” p. 185; Terence Ball and Richard Dagger, “The Turner Diaries: Neo-Nazi
Scripture,” PS: Political Science and Politics, vol. 30, no. 4, (December 1997), pp. 717-718. McAlear, “Hate,
Narrative,” p. 196.
352 Wright, Patriots, pp. 87-88; Anti-Defamation League, “Richard Scutari,” http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/
scutari.asp?xpicked=2&item=scutari. Hereafter: Anti-Defamation League, “Scutari.” Zeskind, Blood and Politics, pp.
96-100.
353 Balch, “The Rise and Fall,” 87, 109; Wright, Patriots, p. 86-89.
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Anti-government extremist Timothy McVeigh, an avid reader of the book, had passages from the
Turner Diaries with him when he was arrested. The 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah
federal building in Oklahoma City mimicked one described in the novel and involved a small cell
of underground conspirators.354 Sales of the book allegedly rose after the bombing.355
The ALF, the ELF
The concept of leaderless resistance has been mirrored by other extremist movements in the
United States. Both the ALF and the ELF have rejected recognizable leadership structures or
hierarchies and follow a leaderless resistance model instead, making their activities more difficult
for law enforcement to investigate.356 According to the model, above-ground elements in the
movements provide guidelines and an ideological platform that underground individuals—lone
wolves—or independent cells can draw upon to motivate their own criminal actions. Exercising
First-Amendment rights, the above-ground components of the ALF and the ELF lawfully
communicate shared identities largely via websites. As one scholar has suggested for the ELF,
this possibly creates a broad consensus focused on a very specific cause and avoids internecine
conflicts over ideological fine points.357 Much like the NSM, the above-ground elements of the
ALF take pains to distinguish themselves from criminal activity. For example, NAALPO states:
Disclaimer: The Animal Liberation Press Officers do not engage in illegal activities, nor do
they know any individuals who do. Rather, the Press Office receives and posts communiqués
from anonymous parties and provides comment to the media.358
Additionally, the above-ground literature of both the ALF and the ELF suggests that independent
cells avoid communication with one another.359 This leaderless format is followed to avoid law
enforcement infiltration and is based on models used by other domestic terrorists. As one scholar
has suggested, this parallels franchising in the business world.360
Lone Wolves
Some domestic terrorists are “lone wolves.” This can be seen as a form of leaderless resistance.
One scholar has offered a succinct conceptualization:
Lone wolf terrorism involves terrorist attacks carried out by persons who (a) operate
individually, (b) do not belong to an organized terrorist group or network, and (c) whose
modi operandi are conceived and directed by the individual without any direct outside
command hierarchy.361
354 McAlear, “Hate, Narrative,” p. 192; Wright, Patriots, pp. 6, 10.
355 Freilich, Chermak, and Caspi, “Critical Events,” p. 505.
356 Ackerman, “Beyond Arson,” p. 151.
357 Joosse, “Leaderless Resistance,” p. 352, 354.
358 NAALPO, “History.”
359 Thurston, The ALF Primer, p. 1. See also: United States v. Joseph Dibee et. al, Indictment, CR 06-60011-AA,
District Court, District of Oregon, January 19, 2006; Leader and Probst, “The Earth Liberation Front,” pp. 37-58.
360 Flükiger, “The Radical,” pp. 111-119.
361 Ibid, p. 856.
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Lone wolves have committed crimes in the names of a number of domestic terrorism movements.
For example, according to the FBI, when it comes to violence attributed to white supremacist
extremism, lone wolves play a prominent role. Lone wolves filter in and out of WSE groups.
They can either get dismissed from these groups because of their “violent tendencies” or
voluntarily leave because they find the organizations too passive.362 There is little research on the
lone wolf phenomenon and no universally accepted definition of the term.363
The above definition stresses how lone wolves operate. Just as critical is what they believe. Lone
wolves can hew to broader ideological causes and use them to justify their actions.364 This
suggests that lone wolves potentially adopt the ideas of broader terrorist movements while not
claiming formal membership in them. Divining exactly what “formal membership” constitutes
leads to debate regarding whether or not some individuals acted as lone wolves or part of larger
movements. For example:
• On January 29, 2010, Scott Roeder was convicted of first-degree murder and two
counts of aggravated assault for killing abortion provider George Tiller.365 Roeder
allegedly had “connections with militant abortion foes but few formal ties with
known groups.”366 Some supporters of abortion rights consider his contacts
among anti-abortion adherents as evidence of possible conspiracy.367 Meanwhile,
some anti-abortion activists have stressed that Roeder was a lone wolf.368 He
remains the only person convicted of Tiller’s murder.
Because lone wolves are not plugged into terrorist organizations, distinguishing them from
individuals who commit hate crimes can also be difficult.369 In these cases, as mentioned above,
the FBI likely attempts to determine whether the motives involved were personal (hate crime) and
not focused on broader ideologies (domestic terrorism).
The Law Enforcement Challenges Posed by Lone Wolves
Lone wolves present particular challenges to law enforcement. Because lone wolves, by
definition, operate alone, it can be difficult for law enforcement to assess exactly which
radicalized individuals intend to turn their beliefs into action and pursue terrorist activity. One
former FBI counterterrorism official has said:
The lone wolf is arguably one of the biggest challenges to American law enforcement. How
do you get into the mind of a terrorist? The FBI does not have the capability to know when a
362 Federal Bureau of Investigation, Rage and Racism, p. 8.
363 Spaaij, “The Enigma,” pp. 855-856.
364 Ibid.
365 Sylvester, “Scott Roeder.”
366 Judy L. Thomas, “Was Suspect in Tiller Case a Lone Wolf?” The Kansas City Star, June 14, 2009. Hereafter:
Thomas, “Was Suspect?”
367 Amanda Robb, “Not a Lone Wolf,” Ms. Magazine, vol. 20, no. 2 (Spring 2010), pp. 26-31.
368 Thomas, “Was Suspect?”
369 Eric Boehlert, “Terrorism or Hate Crime?” Salon.com, April 17, 2003, http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2003/
04/17/terrorist_act/index.html.
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person gets up in middle America and decides: ‘I’m taking my protest poster to Washington
or I’m taking my gun.’370
Aside from intent, it is also hard to assess the operational capability of potential lone wolf
terrorists—knowledge of explosives, familiarity with firearms, or experience in surveillance, for
example.371 Lone wolves do not participate in terrorist networks or training camps that can be
infiltrated or whose communications can be traced. They do not rehearse their schemes or
practice their criminal skills with conspirators who can potentially act as cooperating witnesses.
To attempt to overcome these issues, the FBI asserted in 2009 that it was “beginning an extensive
study on identified lone offenders to come up with indicators and behavior predictors that
investigators can use to assess suspects.”372
Not all of the news for law enforcement regarding lone wolves is necessarily dire. They have
weaknesses. Their lack of tradecraft may make it harder for lone wolves to engage in large-scale
attacks. Likewise, lone wolves do not necessarily experience the reinforcement of a closely knit
terrorist social network. They cannot rely on others to assist them in any type of complicated
plot.373
Regardless, lone wolf attacks can be lethal. For example, according to one scholarly examination,
between 1990 and April 2009, “far-rightists” have been responsible for the deaths of 42 law
enforcement officers—most from state and local agencies in the United States. Most of the
incidents involved firearms, and most of the assailants acted alone.374 Other instances of fatalities
have been documented as well. Aside from the 2010 actions of Scott Roeder and the 2009
shooting involving James von Brunn (discussed elsewhere), suspected lone wolves were involved
in at least two fatal shooting incidents in 2009, according to media sources and watchdog groups.
The individuals involved in these incidents held white supremacist beliefs.
• Richard Poplawski shot and killed three Pittsburgh police officers in April 2009.
He has been described as a “white supremacist” lone wolf.375 He had posted anti-
government messages on racist websites.376
• On January 21, 2009, Keith Luke allegedly shot and killed two Cape Verdean
immigrants and raped and shot a third. Police arrested him before he could attack
370 Gary Fields and Evan Perez, “FBI Seeks to Target Lone Extremists,” Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2009,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124501849215613523.html.
371 Scott Stewart and Fred Burton, Lone Wolf Lessons, STRATFOR, June 3, 2009, http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/
20090603_lone_wolf_lessons?ip_auth_redirect=1. Hereafter: Stewart and Burton, Lone Wolf. See also: Steven M.
Chermak, Joshua D. Freilich & Joseph Simone Jr., “Surveying American State Police Agencies About Lone Wolves,
Far-Right Criminality, and Far-Right and Islamic Jihadist Criminal Collaboration,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism,
vol. 33 no. 11 (2010).
372 Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Domestic Terrorism.”
373 Stewart and Burton, Lone Wolf.
374 START, press release, “Background Information: Far-Right Attacks on U.S. Law Enforcement,” April 2009,
http://www.start.umd.edu/start/media/Far-Right_Attacks_on_US_Law_Enforcement_PressRelease.pdf. The scholars
who developed the information in the press release defined “far-right ideology” as “principles such as fierce
nationalism, anti-globalization, suspicions of centralized Federal authority, support for conspiracy theories, and
reverence for individual liberties (including gun ownership.”
375 McNulty, et al., “Jury Decides.” See also: Anti-Defamation League, “Richard Poplawski.”
376 Hamill, “Man Accused.”
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a synagogue, as he planned.377 Luke purportedly informed police that he had
decided to go on his spree after reading about “the demise of the white race” on a
neo-Nazi website.378 He reputedly said that he was “fighting for a dying race”
and that he had been planning the attack for six months.379
The shootings perpetrated by Roeder and von Brunn have been described by the federal
government as terrorist acts.380 It is unclear whether the Poplawski and Luke cases are considered
as such.
Lone wolves do not necessarily have to focus on gun-related crimes. Kevin Harpham’s case
illustrates as much. On March 9, 2011, law enforcement officers arrested Kevin Harpham
(discussed elsewhere) and charged him in connection to a bomb concealed in a backpack and
placed along the route of a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day March in Spokane, WA. In September
2011, Harpham pled guilty to committing a federal hate crime and attempting to use a weapon of
mass destruction.381 Media reports and watchdog groups have indicated that Harpham had ties to
white supremacists. Allegedly, he was a member of the neo-Nazi National Alliance in 2004. The
group denied that he was still a member. Harpham had also been in contact with Paul Mullet,
leader of a white supremacist group active in Athol, ID. Mullet said that he and Harpham spoke
many times but that the latter never joined Mullet’s group.382 Harpham reportedly made postings
on white supremacist websites and read The Turner Diaries.383
Also, lone wolf activity is not solely the domain of purported white supremacists. Another case
illustrates the kind of attack a domestic lone wolf animal rights extremist can commit:
377 John Ellement, “DA Says Racism Drove Brockton Killings, Rape,” Boston Globe, January 23, 2009,
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/01/23/da_says_racism_drove_brockton_killings_rape/?
page=1.
378 Phillip Martin, “Man Will Face Charges After Police Standoff,” WGBH, April 4, 2011, http://wwe.wgbh.org/
articles/-2503.
379 Maureen Boyle, “Prosecutor: Suspect in double slaying in Brockton hatched an ‘Evil Plan of Mass Murder and
Rape,’” Brockton Enterprise, January 22, 2009, updated June 9, 2010, http://www.enterprisenews.com/archive/
x1898857767/Shots-fired-at-Brockton-police-cruiser#ixzz1K05tOtW6.
380 Both von Brunn and Roeder are included in the National Counterterrorism Center’s Worldwide Incidents Tracking
System (WITS) database that compiles worldwide terrorist incidents. Poplawski is not.
381 Department of Justice, press release, “Attempted Bomber Pleads Guilty to Federal Hate Crime and Weapons
Charge,” September 7, 2011, http://www.justice.gov/usao/wae/news/2011/2011_09_07_Harpham_Plea.html;
Department of Justice, press release, “Attempted Bomber Arrested,” March 9, 2011, http://seattle.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/
pressrel11/se030911.htm.
382 See Southern Poverty Law Center, “Spokane Bombing Arrest Details Emerge,” March 9, 2011,
http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2011/03/09/update-spokane-bombing-arrest-details-emerge/. Hereafter: Southern
Poverty Law Center, “Spokane Bombing.” Thomas Clouse and Meghann M. Cuniff, “White Supremacist Arrested in
MLK Bomb Plot,” Spokesman-Review, March 10, 2011, http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2011/mar/10/arrest-in-
bomb-plot/; Hereafter: Clouse and Cuniff, “White Supremacist”; Joel Millman and Evan Perez, “Suspect Is Arrested in
Spokane Bomb Case,” Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2011, http://online.wsj.com/article/
SB10001424052748704132204576190820122057388.html. Hereafter: Millman and Perez, “Suspect Is Arrested.”
383 Federal Bureau of Investigation, press release, “MLK Parade Bomber,” January 13, 2012, http://www.fbi.gov/news/
stories/2012/january/hatecrime_011312/hatecrime_011312?utm_campaign=email-Immediate&utm_medium=email&
utm_source=seattle-top-stories&utm_content=62754; Jessica Robinson, “Court Documents Reveal Evolution Of MLK
Day Bomber’s Racist Beliefs,” Northwest News Network, December 1, 2011, http://kuow.org/northwestnews.php?
storyID=143023416; Department of Justice, press release, “Colville, Wash., Man Indicted for Federal Hate Crime in
Attempted Bombing of the MLK Unity March,” April 21, 2011, http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/April/11-crt-
509.html; “FBI: Bomb Found on MLK March Route,” MSNBC, January 18, 2011, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/
41139894/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/.
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• In November 2010, Walter Bond pled guilty to two felonies stemming from an
April 2010 arson that destroyed a store known as the Sheepskin Factory in
Glendale, CO.384 Speaking from jail, Bond condemned the business, which sold
sheepskin products, as engaging in “blood trade” and drawing profits “from the
death and exploitation of suffering animals.”385 Bond worked alone. A web
posting claimed the arson “in defense and retaliation for all the innocent animals
that have died cruelly at the hands of human oppressors.”386 Apparently, Bond
strongly identified with the notion of being a lone wolf. The ATF, working with a
confidential informant, recorded Bond discussing the fire and the fact that he
actually used the nickname “Lone Wolf.”387 In a jailhouse letter, Bond stated, “I
used the name ‘ALF Lone Wolf’ in the media to convey to my ALF brothers and
sisters worldwide (whoever they are) the power of acting alone.”388
Prison Radicalization
As some experts have pointed out, prison offers an environment in which individuals can
potentially radicalize389 on the way to becoming terrorists. This issue has loomed large among
experts examining international terrorism.390 A scholar of the prison radicalization phenomenon in
the United Kingdom notes that jail time potentially jump starts the radicalization process for
individuals who are at risk of radicalizing. Prison brings together disaffected people who may be
receptive to anti-social messages offering “clear, albeit intolerant, solutions to complex problems
of identity and belonging.”391 In other words, some disaffected prisoners may discover and adopt
terrorist ideals as they try to find meaning behind bars, potentially establishing bonds with like-
384 Yesenia Robles, “Vegan Activist Pleads Guilty to Torching Sheepskin Factory,” Denver Post, November 19, 2010,
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_16653821. Hereafter: Robles, “Vegan Activist.”
385 “Suspect in Arson at Sheepskin Factory in Glendale Decries Animal ‘Blood Trade,’” Denver Post, August 6, 2010,
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_15691097.
386 Robles, “Vegan Activist.”
387 United States v. Walter Bond, Criminal Complaint, MJ-01120-MJW, District Court, District of Colorado, July 23,
2010. Hereafter: U.S. v. Walter Bond.
388 Walter Bond, “I Am the ALF ‘Lone Wolf,’” December 4, 2010, http://www.animalliberationpressoffice.org/essays/
2010-12_bond_lonewolf.htm. He was also convicted for two other arsons. See “Walter Bond Sentenced to 7 years for
two ALF Arsons,” http://www.animalliberationfrontline.com/walter-bond-sentenced-to-seven-years-for-animal-
liberartion-front-arsons/; Scott Stewart, Escalating Violence from the Animal Liberation Front,” STRATFOR, July 29,
2010, http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100728_escalating_violence_animal_liberation_front?ip_auth_redirect=1. See
also: U.S. v. Walter Bond.
389 For this report, “radicalization” describes the process of acquiring and holding radical or extremist beliefs.
“Terrorism” describes violent or illegal action taken on the basis of radical or extremist beliefs.
390 Neumann, Prisons and Terrorism. James Brandon, “The Danger of Prison Radicalization in the West,” Combating
Terrorism Center Sentinel, vol. 2, no. 12 (December 2009), p. 4, http://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/the-danger-of-prison-
radicalization-in-the-west. Hereafter: Brandon, “The Danger of Prison.” Greg Hannah, Lindsay Clutterbuck, and
Jennifer Rubin, Radicalization or Rehabilitation: Understanding the Challenges of Extremist and Radicalized
Prisoners, RAND Europe, Cambridge, U.K., 2008, http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/2008/
RAND_TR571.pdf; U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Prison
Radicalization: Are Terrorist Cells Forming in U.S. Cell Blocks? 109th Cong., 2nd sess. September 19, 2006, S. Hrg.
109–954 (Washington: GPO, 2007), pp. 1-6, http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=
109_senate_hearings&docid=f:30597.pdf; George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI)
and The University of Virginia Critical Incident Analysis Group (CIAG), “Out of the Shadows: Getting Ahead of
Prisoner Radicalization,” HSPI and CIAG, Washington, D.C. September 2006, http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/
internet/ciag/publications/out_of_the_shadows.pdf.
391 James Brandon, “The Danger of Prison” p. 4.
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minded people in jail. Another study of government policies on prison radicalization in 15
countries (including the United States) concludes that “[w]hether or not one believes that prisons
have become Al Qaeda’s ‘universities’ or ‘finishing schools’ there can be no question that prisons
matter.”392 They matter because they have figured largely in the development of many previous
radical movements around the globe. Prisons also unsettle prisoners who “are more likely than
elsewhere to explore new beliefs and associations.”393
Some prison gangs delve into radical or extremist ideologies that also motivate domestic
terrorists, and in a number of instances, these ideologies are integral to fashioning cohesive group
identities within prison walls. It must be reiterated, however, that even for gangs exhibiting these
ideological dimensions, criminal enterprises such as drug trafficking—not radical beliefs—
largely drive their activities. The largest white supremacist prison gangs illustrate this.
Several gangs in America’s penal institutions subscribe to white supremacist beliefs, views
broadly shared by some domestic extremist groups such as the National Socialist Party, the
National Alliance, Aryan Nations, and racist skinheads. A national-level gang of this ilk with
approximately 15,000 members in and out of prison, the Aryan Brotherhood, has factions within
facilities managed by the California Department of Corrections and the Federal Bureau of
Prisons.394 The Nazi Low Riders, a regional-level gang with a membership estimated between
800 and 1,000, exists in correctional facilities on the West Coast and in the Southwest.395 Another
white supremacist gang with a prison and street presence, Public Enemy Number One—largely a
local-level organization with between 400 and 500 members—is mostly active in California with
scattered groups outside of the state.396
These three groups may espouse racial hatred, but they are largely guided by the profit motive,
not extremism.397 For example, one expert has described the Aryan Brotherhood’s ideological
underpinnings as “mostly just a good recruiting tool and a way to maintain structure and
discipline. These guys are more about making money than starting any kind of white
revolution.”398 As another indicator of the primacy of profit, members of all three white
supremacist groups often set aside their racism and “have working relationships with Hispanic
street gangs and non-white prison gangs such as the Mexican Mafia, due to a shared interest in
criminal activity, particularly the drug trade.”399 However, members of racist gangs do commit
392 Neumann, Prisons and Terrorism, p. 7.
393 Ibid.
394 Department of Justice “Prison Gangs and Photos,” http://www.justice.gov/criminal/ocgs/gangs/prison.html;
“Member of Aryan Brotherhood Booked in Slidell,” Associated Press State and Local Wire, October 6, 2009; David
Holthouse, “Smashing the Shamrock,” Intelligence Report, Southern Poverty Law Center, Issue 119, (Fall 2005),
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2005/fall/smashing-the-shamrock?page=
0,1. Hereafter: Holthouse, “Smashing.”
395 Ibid. For the description of the Aryan Brotherhood as a “national” prison gang, the Nazi Low Riders as a “regional”
prison gang, and Public Enemy Number One as a “local” prison gang, see National Drug Intelligence Center, Attorney
General’s Report to Congress on the Growth of Violent Street Gangs in Suburban Areas, (April 2008), Appendix B,
http://www.justice.gov/ndic/pubs27/27612/appendb.htm#start.
396 Ibid. See also: Pete Simi, Lowell Smith, and Ann M. S. Reeser, “From Punk Kids to Public Enemy Number One,”
Deviant Behavior, vol. 29, no. 8 (2008), pp. pp. 753-774. Hereafter: Simi et al., “From Punk.”
397 Freilich, Chermak, and Caspi, “Critical Events,” p. 508; Holthouse, “Smashing”; Camille Jackson, “Nazi Low
Riders,” Intelligence Report, Southern Poverty Law Center, Issue 114, (Summer 2004), http://www.splcenter.org/get-
informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2004/summer/nazi-low-riders.
398 Holthouse, “Smashing.”
399 Anti-Defamation League, PEN1, Public Enemy Number 1: California’s Fastest Growing Racist Gang, (2007), p. 7,
(continued...)
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hate crimes. For example, in 1998 “[t]wo of the three men who murdered James Byrd Jr., a black
man, by tying him to their pickup truck and dragging him over three miles of road near Jasper,
Texas, were ex-cons who belonged to the [Aryan] Brotherhood.”400
One study has estimated that “hundreds, possibly thousands” of sovereign citizens have been
incarcerated in the United States since the 1990s, where some have continued to practice their
beliefs and even pass their knowledge on to other prisoners.401 An unknown number of prisoners
have converted to the movement’s ideology, while others have simply used sovereign tactics.402
The following cases suggest how this may occur.
• In September 2010, Marlon T. Moore pled guilty to one count of filing a false
claim with the IRS, requesting a fraudulent refund of $9,087,987.95.403 Prior to
his 2010 guilty plea, he had become a sovereign citizen during a six-year stint in
prison on drug-related money laundering charges.404
• In 1992, James T. McBride discovered sovereign citizen ideology while in a
Michigan prison on drug-related charges. After he left prison, among other
things, he became a sovereign guru and operated a business that peddled
sovereign ideas.405
Policy Considerations for Congress
Congress may choose to consider issues in three areas regarding the federal role in combating
domestic terrorism: (1) assessing this threat’s scope, (2) the adequacy of domestic terrorism
intelligence collection efforts, and (3) how domestic terrorism fits into the Obama
Administration’s efforts to counter radicalization that may lead to terrorism.
Scoping the Threat
As this report suggests, at least three factors may make it hard for policymakers to form a
baseline evaluation of the domestic terrorism threat from publicly available information. First,
federal agencies employ varying terminology to describe the threat. Second, the federal
government lacks a public and official method for either designating specific domestic groups as
terrorists or formally and openly describing particular extremist movements as threats. Finally,
(...continued)
http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/peni_report.pdf; Simi et al., “From Punk,” p. 765.
400 Leah Nelson, “Fugitive with ties to Aryan Brotherhood Captured,” August 20, 2010, Southern Poverty Law Center,
http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2010/08/20/fugitives-with-ties-to-aryan-brotherhood-captured/.
401 Anti-Defamation League, The Lawless, p. 12.
402 Anti-Defamation League, The Lawless, p. 13.
403 Department of Justice, press release, “Miami-Dade Man Pleads Guilty to Filing a False Claim with the IRS for More
Than $9 Million,” September 10, 2009.
404 Anti-Defamation League, The Lawless, p. 13. See also: Tim Elfrink, “Did Fringe Movement Sovereign Citizens
Trick a Miami Man into Filing a $14 Trillion Tax Return?” Miami New Times, March 4, 2010.
405 Andrew Welsh-Huggins, “Sovereign Citizens—A 21st Century Counter Culture,” Associated Press, available from
MSNBC, August 12, 2010, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38668124/ns/us_news-life/t/sovereign-citizens-st-century-
counter-culture/.
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there is no clear sense of how many domestic terrorism plots and attacks the government has
investigated in recent years.
Terminology
The federal government has used broad conceptualizations to describe domestic terrorism. DOJ
discusses the issue in terms of a handful of general “threats” such as animal rights extremists,
eco-terrorists, anarchists, and anti-government extremists—not specific groups. Additionally,
terms such as “terrorism” and “extremism” appear to be used interchangeably. Presumably, using
the term “extremist” allows lawyers, policymakers, and investigators the flexibility to discuss
terrorist-like activity without actually labeling it as “terrorism” and then having to prosecute it as
such. However, this may lead to inconsistencies in the development and application of the law in
the domestic terrorism arena. For example, policymakers may ponder why a specific terrorism
statute covers ideologically motivated attacks against businesses that involve animals,406 while
there are no other domestic terrorism statutes as narrow in their purview covering a particular
type of target and crime.
Designating Domestic Terrorist Groups
The federal government lacks a process for publicly designating domestic terrorist organizations.
In other words, there is no official open-source roster of domestic groups that the FBI or other
federal agencies target as terrorist organizations. The lack of such a designation may spring partly
from First Amendment concerns. Such a list might discourage speech and expression related to
the ideologies underpinning the activities of named groups. Regardless, this stands in stark
contrast to the world of international counterterrorism, where the United States maintains a well-
established—legally and procedurally proscribed—regimen regarding the identification of foreign
terrorist organizations (FTOs).407
Official FTO designation benefits counterterrorism efforts in a number of ways. Most
importantly, it facilitates the prosecution of those who provide material support408 to listed foreign
terrorist groups. Arguably, because there is no domestic terrorism equivalent of FTO designation,
it is more difficult to press material support charges against domestic terrorists. In 2010, one
scholar was unable to identify any material support cases involving “a domestic terrorist group or
its supporters.”409 According to the Department of State, FTO designation has other effects. It
1. Supports [U.S.] efforts to curb terrorism financing and to encourage other nations to do the
same. 2. Stigmatizes and isolates designated terrorist organizations internationally. 3. Deters
donations or contributions to and economic transactions with named organizations. 4.
406 The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (P.L. 109-374).
407 Department of State, “Foreign Terrorist Organizations.”
408 As described in U.S. Code, Title 18, Part I, Chapter 113B, 2339A and 2339B. For more information, see CRS
Report R41333, Terrorist Material Support: An Overview of 18 U.S.C. 2339A and 2339B, by Charles Doyle. DOJ has
used material support charges as a key component in its prosecutions against foreign terrorist organizations. See
Bjelopera, American Jihadist Terrorism, for a discussion of a number of these cases targeting homegrown jihadists.
409 Heller, “Designating Domestic,” p. 70. It may be possible to use 18 U.S.C. 2339A to prosecute an individual
engaged in domestic terrorism. This statute “restricts aid to perpetrators of terrorism in general.” See Benjamin Yaster,
“Resetting Scales: An Examination of Due Process Rights in Material Support Prosecutions,” New York University
Law Review, vol. 83, no. 4 (October, 2008), p. 1364; and ibid.
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Heightens public awareness and knowledge of terrorist organizations. 5. Signals to other
governments our concern about named organizations.410
This description suggests that the absence of a designation regimen for domestic terrorist groups
makes it harder for the federal government to discredit such groups and simultaneously
strengthen public understanding of the domestic terrorist threat. Likewise, the lack of a list might
make it more difficult for the federal government to communicate exactly what the threat is to its
own agencies, let alone local or state entities.
While there is no official designation process for domestic terrorist organizations, as it stands,
DOJ and the FBI have publicly named and discussed domestic terrorism threats—such as animal
rights extremism or anarchist extremism—without illuminating exactly how they arrive at these
categories. Federal lawmakers may opt to consider the feasibility of officially formalizing this
process and/or opening it up to greater oversight. Ideally, an attempt to render this process less
bureaucratically opaque would simultaneously (1) enhance federal efforts to combat domestic
terrorism while (2) protecting civil rights and civil liberties. For example, such a list may
potentially offer agencies outside of DOJ—including relevant players at the state and local
level—formal opportunities to provide input into ranking domestic terrorism threats while
enshrining mechanisms by which individuals who believe in the philosophies undergirding a
designated threat could petition to have that threat “de-listed.”411 On the other hand, making this
process more open may take away the FBI’s flexibility to rapidly adapt its domestic terrorism
priorities, especially if threats quickly mutate.
A Public Accounting of Plots and Incidents
A publicly available official accounting of domestic terrorist plots and incidents may help
policymakers understand the scope of the threat in lieu of a regimen designed to name domestic
terrorism organizations. However, the federal government does not produce such a document. The
source that comes closest to providing an official record of domestic terrorism incidents is the
National Counterterrorism Center’s (NCTC) Worldwide Incidents Tracking System (WITS)—a
database that includes basic information regarding numerous terrorism incidents that have
occurred throughout the world. WITS also does not include plots foiled by law enforcement.
NCTC’s public measure of terrorist incidents also may underestimate the scope of the domestic
terrorist threat since 9/11.
• FBI has made specific claims regarding levels of violence among white
supremacist extremists, and these are not borne out in WITS. As mentioned
earlier, an unclassified FBI intelligence bulletin estimates that 53 acts of violence
were committed by what it calls “white supremacist extremists” between 2007
and 2009 in the United States. Why did these cases fail to make it into WITS?
• Likewise, in February 2012 the FBI announced that sovereign citizen convictions
increased from 10 in 2009 to 18 in both 2010 and 2011.412 These are not reflected
in WITS. (Presumably, many were foiled plots.)
410 Department of State, “Foreign Terrorist Organizations.”
411 The FTO designation process has such provisions. See ibid.
412 Patrick Temple-West, “Anti-Government Extremists Opposed to Taxes and Regulations Pose a Growing Threat to
Local Law Enforcement Officers in the United States, the FBI Warned on Monday,” Reuters, February 6, 2012,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/07/us-usa-fbi-extremists-idUSTRE81600V20120207.
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• Additionally, an unclassified 2008 DHS report counted more than 40 criminal
acts from 2004 to early March 2008 allegedly perpetrated by people involved in
the animal rights extremist and eco-terrorist movements in a table of selected
incidents.413 Many of these did not make the cut for inclusion in WITS.
However, a fuller accounting of domestic terrorism plots and attacks may call prosecutorial
flexibility into question. Such an accounting may reveal the instances in which FBI investigated
individuals as domestic terrorists but DOJ did not prosecute them as such.
Better Sense of Scope May Assist Policymakers
Regardless, a better sense of domestic terrorism’s scope publicly proffered by the federal
government may assist policymakers. It may be of policymaking value for executive branch
agencies to release annual statistics on domestic terrorism prosecutions, naming individuals and
movements involved. Congress may also consider requesting an even more detailed annual public
report that counts and describes the domestic terrorist plots dismantled; the number of attacks
investigated; and the federal, state, and local agencies involved. Until 2005, the FBI used to
regularly release a report that catalogued annual terrorist plots and incidents in the United
States.414 The lack of such an accounting makes it difficult for policymakers to exercise oversight
by comparing the levels of domestic terrorist activity against items such as homegrown violent
jihadist activity and other threats to the homeland. A regular public accounting could also help
policymakers assess the effectiveness of the government’s response to the domestic terrorist
threat. It may also assist policymakers who wish to compare one domestic terrorist threat against
another. Finally, without a clear, publicly available understanding of the domestic terrorist threat,
it may be difficult to measure how much federal funding is allocated to this issue.
Intelligence
Intelligence collection efforts against foreign terrorist groups have received much scrutiny since
9/11. U.S. efforts to gather information versus domestic terrorism actors have not. Domestic
terrorism does not feature in the Director of National Intelligence’s National Intelligence
Priorities Framework (NIPF), described as the “means to capture issues of critical interest to
senior Intelligence Community (IC) customers and communicating those issues to the IC for
action.”415 Importantly, for intelligence gathering and program prioritization purposes, “there is
no ... standard across federal agencies that can be applied to [domestic terrorism] cases.”416 Also,
there likely is no established standard for the collection of intelligence from state and local
investigators.417 Congress may choose to examine these issues as well as the scope of intelligence
collection efforts focused on domestic terrorism.
413 Department of Homeland Security, Ecoterrorism, Table 1. WITS starts its incident count in 2004.
414 See http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terrorism-2002-2005.
415 See http://www.dni.gov/content/AT/NIPF.pdf; Department of Justice, FBI FY2012 Authorization and Budget
Request for Congress, February 2011, p. 4—24, http://www.justice.gov/jmd/2012justification/pdf/fy12-fbi-
justification.pdf. Hereafter: Department of Justice, FBI FY2012 Authorization.
416 Department of Justice, FBI FY2012 Authorization, p. 4—24.
417 Aside from suspicious activity reporting. For more information on this, see CRS Report R40901, Terrorism
Information Sharing and the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Report Initiative: Background and Issues for Congress, by
Jerome P. Bjelopera.
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By law, “NCTC serves as the primary organization in the United States Government ... for
integrating and analyzing all intelligence pertaining to counterterrorism (except for information
pertaining exclusively to domestic terrorism).”418 Because of its lead status for counterterrorism
investigations in the homeland, the FBI arguably serves the parallel role for the domestic terrorist
threat. The development of any interagency regimen for the collection and analysis of domestic
terrorism information might start with the Bureau’s capacities in this regard. Congress may wish
to consider whether the FBI has allocated appropriate resources and expended enough effort in
collection and analysis of domestic terrorism-related intelligence as well as the safeguarding of
civil rights.
How Does Domestic Terrorism Fit into the U.S. Countering Violent
Extremism Strategy?
In August 2011, the Obama Administration released a strategy for countering the radicalization of
terrorists, also described as combating violent extremism (CVE).419 This document was fleshed
out to a degree by the Administration’s release in December 2011 of its “Strategic Implementation
Plan for Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States.”420 The
Administration’s CVE strategy and plan revolve around countering the radicalization of all types
of potential terrorists, but the radicalization of violent jihadists is its key focus. Regardless,
domestic terrorism falls under the strategy’s purview.
Federal CVE efforts often depend on government agencies cooperating with local groups. In fact,
the Obama Administration’s national CVE strategy highlights a “community-based approach” for
the federal government. To this end, the strategy states that the federal government most
effectively acts as a “facilitator, convener, and source of information.”421 As all of this may
suggest, to date the bulk of federal-level CVE work has revolved around community
engagement.422 Congress may opt to ask the Administration which domestic terrorists it will focus
on under the strategy and which communities it intends to engage regarding issues surrounding
non-jihadist terrorism.
418 See “About the National Counterterrorism Center,” http://www.nctc.gov/about_us/about_nctc.html.
419 Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States, August 2011,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/empowering_local_partners.pdf. Hereinafter: Empowering Local
Partners.
420 Strategic Implementation Plan for Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States,
December 2011, http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/sip-final.pdf. Hereinafter: Strategic Implementation
Plan.
421 Empowering Local Partners, p. 3.
422 See Bjelopera, American Jihadist Terrorism, for more information.
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Author Contact Information
Jerome P. Bjelopera
Specialist in Organized Crime and Terrorism
jbjelopera@crs.loc.gov, 7-0622
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