Vol. 71/No. 39      October 22, 2007

The development, they say, warrants stepped-up surveillance of “militants” and “extremists” who may someday plan a bombing.

“The threat of homegrown terrorists or extremists, acting in concert with other like-minded individuals, or as lone wolves, has become one of the gravest domestic threats we face,” said FBI director Robert Mueller to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs last month.

Mueller outlined the expansion of intelligence sharing with local, state, and federal cop agencies, including the creation of a centralized “watch list.” He also said the FBI is upgrading its recruitment and use of spies and snitches.

An August report by the New York Police Department (NYPD) titled “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat” cites 10 examples of terrorist attacks and bombing plots, including five in the United States. It says the plots were conceptualized “by ‘unremarkable’ local residents/citizens who sought to attack their country of residence.”

The report uses examples to define four “phases of radicalization.” Common catalysts it cites include losing a job, experiencing racism, political conflicts involving Muslims, or a death in the family.

The report says individuals who adopt “Jihadi-Salafi ideology” and go through the four phases are “quite likely to be involved in the planning or implementation of a terrorist act.” The implication is that such individuals should be targeted for spying.

The Salafi ideology, warns the report, is “incubating” in Muslim Student Associations at universities around the country, as well as at bookstores, cafes, hookah bars, and Internet cafes.

Suspect behavior in the most advanced “Jihadization” phase includes traveling abroad, particularly to Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Somalia; and “Outward Bound-like activities,” such as “camping, white-water rafting, paintball games, target shooting, and even outdoor simulations of military-like maneuvers.”

The report mentions certain Internet activity as evidence of a “radicalization process” as well as its use as a resource for planning attacks. A special role is ascribed to prisons, whose “large population of disaffected young men, makes it an excellent breeding ground for radicalization.”

Reacting to this same fear, the Bureau of Prisons has been vetting religious materials at federal prison libraries. The bureau came up with approved lists of books and media for each of 20 religious categories. The selected lists range from 6 books on the Sikh religion to 215 on Protestantism.

The censorship is based on a 2004 report by the Justice Department that recommended barring access to material that could, in its words, “advocate violence or radicalize,” the New York Times reported. Several inmates filed a lawsuit in August against the move.  
 
 
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