The History of Terrorism in the US - Paper Example

Introduction

The history of terrorism shows that it has been in the United States for many years now. The first wave of terrorism dates back in 1978 to 1995 when Ted Kaczynski, who was opposed to the technological process in the United States sent sixteen bombs via mail to different parts of the country within a spread of a decade. The second wave of terrorism was in 1993 when the World Trade Centre was bombed for the first time. The bomber was identified as Ramzi Yousef and he intended to bring the tower down with a truck loaded with bombs. However, the bombs only killed six people and injured many others. In a letter to the New York Times, the bomber explained that the move was a response to the support that the US government was giving Israel and other dictator countries in the world. The other attack was in 1995 in Oklahoma City when a terrorist exploded a car bomb and killed 168 people and injured more than 600 others at a federal building in the city. The analysis of this history in different countries shows there are many similarities that define terrorism across different parts of the world (Laqueur, 2017). The terrorist tactics of today have changed and the ideologies are different.

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The other terror attack was in 1996 in Centennial Olympic Park Building where pipe bombs were planted at the park and killed two people and injured many others. In 2001, the United States experienced the worst terrorist attack when al Qaeda killed more than three thousand people using hijacked airplanes to crash into buildings. The attack remains in history as one of the worst attacks and it led to a heightened war on terrorism in the world. In the same year, a shoe bomber tried to blow up a plane using explosives that had been implanted in his shoes but he was subdued by the passengers before he achieved his goal. Anthrax attacks were also tried in the same year when a biologist sent a letter that had the bacteria to several media houses and senators' officers, killing seventeen people and infecting many others with the disease. In 2002, the Beltway Snipers killed ten people by shooting at them and in 2006, a terrorist ran into several people at the North Carolina University. Three years, an Afghan was arrested planting bombs in New York City and an army psychologist killed soldiers at Fort Hood. Since then, there have been several attacks and attempts which include mass shootings in the US. According to Weinberg (2018), terrorism is usually guided by a common philosophy or belief and this can be related to religious teachings. The threats of attacks still remain eminent in the US.

Laws and Intelligence Reforms on Terrorism

The war on terrorism has failed just like the war on drugs. The failure can be associated with the law and intelligence reforms that have been used in the past few years. One of the main reasons for the failure is that the US government has not understood the motivation behind the increased terrorism. After the September 11 attack, the US government embarked on attacks on the Middle East countries that were associated with the attacks. Millions of people have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq since the attack and most of these are innocent. The move has triggered the spirit of terrorism and revenge. Most of the terror groups are out to revenge for the death of their families, friends, and colleagues. The policy and the intelligence used to make these decisions are failed to understand that the attack on these countries would increase the threat of terrorism. The other failure is the capturing and extradition of terrorists which has failed to create the fear it intended (Maogoto, 2016). The decision created a feeling of dying to win, which means terrorists are ready to become suicide bombers and they consider themselves as winners after the attacks.

The laws that have worked in the war against terrorism include vigilance and more restrictions on entry into the United States. The government encouraged people to report any suspicious people and activities in their areas and this helped to reduce the movements of possible terrorists. However, the same reform has created a lot of Islamophobia, which means that most of the people fear all Muslims regardless of whether the Muslim is a terrorist or not. The other successful measure is the increased restrictions on the immigrants who get access to the US because this has reduced the entrance of more terrorists from other countries. The reform on the immigrants was arrived at after the understanding that the September 11 attack was perpetrated by terrorists from other countries. The fight against terror can be improved by ensuring that the terrorist groups do not get any funding from their sympathizers and that the local terrorists are monitored effectively once they are identified. People with extreme religious beliefs and psychological disorders have been at the center of domestic terrorism and they should be monitored to identify their possible moves.

US-IC, HSINT, and CBRNE

The US-IC refers to the United States Intelligence Community and it is made up of experts from sixteen different government agencies. The experts work both separately and together to ensure there is security and effective foreign policy in the United States. The US-IC is made up of the people from the intelligence activities, civilian intelligence, military intelligence and others from the federal executive departments. The community is headed by the director of National Intelligence (DNI) who reports directly to the President of the United States. One of the main roles of the US-IC is to help in the military planning and performing espionage. It was established by President Ronald Reagan in 1981 and has helped the country to make many decisions. The group is stationed in about 10,000 places in the US and works on homeland security and controlling terrorism (Lee, 2015). The Homeland Security Intelligence (HSINT) refers to the part of the Homeland Security that deals with the collection, sharing and usage of intelligence locally (Lahneman, 2018). The body was established after the September 11 attack which made the Congress rethink the need to have a better way to collect intelligence and share it on time. The CBRN refers to Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear defense, which is a branch of security forces that guide on the measures to be taken when there are threats related to biological, chemical, radiology and nuclear items. The efforts of the CBRN are guided by the assumption that these items are released out of a malicious target to cause harm to the citizens.

The Patriot Act

The operations of these bodies affect the privacy laws in that the law regulates the ay personal data is collected, stored and used by government, private organizations and individuals. The data collected by these bodies have to follow the stipulations of the privacy act. Any data collected about the suspects have to be within the acceptable parameters and the law has clear demarcations on the different ways in which the privacy of the suspects can be protected. The Patriot Act means the "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 and is a law that was signed in 2001 by President George W. Bush. The law allowed many things which include detention of immigrants, a search of homes without the consent of the owners and search of the data in the phones and emails of the suspects among others. It was a response to the September 11 attack and it increased the powers of the law enforcement officers in the US. The main target was to strengthen the security controls and to enable the police officers to collect more information about the suspects. The Act affected the way the intelligence information is collected because it gave more powers to the officers to collect any information they purport to be useful in controlling security (Welch, 2015). However, the Act has an impact on the liberties that individuals enjoy in the constitution because it affects the rights to privacy that people enjoyed before. Under the Act, the liberty can be violated by the officers if the citizen is a suspect. In conclusion, the law and the collection of intelligence by different bodies explained above have helped the government to control the security of the country.

References

Lahneman, W. J. (2018). Homeland Security Intelligence. In Introduction to Homeland Security (pp. 97-122). Routledge.

Laqueur, W. (2017). Terrorism Today. In A History of Terrorism(pp. 175-213). Routledge.

Lee, N. (2015). US Intelligence Community. In Counterterrorism and Cybersecurity (pp. 21-42). Springer, Cham.

Maogoto, J. N. (2016). Battling terrorism: legal perspectives on the use of force and the war on terror. Routledge.

Weinberg, L. (2018). A history of terrorism. In Routledge Handbook of Terrorism and Counterterrorism (pp. 34-56). Routledge.

Welch, K. (2015). The Patriot Act and Crisis Legislation: The Unintended Consequences of Disaster Lawmaking. Cap. UL Rev., 43, 481.