Domestic Terrorism: An Overview
Released: 2017-08-21T00:00:00

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 federal terrorism statutes, which does not imply that domestic terrorists are taken any less seriously than other terrorists.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) do not officially designate 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 beliefs about abortion.
The boundary between constitutionally protected legitimate protest and domestic terrorist activity has received public attention. This boundary is 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 Animal Enterprise Protection Act of 1992 (P.L. 102-346).
This report is intended as a primer on the issue, and four discussion topics in it may help explain domestic terrorism's relevance for policymakers:
Level of Activity. Domestic terrorists have been responsible for orchestrating numerous incidents since 9/11. Use of Nontraditional Tactics. A large number of domestic terrorists do not necessarily use tactics such as suicide bombings or airplane hijackings. They have been known to engage in activities such as vandalism, trespassing, and tax fraud, for example. Exploitation of the Internet. Domestic terrorists—much like their jihadist analogues—are often Internet and social-media savvy and use such platforms to share ideas and as resources 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.

subsections: section_title: Introduction
paragraphs: 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 movements —have not received as much attention from federal law enforcement as their violent jihadist counterparts. This was not necessarily always the case. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (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." 
The U.S. government reacted to 9/11 by greatly enhancing its counterterrorism efforts. This report discusses how domestic terrorists broadly fit into the counterterrorism landscape, a terrain that since 9/11 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. 
Possibly contributing to domestic terrorism's secondary status as a threat at the federal level, 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.
While plots and attacks by foreign-inspired homegrown violent jihadists have 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. Some estimates suggest that domestic terrorists are responsible for carrying out dozens of incidents since 9/11. Much like their jihadist counterparts, domestic terrorists are often Internet savvy and use the medium as a resource for their operations. 
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 abortion, for example. However, the expression of these worldviews (minus the commission of crimes) involves constitutionally protected activity. 
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, in decentralized fashion, 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. 
Domestic terrorists may not be the top federal counterterrorism priority, but they feature prominently among the concerns of some law enforcement officers. For example, in 2011, Los Angeles Deputy Police Chief Michael P. Downing included "black separatists, white supremacist/sovereign citizen extremists, and animal rights terrorists" among his chief counterterrorism concerns. A 2014 national survey of state and local law enforcement officers found that sovereign citizens were "the top concern" among terrorist threats. 
The violence related to protests in Charlottesville, VA, on August 12, 2017, also has raised the issue of domestic terrorism, particularly related to public discussions regarding a widely reported incident involving James Alex Fields, who according to witnesses drove his car into a group of people protesting a rally featuring white supremacists in Charlottesville on August 12. Fields allegedly killed one person and injured 19 others in the incident. The Department of Justice (DOJ) has opened a civil rights investigation into the incident, presumably pursuing possible hate crime charges. Additionally, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has publicly stated that terrorism investigators are involved in investigating the incident, ostensibly exploring the possibility of characterizing it as an act of domestic terrorism rather than a hate crime. 
This report provides background regarding domestic terrorists—detailing what constitutes the domestic terrorism threat as suggested by publicly available U.S. government sources. It illustrates some of the key factors involved in assessing this threat. This report does not discuss in detail either violent jihadist-inspired terrorism or the federal government's role in counterterrorism investigations. 
section_title: Domestic Terrorism Defined
paragraphs: 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 or the Islamic State constitutes domestic terrorism. While this conceptualization may be true at some level, a practical definition of domestic terrorism distilled from federal sources is much 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 or the Islamic State. 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, DOJ has identified a number of general threats that embody this issue. The ideological concepts that underpin such threats may inspire criminal activity, such as hate crimes, that do not rise to the level of terrorism. This further complicates defining "domestic terrorism."
subsections: section_title: What Is Domestic Terrorism?
paragraphs: 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. 
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." Second, 18 U.S.C. Section 2331(5) more narrowly defines "domestic terrorism" and differentiates it from international terrorism and other criminal activity. This definition comes from Section 802 of the USA PATRIOT Act ( P.L. 107-56 ). According to 18 U.S.C. Section 2331(5), domestic terrorism occurs primarily within U.S. territorial jurisdiction, and 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.... 
subsections: section_title: Toward a Narrower Definition
paragraphs: 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 . In fact, the Bureau's practical, shorthand definition of domestic terrorism is "Americans attacking Americans based on U.S.-based extremist ideologies." The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) follows this construction. 
section_title: Ambiguity Regarding "U.S.-Based Extremist Ideologies"
paragraphs: 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. 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 long-standing European roots. The racist skinhead movement traces its origins abroad—to the United Kingdom—as well. These examples illustrate the FBI's challenge when it emphasizes U.S.-based ideologies in its framing of domestic terrorism.
section_title: Factors Complicating the Descriptions of the Domestic Terrorism Threat
paragraphs: 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 or plots 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.
subsections: section_title: Counting Terrorism Cases
paragraphs: 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. 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. 
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, no separate federal crime of "domestic terrorism" exists. Also, DOJ has noted that, "[a]lthough we do have at least one specialized [federal] statute aimed at animal enterprise terrorism, domestic terrorism cases often involve firearms, arson or explosive offenses; crimes relating to fraud; and threats and hoaxes." 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." Thus, individuals considered domestic terrorists by federal law enforcement may not necessarily be federally charged as terrorists.
section_title: Sifting Domestic Terrorism from Other Illegal Activity
paragraphs: 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. 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. If the motives involved align with the definition laid out in 18 U.S.C. Section 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. 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. 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 belonging to 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 charged with hate crimes. 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? 
section_title: Extremism vs. Terrorism
paragraphs: 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." Masters has also found that there is a "lack of uniformity in the way domestic terrorist activities are prosecuted" in the United States. 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 such. This flexibility is certainly an asset to prosecutors. They can charge subjects of FBI domestic terrorism investigations under a wider array of statutes without having to convince a jury that the accused were 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. 
subsections: section_title: What Is Extremism?
paragraphs: 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. Thus, according to this construction, an anarchist believes in a particular ideology—anarchism. An "anarchist extremist" is an anarchist who adopts criminal tactics.
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. 
section_title: "Homegrown Violent Extremists" Are Not Domestic Terrorists
paragraphs: The FBI and DHS have popularized the phrase "homegrown violent extremist" (HVE). It separates domestic terrorists from U.S.-based terrorists motivated by the ideologies of foreign terrorist organization s . 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." According to the FBI and DHS, an HVE is not a domestic terrorist—they are two distinct categories of terrorist actors.
section_title: The Lack of an Official Public List
paragraphs: The federal government does not generate an official and public list of domestic terrorist organizations or individuals. 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. In 2011, 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." 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." 
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 August 16, 2017, the Secretary of State had designated 61 foreign terrorist organizations according to Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended. 
section_title: Toward a Practical Definition: Threats Not Groups
paragraphs: 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, ecoterrorists, anarchists, anti-government extremists such as 'sovereign citizens' and unauthorized militias, black separatists, white supremacists, and abortion extremists.
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. The purpose of an investigation may not be to solely monitor First Amendment rights. 
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 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 te rrorism within the last fifteen years are 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.
subsections: section_title: Animal Rights Extremists and Environmental Extremists
paragraphs: The term "animal rights extremism" covers criminal acts committed in the name of animal rights. Environmental extremism—most often referred to as "ecoterrorism"—includes criminal acts committed in the name of the environment. 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."
Many of the crimes committed by both animal rights extremists and ecoterrorists are perpetrated by independent small cells or individuals who harass and intimidate their victims. These cells or lone actors engage in crimes such as vandalism, theft, the destruction of property, and arson. Most animal rights extremists and ecoterrorists also eschew physical violence directly targeting people or animals. Regardless, crimes committed by ecoterrorists and animal rights extremists have caused millions of dollars in property damage, and some have involved the intimidation and harassment of victims. 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 ecoterrorists. The ALF and the ELF are too diffuse to be called groups. Neither the ALF nor the ELF maintains formal rosters or leadership structures, for example. 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. 
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. 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 the late 1990s and early 2000s, the FBI uncovered 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 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.
subsections: section_title: Philosophical Underpinnings
paragraphs: 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." 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." Thus, the movement couches the theft or illegal release of 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.
The ELF: An Ideological Mélange. Ecoterrorists 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. Deep ecology suggests that all species are part of "the larger super-organism that is nature." It criticizes industrialization and views modern human impact on the earth as negative and hearkens back to small communities centered on subsistence agriculture. 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.
section_title: Anarchist Extremists
paragraphs: According to the FBI, anarchist extremists commit crimes in the name of anarchist ideals. 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. 
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 in the societies they desire to transform. However, adherents cannot agree to a single means for attaining revolutionary change. 
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. 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." 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. The efforts can be legal or illegal, violent or nonviolent, covert or open. These structures have a long history among anarchists, but other movements use them as well. 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. 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. 
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.
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. To coordinate their protests during the convention, some anarchists formed what they called the "RNC Welcoming Committee" (RNCWC). 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. 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." Five of the eight pled guilty to gross misdemeanor charges in 2010. The others had all of the charges they faced dismissed. 
On April 30, 2012, five men who reputedly had anarchist sympathies were arrested for purportedly scheming to blow up a bridge near Cleveland, OH. One was convicted on charges related to the plot. The four others pled guilty. 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 stated that the would-be bombers "were in no way representing or acting on behalf of Occupy Cleveland." An FBI sting operation led to the quintet's arrest. Purportedly, the group relied on an undercover FBI employee to supply them with two inert bombs that the conspirators believed were functional. 
Criminal acts involving anarchist extremists do not have to be event-driven. For example, Eric G. King pled guilty to using explosive devices to commit arson in a failed 2014 attempt to ignite a fire at the Kansas City, MO, office of U.S. Representative Emanuel Cleaver II. The incident occurred when the office was unoccupied, but King had posted violent commentary regarding police to social media.
DHS noted that anarchist extremists had set fires at urban development project sites in Vancouver, Canada, and Seattle, WA, in 2013. Anarchist extremists are also suspected in a similar incident that occurred in Grand Rapids, MI in 2011. These attacks followed instances of what DHS characterized as "lower-level criminal activity or mischief involving anarchist or 'anti-gentrification statements.'" 
In another case that was not event-driven, 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. He had obtained the material (potassium cyanide and sodium cyanide) from an abandoned warehouse. 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.
section_title: White Supremacist Extremists
paragraphs: The term "white supremacist extremism" (WSE) describes people or groups who commit criminal acts in the name of white supremacist ideology. According to media sources, in May 2017, FBI and DHS released a joint intelligence bulletin reputedly stating that white supremacists "were responsible for 49 homicides in 26 attacks from 2000 to 2016 ... more than any other domestic extremist movement." 
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. 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. 
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." 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." 
Neo-Nazism and its obsession with Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany is also a prominent component of white supremacist extremism in the United States. 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. He also encouraged tying neo-Nazism to religion, and some of his followers took up the obscure creed of Christian Identity.
subsections: section_title: Conflict and Conspiracy
paragraphs: 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. 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. 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. Klassen, who committed suicide in 1993, argued that whites had no choice but to wage war against non-whites. Likewise, some white supremacists use racism to interpret apocalyptic imagery from Norse mythology embodied in Odinism. Most Odinists are not racists, however.
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." 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 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.
As in Poplawski's example, anti-Semitism plays a prominent role in the racist conspiracies of many white supremacists. Many anti-Semites—as well as anti-government extremists—believe in something they call the Zionist Occupied Government (ZOG). ZOG refers to the federal government, which adherents contend is "controlled or manipulated by international Jewish interests." On its website, one WSE group sold versions of a video game titled "ZOG's Nightmare." Gameplay involves shooting nonwhites while being chased by a police agency controlled by Jews. Racists explain all sorts of personal or social grievances by invoking ZOG. 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.
According to adherents, ZOG is said to control the media, arts, religion, science, and education.
section_title: Loss of Prominent Leaders and Decline of their Groups
paragraphs: 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. 
Two particularly well-known white supremacist figures died in the early 2000s. William Pierce, head of the National Alliance, died in 2002. Richard Butler, leader of Aryan Nations, died in 2004. Both Pierce and Butler articulated clear ideologies that attracted followers and drew upon resources such as rural headquarters/compounds to sustain their organizations. 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. 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. Other groups have emerged since to promote white supremacist ideas. Several movements espousing such views participated in the August 2017 rally in Charlottesville, VA, that led to violence mentioned earlier. 
Two prominent white supremacist movements are discussed below.
section_title: National Socialist Movement (NSM)
paragraphs: One long-standing white supremacist organization active in the United States is the National Socialist Movement (NSM). It has benefitted from the decline of other groups as well as new leadership in the form of Jeff Schoep. 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." As of 2008, the group had around 500 members and close associates throughout the United States. The NSM is flexible about membership, allowing its members to also participate in other white supremacist organizations. 
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 allegedly 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. In June 2012, Johnson pled guilty to "one count of being a felon in possession of firearms." In July 2012, Thomas pled guilty to "possession with intent to distribute more than 50 grams of high-purity methamphetamine." William White, a onetime member of the NSM and founder of his own white supremacist organization, has faced charges in several criminal cases. In September 2014, he was found guilty on charges related to a December 2013 indictment that included "five counts of making threats in aid of extortion over the Internet and one count of the unlawful use of identification information in furtherance of those offenses." He threatened a Florida judge, a state attorney, and an FBI agent, with kidnapping, torture, rape, and murder. According to DOJ, White included the families of these individuals in his threats. The officials that White threatened had been involved in prosecuting suspects tied to the American Front, a white supremacist organization in Florida. White apparently hoped that his threats would somehow secure the release of the American Front suspects. In January 2011, White was convicted of soliciting violence online against the jury foreman in U.S. v. Matthew Hale . In April 2011, a federal judge reversed White's conviction. Upon appeal, the conviction was reinstated. 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. The witness intimidation charges involved White reportedly attempting to "delay or prevent the testimony" of African Americans in a discrimination case. According to publicly available information, in 2005 and 2006 White was involved with NSM, for a time serving as its national spokesman. His activity with NSM ceased after he had a falling out with Schoep.
section_title: Racist Skinheads
paragraphs: In the United States, racist skinheads have a legacy stretching back to the 1980s. However, skinhead culture originated in the United Kingdom in the late 1960s and today has a global reach. 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. 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.)"
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 UK 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. 
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." 
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. This supported the findings in a 2008 FBI assessment. 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. The Bureau has stated that "violence is an integral part of the racist skinhead subculture." Elements within the fractious movement even target one another. These criminal acts are typically unrehearsed and opportunistic, targeting nonwhites and "other religious and social minorities."
At least one 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.
section_title: Anti-Government Extremists
paragraphs: 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. 
subsections: section_title: Militia Extremists
paragraphs: The militia movement became prominent in the 1990s as a collection of armed, paramilitary groups formed to stave off what they perceived as intrusions of an invasive government. 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. 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. Extremists within the movement who run afoul of law 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."
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. Importantly, others in the militia movement hold that the federal government has overstepped its constitutional bounds. 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." 
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. 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. 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. The events at Ruby Ridge helped precipitate the militia movement, whose members tend to view Randy Weaver as a hero and demonize the federal government. 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. On February 28, 1993, an unsuccessful attempt by Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (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. Four ATF agents and six Branch Davidians died in a gunfight during the operation. 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.
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. In the bombing's aftermath, militia groups received greater law enforcement scrutiny. The bombing claimed 168 lives, and until 9/11 was the largest single act of terrorism on U.S. soil. The militia movement declined after the bombing. Although McVeigh's bombing cannot fully account for a dip in militia activity, it affected the movement by causing some groups to temper their rhetoric while others grew more extreme, and militias became more marginalized. 
Observers have noted that the militia movement has experienced resurgence in the last decade, likely driven by growing antipathy toward the federal government. A few individuals still draw inspiration from McVeigh. Jerry Drake Varnell was arrested in August 2017 after he allegedly intended to damage or destroy a bank in downtown Oklahoma City by reportedly attempting to detonate what he thought was a bomb in a van. But the inert explosive device was based on materials provided by an undercover FBI agent as part of an investigation that nabbed Varnell, who allegedly was inspired by the Timothy McVeigh's 1995 bombing. Varnell purportedly hewed to militia extremist beliefs and, according to investigators, expressed an interest in founding a small militia.
Two widely reported incidents in recent years have attracted militia and other anti-government extremists. 
In 2014, multiple individuals led by Cliven Bundy engaged in an armed standoff with police officials at Bundy's ranch in Bunkerville, NV, preventing the execution of a court order related to a dispute involving the grazing of cattle on federal lands. One individual involved was sentenced to 68 years in prison for a variety of crimes related to his involvement in the standoff. For 41 days in late 2015 and early 2016, Ammon and Ryan Bundy (sons of Cliven Bundy) led numerous individuals in armed occupation of federal property at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. Although the ringleaders of the broader occupation—including the Bundy brothers—were acquitted in federal court of many of the most serious charges levied against them, a violent incident occurred during the occupation. Oregon State Police officers fatally shot LaVoy Finicum. The shooting occurred after Finicum reportedly drove a pickup truck at high speed toward a police roadblock, reputedly endangering officers before careening into a nearby snowbank. According to law enforcement officials, Finicum subsequently left the vehicle, refusing to comply with police commands, and reached for a gun in his pocket before he was shot to death. In the fallout related to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge takeover, Cliven Bundy was arrested on charges tied to the 2014 Bunkerville standoff. 
Several other examples highlight how some militia adherents have reportedly engaged in criminal activity since 9/11.
Purportedly, Curtis Allen, Gavin Wright, and Patrick Eugene Stein conspired to detonate explosives at an apartment complex in Garden City, KS. Prosecutors allege Allen, Wright, and Stein hoped to target Somali immigrants living in the complex. The trio was part of a small militia-style group dubbed the Crusaders. Underscoring the violent viewpoints the trio reputedly held, a larger militia organization in Kansas reportedly rejected Wright and Stein for membership because the larger group perceived the duo as too extreme. 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." 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." In October, plotters reportedly discussed making ricin, a deadly poison derived from castor beans. In April 2012, Roberts and Thomas pled guilty to conspiring to obtain an unregistered explosive device and silencer. Crump and Adams were found guilty of "conspiring to make ricin to be used as a weapon in January 2014. Also, they were found guilty of one count each of possessing a biological toxin for use as a weapon." Adams was acquitted of "attempting to develop, produce and possess a biological toxin." In June 2012, three individuals were found guilty in Anchorage, AK, of conspiracy and firearms charges related to a scheme purportedly led by Francis "Schaeffer" Cox. He 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." They were members of the Alaska Peacemaker's Militia based in Fairbanks, AK, and also held sovereign citizen beliefs. 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. 
The above 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.
The case garnered headlines in March 2010, when nine Hutaree members were indicted for allegedly preparing to violently confront U.S. law enforcement. 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. 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." According to DOJ, the group had a hit list that included federal judges, among others. However, during the trial an Assistant U.S. Attorney acknowledged that the Hutaree had not formed a "specific plan" to attack government targets. U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts stated that, "The court is aware that protected speech and mere words can be sufficient to show a conspiracy. In this case, however, they do not rise to that level." Three Hutaree members pled guilty to firearms charges. 
section_title: Sovereign Citizen Movement
paragraphs: The FBI defines the sovereign citizen movement as "anti-government," involving people "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." 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. Early on, the movement featured white supremacist elements, but this has not kept some African Americans from subscribing to its ideals in recent years. 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. Estimates from 2011 suggested a membership of 300,000. 
For the most part, the sovereign citizen movement is diffuse and includes few organized groups. The FBI suggests that sovereigns "operate as individuals without established leadership 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." 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. 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.
Sovereign citizens reject the legitimacy of much of the U.S. legal system. Many believe that the 14 th Amendment "shifted the nation from its original common-law roots with states' rights to a federal corporation that legally enslaved everyone." 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." 
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. Sovereigns have filed court documents stating that they are not U.S. citizens. 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 subject to being stopped, detained, or arrested by law enforcement personnel." In 2003, Ronald K. Delorme developed the Pembina Nation Little Shell Band of North America into a sovereign citizen group. 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. 
Some sovereign citizen fraud appears to be motivated by economic opportunism rather than ideology. 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." 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. 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. The Ervins earned more than $9 million from investment properties they owned. 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. 
Some avowed sovereign citizens have been involved in violent altercations with law enforcement officers: 
In June 2016, Gavin Long shot and killed three police officers and wounded three others in Baton Rouge, LA, before police killed him. He had articulated sovereign citizen views online. In May 2010, two self-professed sovereign 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. 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."
In June 2012, the FBI issued a bulletin suggesting that some sovereign extremists might move away from more spontaneous violence simply in reaction to encounters with police and are potentially preparing for conflict in advance, "making more specific plans to interfere with state and local law enforcement officers during traffic stops and, in some cases, intentionally initiating contact with law enforcement." In August 2013, authorities in Las Vegas, NV, arrested two reputed Sovereigns, David Allen Brutsche and Devon Campbell Newman, after a local investigation uncovered the duo's purported schemes to kidnap and kill police officers. Reportedly, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department ran an undercover investigation to nab the two after they encountered Brutsche in what has been characterized as a series of vehicle stops during which "Brutsche would espouse his Sovereign Citizen beliefs that he wasn't bound by the law Metro officers were enforcing." Brutsche pled guilty to felony kidnapping conspiracy in February 2014 after "prosecutors abandoned the two most serious charges—conspiracy to murder and attempted armed kidnapping."
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. Court documents described in news reporting noted that Tesi linked himself to a sovereign citizen group. In February 2012, Tesi was found "guilty of aggravated assault on a public servant with a deadly weapon." 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. According to a press account, Foust had declared his sovereign citizen status in court proceedings in Kanab, UT (about 75 miles from Page), related to a speeding ticket. 
section_title: Black Separatist Extremists
paragraphs: DOJ includes black separatism in its list of movements that potentially spawn domestic terrorists. 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), has received national attention over several incidents. 
The NBPP emerged in the early 1990s, and it is not tied to the Black Panthers from the 1960s. 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," as well as "the largest organized anti-Semitic and racist black militant group in America." 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." 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. 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. In an infamous recent incident, Micah Johnson shot and killed five police officers in Dallas, TX, in July 2015. He reportedly "liked" groups on Facebook tied to black separatism and may have been involved at some point with the NBPP in Houston. Johnson purportedly told police that he wasn't affiliated with any groups at the time of the shooting. He died in the altercation with police.
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. The NBPP disavowed the actions of its two members. 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.
section_title: Abortion Extremists
paragraphs: The vast majority of activists who either favor or oppose abortion engage in constitutionally protected activity. However, abortion extremism involves crimes committed based on such beliefs. Over the past two decades, most abortion-related violence appears to have targeted abortion providers. Eighty-four instances of "extreme violence" targeting abortion providers and clinics occurred in the United States from 1997 through 2015, according to one group that supports abortion rights and tracks criminal activity intended to limit access to abortion services. These cases involved shootings, bombings, arson incidents, and acid attacks. Since 1993, eight clinic workers have been murdered by anti-abortion extremists in the United States. 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. 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. 
Two violent incidents have been prominent in recent years. In 2015, Robert Dear, Jr., allegedly killed three people and wounded nine others in a shooting at a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs, CO. The 2009 murder of George Tiller, an abortion provider, received significant 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."
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. In February 2012, a federal grand jury indicted him on two counts—arson and damaging a reproductive health facility. He pled guilty to the charges in July 2012. In May 2011, Ralph Lang was arrested after allegedly accidently firing his handgun through the door of a hotel room in Madison, WI. He was reportedly planning to kill abortion providers in the area.
One underground network that supports attacks on abortion clinics is the Army of God (AOG). The loosely structured organization openly promotes anti-abortion violence. 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." 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. 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." 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."
section_title: Protected Activities vs. Terrorism—Divergent Perceptions of the ALF
paragraphs: 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. 
subsections: section_title: A Serious Domestic Concern or "Green Scare?"
paragraphs: U.S. law enforcement, some business groups, and some scientists—among others—have stressed that animal rights extremists (and ecoterrorists) are a security and law enforcement concern. In 2008, the FBI stated that animal rights extremists and ecoterrorists together posed a serious domestic terrorism threat for several reasons, including the number of crimes attributed to animal rights extremists and ecoterrorists (between 1,800 and 2,000 incidents accounting for more than $110 million 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. In March 2012, the FBI suggested that the threat from ecoterrorists may be declining.
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 ecoterrorists 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. In 2006, a UCLA professor of behavioral neuroscience declared he was stopping his research on monkeys because of what he described as harassment by animal rights groups. Additionally, animal rights extremists are said to be driving out students from research programs. 
Critics of U.S. efforts to fight animal rights extremism and ecoterrorism 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. Some say that the government conflates property crime with terrorism. Others add that people engaged in what the government describes as animal rights extremism or ecoterrorism do not deserve the terrorist label.
subsections: section_title: Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (P.L. 109-374)
paragraphs: 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.
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). 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 corporation that performs animal research and has U.K. and U.S. facilities]." These individuals belonged to an animal rights campaign named Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) 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. DOJ has noted that SHAC's stated mission was to work "outside the confines of the legal system." 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." 
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. 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. 
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 threats to interfere with the operation of the University of California." 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. 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. Opponents of the prosecution stress that the case involved over-broad application of AETA to First Amendment-protected behaviors. 
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. 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. 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. 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." 
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. As mentioned, the current 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 ecoterrorists 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.
section_title: Assessing Domestic Terrorism's Significance
paragraphs: 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." A 2014 national survey of state and local law enforcement officers found that among terrorist threats, sovereign citizens were "the top concern." In one 2008 study, state police agencies "overwhelmingly reported" dangerous domestic extremist groups present in their jurisdictions. 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."
Four broad themes speak to the threat posed by domestic terrorists. First, domestic terrorists likely have been responsible for numerous incidents since 9/11. 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 resistance. 
subsections: section_title: Counting Incidents
paragraphs: The U.S. government does not keep a publicly available list of domestic terrorist incidents (foiled plots or attacks). This makes it especially challenging for anyone trying to develop a sense of this particularly diverse threat. However, as of August 2017, the New America Foundation reportedly has found that people who can be characterized as domestic terrorists have killed 75 people in the United States since 9/11, whereas jihadist terrorists have killed 95.
Some U.S. government sources suggest levels of domestic terrorist activity. Examples of such sources include the following:
An unclassified 2008 DHS report includes a table that lists selected criminal acts perpetrated by people involved in the animal rights extremist and ecoterrorist movements. This list counts 74 criminal acts between 9/11 and March 2008. As noted, the FBI estimated that animal rights extremist and ecoterrorists together committed between 1,800 and 2,000 criminal incidents accounting for more than $110 million in damages from 1979 to early 2009. In 2012, the FBI also publicly discussed a decline in ecoterrorism, especially after a wave of successful prosecutions in 2007. The Bureau 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." 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. In February 2012, the FBI announced that sovereign citizen convictions increased from 10 in 2009 to 18 in both 2010 and 2011. 
Additionally, a key caveat regarding estimates of domestic terrorist activity may be of importance. Many domestic terrorist incidents have been linked to either animal rights extremists or ecoterrorists. As highlighted elsewhere in this report, many animal rights extremists and ecoterrorists 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.
section_title: "Nonviolent" Strategies
paragraphs: While some terrorists engage in violence, 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, ecoterrorists, 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 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. 
subsections: section_title: Direct Action
paragraphs: 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. 
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. 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. 
section_title: The ALF: "Live Liberations" and "Economic Sabotage"
paragraphs: The ALF frames its version of direct action as "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" and human use 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. NAALPO is one of the web-based vehicles used by ALF supporters to publicize criminal activities claimed on behalf of the movement.
section_title: The ELF: "Monkeywrenching"
paragraphs: 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." Economic sabotage in the name of environmentalism has a long history, perhaps stretching back to the 1950s, and has been called "monkeywrenching," a term taken from a 1975 novel, The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey. The book depicts such activity. 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.
The guidebook also defines monkeywrenching as nonviolent by stressing that it should never target people or "other forms of life."
subsections: section_title: Arson and Explosive Devices
paragraphs: Federal officials are especially concerned about the use of incendiary devices and explosives by animal rights extremists and ecoterrorists. In congressional testimony from 2005, then-ATF Deputy Assistant Director Carson Carroll stated that the "most worrisome" trend regarding animal rights extremists and ecoterrorists was their "willingness to resort to incendiary and explosive devices." 
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 and discussed above). A related communiqué stressed that, "all customers and their families are considered legitimate targets." 
One commentator has suggested that the combination of "fire" as a tactic and instilling "fear" as a goal ensures ecoterrorists will continue to warrant the terrorist label. Both animal rights extremists and ecoterrorists 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 . 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 ." 
Some ELF adherents have focused on targets they perceive as emblematic of urban sprawl or the excesses of industrialized society. Since 2000, a number of ELF actions have involved the torching of housing developments as well as activities such as the damaging and destruction of sports utility vehicles and other emblems of industrialized society and urban sprawl. Between August 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. Similar activity has occurred on the West Coast. 
section_title: Guidelines
paragraphs: 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 1 ). A key point in the guidelines for both the ALF and the ELF is to avoid harming any animal, human and non-human. The ALF also stipulates 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. The ALF also views arson as "violence against property," not people. Beyond this, ALF does not greatly elaborate on its notion of violence. 
section_title: Exceptions
paragraphs: 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." 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. 
An animal rights extremist entity named the "Justice Department" has argued for the efficacy of violence against humans. Founded in the United Kingdom in 1993, the "Justice Department" has been described as an offshoot of the ALF. 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. In November 2010, individuals asserting ties to the "Justice Department" mailed two communiqués to NAALPO. The missives claimed that "Justice Department" extremists had mailed AIDS-tainted razors to two scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles. 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.
Presumably, allusion to egg timers and incense sticks suggested timing devices and fuses for explosive or incendiary devices.
section_title: "Paper Terrorism": Liens, Frivolous Lawsuits, and Tax Schemes
paragraphs: Sovereign citizens have committed nonviolent crimes based on their ideological underpinnings. These are often bundled under the concept of "paper terrorism." 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. Some sovereigns hold illegal courts and target officials with fake criminal indictments. They can also "issue warrants for judges and police officers." 
subsections: section_title: Retaliatory Filings
paragraphs: While these acts may not be violent, they are frequently "designed to intimidate or defraud targeted individuals, private institutions, or government entities." Thus, some sovereigns saddle their opponents with time-consuming legal efforts to wipe out sham retaliatory court filings. As a 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 had 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. In 2013, Leaming was convicted of "three counts of filing false liens against federal officials and one count of harboring federal fugitives and being a felon in possession of firearms."
section_title: Redemption
paragraphs: Sovereign citizen guru Roger Elvick is the reputed founder of "redemption," 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" 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.
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 Forms 1099 (including Form 1099-OID) or Forms W-2, to request fraudulent tax refunds based on phony claims of large income tax withholding." 
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. One guru recently pled guilty to money laundering charges. 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.
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. 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.
section_title: The Internet and Domestic Terrorists
paragraphs: In the counterterrorism world, there has been much concern regarding violent jihadist use of the Internet and social media. However, domestic terrorists also are computer savvy and active online. A web presence may help extremist groups—some relatively small, with rosters in the 100s or fewer—educate their 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. 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." 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. The Internet allows individuals and groups to connect with one another and to disseminate ideology. It also enables groups to manage how others perceive them. Many white supremacist sites claim that their sponsoring groups are nonviolent and not even racist.
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." 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.'" A 2016 study found that Americans espousing white supremacist ideals on the social-media platform Twitter outnumber the supporters of the foreign terrorist organization known as the Islamic State by many measures:
On Twitter, ISIS's preferred social platform, American white nationalist movements have seen their followers grow by more than 600% since 2012. Today, they outperform ISIS in nearly every social metric, from follower counts to tweets per day.
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. Movement websites virtually connect like-minded individuals. As mentioned elsewhere in this report, key ideological texts are also made available online. The websites of animal rights extremists and ecoterrorists also post press releases publicizing crimes perpetrated on behalf of the movements. Reverend Donald Spitz administers the Army of God's website. 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. The National Socialist Movement sponsors its own social networking site, the "New Saxon Social Network."
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." Supporters across the United States vandalized victims' homes and automobiles and engaged in cyberattacks against the research firms and other companies tied to it, among other activities. 
section_title: A Decentralized Threat
paragraphs: 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. 
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.
subsections: section_title: Leaderless Resistance
paragraphs: 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." 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.
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.
subsections: section_title: "The Turner Diaries"
paragraphs: 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. 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. Pierce's book has been described as "the most widely read book among far-right extremists." The novel reflects the author's own racist religious philosophies. Perhaps 500,000 copies of the book have been sold. In it, Pierce emphasized that the current racial order of things had to be cataclysmically destroyed and reborn in accordance with white supremacist ideals. 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. 
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. 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. 
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. Sales of the book allegedly rose after the bombing.
section_title: The ALF, the ELF
paragraphs: 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. 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. 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.
Additionally, the above-ground literature of both the ALF and the ELF suggests that independent cells avoid communication with one another. 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.
section_title: Lone Wolves
paragraphs: 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.
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. There is little research on the lone wolf phenomenon and no universally accepted definition of the term. 
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. 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 (also discussed above) was convicted of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated assault for killing abortion provider George Tiller. Roeder allegedly had "connections with militant abortion foes but few formal ties with known groups." Some supporters of abortion rights consider his contacts among anti-abortion adherents as evidence of possible conspiracy. Meanwhile, some anti-abortion activists have stressed that Roeder was a lone wolf. He remains the only person convicted in Tiller's murder. 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.
Because lone wolves are not plugged into terrorist organizations, distinguishing them from individuals who commit hate crimes can also be difficult. 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). 
subsections: section_title: The Law Enforcement Challenges Posed by Lone Wolves
paragraphs: 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 person gets up in middle America and decides: "I'm taking my protest poster to Washington or I'm taking my gun."
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. 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."
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. 
Regardless, apparent lone wolf attacks can be lethal. For example, in March 2017, James Harris Jackson, allegedly acting alone, used a two-foot-long sword to stab to death Timothy Caughman, an African American individual who Jackson is said to have encountered while trolling New York City for victims. According to New York District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr., Jackson "prowled the streets of New York for three days in search of a black person to assassinate in order to launch a campaign of terrorism...." Jackson, who reportedly espoused white supremacist beliefs, faces state-level murder and terrorism charges. Aside from the 2016 shooting by Gavin Long, the 2010 actions of Scott Roeder, and the 2009 shooting involving James von Brunn (described above), other evidence suggests the lethality of lone wolf violence: 
According to one scholarly examination, between 1990 and April 2009, "far-rightists" were 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 . Richard Poplawski shot and killed three Pittsburgh police officers in April 2009. He has been described as a "white supremacist" lone wolf. He had posted anti-government messages on racist websites. 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 a synagogue, as he planned. 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. He reputedly said that he was "fighting for a dying race" and that he had been planning the attack for six months.
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. 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. Harpham reportedly made postings on white supremacist websites and read The Turner Diaries .
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: 
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. 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." 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." 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." 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."
section_title: Scoping the Threat Remains Difficult for Policymakers
paragraphs: 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, there is no clear sense of how many domestic terrorism plots and attacks the government has investigated in recent years. 
subsections: section_title: Terminology
paragraphs: 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, ecoterrorists, 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, while there are no other domestic terrorism statutes as narrow in their purview covering a particular type of target and crime.
section_title: Designating Domestic Terrorist Groups
paragraphs: 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). 
Official FTO designation benefits counterterrorism efforts in a number of ways. Most importantly, it facilitates the prosecution of those who provide material support 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." 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. Heightens public awareness and knowledge of terrorist organizations. 5. Signals to other governments our concern about named organizations.
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. An attempt to render this process less bureaucratically opaque might simultaneously (1) enhance federal efforts to combat domestic terrorism and (2) help protect 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." 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. 
section_title: A Public Accounting of Plots and Incidents
paragraphs: 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 National Counterterrorism Center's (NCTC) Worldwide Incidents Tracking System (WITS) had provided an official record of terrorism incidents around the globe, including the United States. This was a publicly accessible database active from 2004 to early 2012. It included basic information regarding terrorist incidents. Prior to the advent of WITS, the FBI used to publish regular reports on terrorist activity in the United States. 
The lack of a publicly available federal accounting of domestic terrorism plots and attacks makes it especially difficult to determine the scope of this diverse threat, which, for example, can be investigated and prosecuted at the state, local, or federal level. Also, the lines between domestic terrorism and other forms of criminality such as tax fraud or hate crimes can be blurry. A fuller accounting of domestic terrorism plots and attacks may reveal the instances in which FBI investigated individuals as domestic terrorists but DOJ did not prosecute them as such. This could offer policymakers a clearer sense of the domestic terrorism threat.
section_title: Better Sense of Scope May Assist Policymakers
paragraphs: 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. 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. It can help inform the allocation of resources to specific federal counterterrorism efforts, such as those designed to keep people from radicalizing and becoming violent extremists in the first place. 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.