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Major Policies of the War on Terror In the 1990s, terrorism was introduced to the American consciousness through anumber of attacks, including the following (Close Up Foundation, 1997):" 1993 World Trade Center bombing" 1995 Oklahoma City bombing" 1996 arrest of Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber)" 1996 Olympics bombing in Atlanta" 1998 bombing of the U.S.embassies in Kenya and TanzaniaAs a response to the increase in attacks, the 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective DeathPenalty Act was signed into law by President Clinton.The act allotted $1 billion to-ward curbing terrorism, increased penalties for terrorist offences, tightened immi-gration, and expanded federal agencies power to conduct surveillance.In conjunc-tion with the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS), illegal immigrants,some of them members of street organizations, were deported by the agency withlittle judicial oversight.The Federal Bureau of Investigation was already one step ahead, launching ViolentGang and Terrorist Organizations File (VGTOF) a year previous to the act (Episcopoand Moor, 1996).The VGTOF is a subsection of the National Crime InformationCenter (NCIC), a national law enforcement database.Its title suggests an equationbetween violent gangs and terrorist organizations.Furthermore, the database not 252 TERRORISM AND GANGSonly tracks those individuals identifi ed with a particular organization, but also pronounces an individual guilty by mere association with a gang or terrorist group. Thus, for many individuals, an entry into the database is inevitable.Categoriesare wide-reaching as well; as of 2002 it contained categories such as anarchists, militia, white supremacist, black extremist, animal rights extremist, envi-ronmental extremist, radical Islamic extremist, and European origin extremist (Davis, 2003).Though the concept of terrorism did not suddenly materialize post-9/11, noterrorism-related activity has had as much impact on public policy.The policy reac-tion to 9/11 was not only radical, but swift: by December 2001, twenty-nine state-level terrorism laws had been passed or were in consideration (National Conferenceof State Legislatures, 2001).Since then, a total of thirty-six states added terrorism-related laws to their criminal codes (Garcia, 2005).The new terrorism laws appearto be split into two main categories: increased security and increased punishment forterrorist acts, with the majority of legislation on the security side.Not to be outdone, the federal government s Uniting and Strengthening Americaby Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (theUSA PATRIOT) Act passed the legislature almost unanimously shortly following9/11 (Department of Justice, n.d.).Included in the bill is the shift [of] the primarymission of the FBI from solving crimes to gathering domestic intelligence (McGee,2001).Similar to the anti-gang legislation, there is a resulting shift in the traditional reactive nature of policing to proactive domestic intelligence gathering (Haber-feld, 2002).This shift in orientation is problematic, because proactive intelligencegathering, by defi nition, is based on investigating individuals who have not yetcommitted a visible crime.This means that there will be some mistakes madenot everyone that is investigated is guilty of terrorist activities.About two years afterthe passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, nearly half of the cases designated by theDepartment of Justice as terrorism-related were misclassified (Subcommittee on Im-migration, Border Security, and Claims, 2003).Since the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, other legislation along the same veinhas also been passed.Most relevant is the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of2003, which grants sweeping powers to the government, eliminating or weakeningmany of the checks and balances that remained on government surveillance, wire-tapping, detention and criminal prosecution (Edgar, 2003).The act, also referred toas the PATRIOT Act II, is so radical as to leave some to speculate that its intentionwas to be used as a bargaining chit for later, scaled-down versions.Leaked to thepublic before its release, parts of the PATRIOT Act II have since been included inother legislation and passed.Though this act has not been incorporated in its en-tirety, it certainly illustrates the change in the nation s thinking about domestic se-curity and civil liberties (McGee, 2001).Redefining Domestic Terrorism Many contend that domestic terrorism has been overshadowed by 9/11 andthe hunt for terrorists abroad (Copeland, 2004).However, one of the most notablefeatures of the PATRIOT Act is establishing a definition of domestic terrorism. Activities occurring primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States in-volving acts dangerous to human life that.appear to be intended to intimidate or TERRORISM AND GANGS 253coerce a civilian population, infl uence the policy of a government by intimidation orcoercion, or affect the conduct of a government.(FBI, 2004)One of the reasons to emphasize foreign terrorism over domestic terrorism is be-cause there s a tendency to want to externalize the threat and say the people whowant to hurt us don t look like us, they don t worship the same god and don t havethe same skin color (Copeland, 2004).However, this same ease of externalizingthe threat happens as well within the United States to many black and brown people.Individuals identified as gang members fi t within this scope.Although they are in-creasingly labeled domestic terrorists, they often have nonwhite skin, and theyoftentimes do not speak English as their first language or worship a Christian god.This shift in perspective is radical; most of the traditionally identified domestic ter-rorists are white supremacist groups such as the Aryan Resistance, Hammerskins,Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazi Party, and National Socialist Movement (Bureau of JusticeAssistance, 2005).The Public PerceptionThe post-9/11 media are instrumental in the re-labeling of gang members.Increas-ingly the perception of danger has increased, as the perception of gang members hasturned from kids hanging out on the street corner, to gang-banging and sellingdrugs, to monsters, to domestic or urban terrorists.This trend was happeningeven before 9/11: Gangs are portrayed in the media and public discourse throughthe pattern of three dehumanizing metaphors: (1) gangs are a virulent disease,(2) gangs are vicious animals, (3) gangs are violent terrorists (Conquergood, 1996).This latter label has persisted in the media: if the terror network succeeds in turningour nation s street gangs into a weapon of mass insurrection, urban warfare willbecome a horrifying reality (Grigg, 2002).This tie has been apparent on two fronts:between gang members and international terrorists as well as labeling gang membersas domestic terrorists. There have been two highly publicized cases supporting theformer: the arrest of Padilla, and reports of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13)
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