The thing is, often crimes aren't defined by laws.
In Sweden we do define terrorism and terrorist organizations by the laws, and what the government designates as one is irrelevant. Meanwhile, most countries just declare "X is a terrorist organization", with this being done by politicians and where the organization often has no practical legal recourse.
I think the US takes the second approach for the most part? You can't argue "X isn't a terrorist organization, it does violence, but it's an international armed conflict" or anything of the sort-- if the government thinks you support something they don't like they can get you by banning the group you're part of.
> The definition in 18 U.S.C. § 2331(5) is broad: acts dangerous to human life that violate criminal law, with apparent intent to intimidate civilians or influence government policy, occurring primarily within the United States. It sounds precise. In practice, applied to protest activity, it creates enormous discretion.
The drift starts with how an incident is viewed and interpreted, even if no laws are broken, simply due to how an investigation is carried out.
> Consider how the label functions operationally. Once conduct gets coded as “domestic terrorism,” cases flow through joint terrorism task forces rather than ordinary criminal investigations. Prosecutors reach for terrorism sentencing enhancements. Banks and tech platforms treat individuals and organizations as if they’ve been officially designated, even when no such legal designation exists. The government’s internal machinery shifts and with it, the tools investigators use and the questions they ask.
This is magnified when there is a crime.
Suppose I block an ICE vehicle. That's illegal. I know full well I'll do the time.
But what's the crime? I might expect a public-order misdemeanor. I'm ready for that time.
What if ICE agents say they feared for their life and were intimidated by my clear attempt to influence government policy? Is my act now criminal intimidation, where I will be prosecuted as a terrorist? Even if found innocent, prosecutions like this historically "diverted investigative resources away from genuine threats while traumatizing thousands of people whose only offense was their politics."
That lack of precision about what 'terrorism' means - a problem pointed out when the law was made! - combined with institutional pressure "to treat the current threat as uniquely dangerous and the old protections as luxuries we can no longer afford" causes that line to drift.
All quotes and the scenario come from the linked-to piece.
"Stone also identifies what makes the difference between restraint and excess: political leadership willing to maintain legal discipline even under pressure, courts willing to enforce constitutional limits even when the public is fearful, and robust democratic discourse that allows dissenting voices to be heard."
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0 for 3. The U.S. is headed for a real rough patch.
More to the point, what we're seeing in the U.S. isn't really a response to public fears at all. Haitians were not eating pets. Illegal immigrants actually commit crimes at a lower rate than citizens, which should not be surprising given that they can be deported as the fallout of a traffic stop.
The crisis currently playing out in Minnesota and other states was not an undisciplined response to public fears. It's the deliberate creation of public fear using what amounts to a private militia.
Doesn't it work the other way as well? When everything is terrorism then the term starts to become meaningless, a bit like the term "lying" is more or less meaningless now when every second YT video has a title like "they're lying to you about X". So perhaps the endless dilution of the term isn't a bad thing once we get past the initial pain period.
I think that the dilution of "terrorism" will not be very significant in the long term. I think of "terrorism" as describing certain actions that are almost "universally" bad, as with the more-easily-defined "murder". To whatever extent "terrorism" becomes diluted, people will want a less-diluted word (such as a new word) to describe most of the same actions or will continue using "terrorism" as they currently do toward a restricted target audience. If I strongly trust a certain speaker on issues that have been brought widespread attention by or have been highlighted by protests, violence, or terrorism, that particular speaker's usage of the word "terrorism" might not become very diluted if at all for me.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 33.4 ms ] threadIn Sweden we do define terrorism and terrorist organizations by the laws, and what the government designates as one is irrelevant. Meanwhile, most countries just declare "X is a terrorist organization", with this being done by politicians and where the organization often has no practical legal recourse.
I think the US takes the second approach for the most part? You can't argue "X isn't a terrorist organization, it does violence, but it's an international armed conflict" or anything of the sort-- if the government thinks you support something they don't like they can get you by banning the group you're part of.
> The definition in 18 U.S.C. § 2331(5) is broad: acts dangerous to human life that violate criminal law, with apparent intent to intimidate civilians or influence government policy, occurring primarily within the United States. It sounds precise. In practice, applied to protest activity, it creates enormous discretion.
The drift starts with how an incident is viewed and interpreted, even if no laws are broken, simply due to how an investigation is carried out.
> Consider how the label functions operationally. Once conduct gets coded as “domestic terrorism,” cases flow through joint terrorism task forces rather than ordinary criminal investigations. Prosecutors reach for terrorism sentencing enhancements. Banks and tech platforms treat individuals and organizations as if they’ve been officially designated, even when no such legal designation exists. The government’s internal machinery shifts and with it, the tools investigators use and the questions they ask.
This is magnified when there is a crime.
Suppose I block an ICE vehicle. That's illegal. I know full well I'll do the time.
But what's the crime? I might expect a public-order misdemeanor. I'm ready for that time.
What if ICE agents say they feared for their life and were intimidated by my clear attempt to influence government policy? Is my act now criminal intimidation, where I will be prosecuted as a terrorist? Even if found innocent, prosecutions like this historically "diverted investigative resources away from genuine threats while traumatizing thousands of people whose only offense was their politics."
That lack of precision about what 'terrorism' means - a problem pointed out when the law was made! - combined with institutional pressure "to treat the current threat as uniquely dangerous and the old protections as luxuries we can no longer afford" causes that line to drift.
All quotes and the scenario come from the linked-to piece.
-----------------
0 for 3. The U.S. is headed for a real rough patch.
More to the point, what we're seeing in the U.S. isn't really a response to public fears at all. Haitians were not eating pets. Illegal immigrants actually commit crimes at a lower rate than citizens, which should not be surprising given that they can be deported as the fallout of a traffic stop.
The crisis currently playing out in Minnesota and other states was not an undisciplined response to public fears. It's the deliberate creation of public fear using what amounts to a private militia.
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-dangerous-drift-to-...