Trash Covers Represent an Excellent Technique in Term Paper

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Trash covers represent an excellent technique in the investigation of terrorist organizations. Begin by listing those items that might typically be found in your discarded trash that would provide details regarding you personally; your interests, lifestyle, associates, family, business, income, debts etc. Be honest and be thorough in your response. Follow your response by listing items that investigators might be interested in locating in the trash of suspect terrorists and follow with a discussion of how such items could be used to benefit the investigation.

Items that might typically be found in my discarded trash that would provide details regarding me personally are my cell phone statements, my bank account statements, discarded product packaging, receipts, medical bills, envelopes, defunct art supplies, sketches and discarded snippets of poems or stories.

Likewise, in the case of a suspected terrorist, investigators would essentially be interested in most, if not all of the things I've listed above. A cell phone statement is simply a list of every call made and received on a cell phone over the course of a month. Additionally, it has every number the phone has text messaged and every number that has text messaged the phone. Based on this list, investigators would not have a very difficult time finding out who the suspect talked to the most. It would be safe for investigators to then assume that the person the suspect talked to the most was the person the suspect was closest to. Investigators could contact this person for questioning. Investigators could also cross-reference phone numbers on the statement with other phone numbers associated with terror suspects that they have previously gathered to uncover links and the relative strength of relationships within a terrorist organization that has a hierarchical structure.

Bank account statements are simply lists of transactions of debit and credit cards. They include how much the transaction cost and where the transaction happened. Investigators might use this information to detect any suspicious purchases made (for instance, if $5,000 was spent at an industrial farm supply, and it was known that the subject had no ties to industrial farms). Since the statements also show where one regularly transacts (a grocery store or corner store), investigators could actually contact a suspect by waiting for him where he often goes to buy things. Receipts could be used in a similar way.

Product packaging could be used to deduce the terror suspect's living situation. If the terror suspect is male, for instance, and there is a good amount of packaging for female products, an investigator could assume that the suspect is living with a woman. Likewise for children.

2. Differentiate between the meaning of domestic terrorism and international terrorism. Begin by providing a definition for each and identifying the key distinctions between the two. Follow by providing examples of each in the context of actual events that have occurred within the continental United States.

International terrorism "involves citizens or property of more than one country" (Abadie, 2006). Domestic terrorism

"(A) involve[s] acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; (B) appear[s ]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; and (C) occur[s] primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States." (USA Patriot Act, 2001)

For the purposes of this response, the third part of the above definition (C) can be changed to "occurs primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the country in which the terrorist act was committed."

The key distinction between international terrorism and domestic terrorism is that domestic terrorism is committed on a nation by a citizen or citizens of that nation. International terrorism, by contrast, is a terrorist act committed by citizens of another nation. For example, while the "Unabomber Attacks" -- a series of mail bombings committed by one man over the course of over a decade -- was undoubtedly an act of domestic terrorism (the acts occurred within the United States, committed by a citizen of the United States), the airplane attacks of September 11, carried out by non-citizens, was an act of international terrorism.

3. The Christian Identity movement, a quasi-religious movement, is significant in the discussion of right-wing extremism in this country. Define the term Christian Identity, and provide background on the origins of the movement in this country.

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Describe the philosophy espoused by the movement and how in your opinion it tends to reinforce a hate-based extremist ideology. Also provide the names of several extremist groups that have adopted the Identity philosophy.

"Christian Identity" is a term used to describe a loosely-joined group of religious factions whose primary belief is that Anglo-Saxons are direct descendants of the Ten Tribes of Israel and thus are God's chosen people (Quarles, 2004). While the belief is not held by all in the Christian Identity movement, some claim that a number of non-white races are descendants of the people that lived before Adam (of "Adam & Eve") (also known as "pre-Adamic races" or "pre-Adamic Mud People") and do not have a spiritual connection to God (Quarles, 2004). Others claim that Jews are descended from Cain, who, according to the Movement, was actually the product of intercourse between Eve and the Serpent of the Garden of Eden (not Adam and Eve), which leads directly to the belief that the Jewish race is evil (Quarles, 2004). They also hold the belief that the Jewish race is "part of an international conspiracy to establish a one world government which the senior President George Bush coined 'The New World Order'" (Quarles, 2004). Many in the movement believe that "racial mixing" and homosexuality are sins and therefore unacceptable, and "at least one Identity pastor" has called African-Americans "beasts of the field" (Quarles, 2004). It is also a widely held belief among Identity members that as the movement unites, a race war will begin (Quarles, 2004). This war will purge humanity of the "lower" races and help Aryans "realize their racial, national, and personal identity as 'people of the book' and as the descendants of the Lost Tribes of true Israel" (Quarles, 2004). They believe that this war will destroy the earth (Quarles, 2004).

The most controversial beliefs of the Christian Identity movement reinforce hate-based extremist ideology through simple logic. For example, if one has the genuine belief that the world will end with a race between wars, one is logically required to prepare for that battle (read: stockpiling weapons, ammunition, food). Moreover, one with this belief must prepare himself psychologically for such a war; he must convince himself that all races other than his are his enemies. This could lead to preemptive attacks -- domestic terrorism -- on other races or the U.S. Government itself. If one believes the world will be literally destroyed in this race war, he should not have any qualms with using nuclear weapons. If one believes that the Jewish race is evil, then one might, logically, hate the Jewish race, and act accordingly. Moreover, thinking of African-Americans as "beasts of the field" is to think of them as sub-human. To think of a human as sub-human is a step in the direction of treating them inhumanely.

The origins of the Christian Identity movement lie in British-Israelism, a small movement in Victorian-era British Protestantism that claimed that the British were descendants of the ten lost tribes of Israel (Barkun, 1997). In America, in the 1920s, a man named Howard Rand coined the term "Christian Identity" and combined British-Israelism with anti-Semitism (Barkun, 1997). From the mid 1920s to the 1940s, a man named William J. Cameron, who had strong ties to Henry Ford, collaborated with Rand in the first attempt to align the movement with the political right (Barkun, 1997). The output of this collaboration produced a group of West Coast preachers and the eventual dissemination of Identity ideas into various factions across the United States (Barkun, 1997).

Extremist groups that have adopted the Identity philosophy are Mountain Kirk, which plans on establishing a white separatist nation in the Pacific Northwest; the Contemporary Patriots, a group that wishes to decrease the power of the federal government while increasing the rights of the citizen; the Posse Comitatus, a group that holds as one of its beliefs that police officers' titles are not constitutionally valid -- that "only the sheriff is a legitimate, constitutional law enforcement officer;" American Israel (or Covenant People), the Aryan Nations, the Order, the Arizona Patriots, the Viper Militia, and others (Quarles, 2004).

4. Describe how trials of conventional criminals and terrorists differ. A complete answer should address, at a minimum, motions, plea bargains, security, counsel, sympathetic supporters, propaganda, jury nullification and jury tampering.

On November 13, 2001, just two months after 9/11, former President George W. Bush sought to establish military.....

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