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Comment by blackguardx | Hacker News Reader

The Department of Homeland Security released a statement calling this a criminal act, not terrorism. I am confused. A few years ago everything was considered terrorism and now nothing is.

This guy wasn't targeting individual people in the IRS, he was targeting the whole establishment. This is akin to the Oklahoma City bombing. If that was a terrorist incident and 9/11 was a terrorist incident, this is too. He even has an IRS hate manifesto.

I think it is a shame that the government uses certain words to its advantage, but I guess propaganda is just the nature of the beast.

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You, sir, have obviously failed to memo that in this post-9/11-world, only brown people are terrorists.

Here's a key, in case it gets confusing again:

- Guy in an airport with a Koran and an accent: terrorist.

- White software developer who flies a plane into buildings for ideological reasons: not terrorist.

While I agree with your point, I'd like to point out that McVeigh was white: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_McVeigh

"post-9/11"

Actually, this guy's goal was not to incite terror, hence not a terrorist.

I'm not necessarily defending the way the government labels different crimes, though. AFAIK the Unibomber was pretty much like this guy.

He's absolutely a terrorist according to 18 USC 2331:

(5) the term “domestic terrorism” means activities that— (A) involve 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; and (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.

His explicitly stated goal was to affect the conduct of the government and coerce the civilian population via mass destruction.

I don't see how me meant to coerce civilians.

Explained here -> http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1135842

"I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are."

I wonder at which point "domestic terrorism" is instead considered "rebellion/revolt?" [1] I guess it's a hard concept given the media's decisive unanimity on the topic, but I do believe Great Britain probably felt similarly when we started killing the soldiers they sent over.

I'm not confident to which side I am on: I think the government is mostly stupid, not draconian to the people at large. It's hard for me to believe they are innocent at times.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States#Political_divisio...; sentence #2

If I worked for the IRS, my wife and I would not exactly be sleeping comfortably tonight. And I think it’s fair to assume that Mr. Stack intended to provoke that feeling in every IRS employee.

_Brown_ Islamist soldier who kills 13 soldiers and wounds 30 at Fort Hood: _not_ a terrorist!

I agree. I think it's reasonable to consider him a domestic terrorist. His actions and rantings are not materially different from those of Timothy McVeigh (OKC Bombing) or Ted Kaczynski (The Unabomber). Both of them were rightly considered terrorists at the time, and this guy should be considered a terrorist as well.

He may not be linked to the international Islamic terrorist networks, like the underpants bomber or the guy who shot up Fort Hood. But just because he's not a Muslim terrorist doesn't mean he isn't a terrorist.

I tend to agree with the cynic in me that says it's because the guy's name was "Joe Stack". Had it been Mohammed something then it would've been terrorism.

Agree, The way I see it is that if its a criminal act against the government it because terrorism. Had he been out to kill someone in that building it would have been a criminal act. This was terrorism.

Why is it terrorism? Are you now living in terror that it will happen again?

By that definition there are pretty much no terrorists, anywhere.

I'm not in a state of terror about Osama, are you?

I'd argue that terrorism is largely a term to describe an opponent whose tactics go beyond what its adversary's population regards as appropriate... and so the term is mostly intended to marginalize an opponent and paint him and his cause as morally bankrupt.

The term can be used to describe asymmetrical warfare techniques whose objective is more to motivate fear in the target population than to achieve a classic military objective, but if you think about it, the neighbor kid being sent home from the front lines in a body bag also has that effect, albeit a bit more indirectly.

I think by definition an asymmetrical conflict that doesn't result in the weaker side quitting outright must include some sort of different moral standard about things like civilian life, soldier sacrifice, etc.

personally no, but I wasn't for 9/11 either. But not sure if I can say the same for those people in the building.

Terror? No, but I'm reasonably sure that there will be a large number of off-balance nutters who are upset about corporations and taxes and the gubment who will use this event as a rallying call for further violence.

You hit on an important characteristic of asymmetrical conflict, which is the propaganda aspect of a particular campaign (contrary to the traditional military objective of capturing territory, causing large scale surrender, etc.)

I think the guy is nuts, and i think the best description is that he chose a really screwed up way of committing suicide.

Ineffective terrorism is still terrorism.

Who was the attack intended to strike terror in?

Those who work for the IRS? Politicians and bureaucrats? Anyone who ever dismissed Joe Stack as a bitter has-been?

Politicians who put laws on the books at the whim of a monied few special interests instead of listening to their constituents, and who insist on ceaselessly driving the wedge between rich and poor in their own back yard instead of pursuing policies that would lift up the whole country?

It's terrorism because it's directly in line with 18 USC 2331:

By clause A someone speeding on the highway could be considered a terrorist.

By clause B a person who writes his congressman and threatens not to vote/donate in the next election cycle is a terrorist (threat/coercion).

If the key is intent, then a poet who writes an anti-government poem is a terrorist.

  if a and (b1 or b2 or b3) and c
    terrorist = true
  end

(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State

So an attack designed to destroy an unoccupied building would not be terrorism under the structure you describe above.

I think that the law would still hold detonating a bomb in an unoccupied building as 'dangerous to human life' if you didn't follow all of the safety precautions that a real building demolition would have to follow. If you put a bomb in an abandoned building at set to detonate in 2 hours and then flee the scene, there's not guarantee that someone won't enter the building in the interim.

You could make that same argument about someone driving above the speed limit...

How many people are breaking the speed limit in an effort to 'coerce the civilian popular and/or US government policy?'

That's not my point, my point is just that the logical structure attributed to the definition is not accurate.

The definition does not state that all of the clauses must be satisfied for something to qualify as terrorism, and as I showed above, satisfying a single clause is trivial (and clearly not terrorism).

I think that you should ask a lawyer about that before jumping to those conclusions. This may be some sort of gap between legal-speak and plain English. There are a lot of terms that diverge in meaning between common usage (even 'traditional' definition) and legal definition.

Logic would dictate that the meaning of that is "if A and (B[1] or B[2] or B[3]) and C", but it's not explicitly there.

It looks to me like the definition is intended to be intentionally vague while appearing narrow.

The most common definition of is usually along the lines of the one I found on google [http://www.google.com/dictionary?aq=f&langpair=en|en&...].

> Terrorism is the use of violence, especially murder and bombing, in order to achieve political aims or to force a government to do something.

This was a single, possibly mentally unstable, man crashing a plane into a building. He may have thought he was trying to achieve something politically or to force the government to do something, but without any larger organization behind him it seems silly to label this as a domestic terrorist attack. It's giving the guy far more credit than he deserves.

That definition says nothing about the perpetrator needing to be a part of an organization. If his act meets the definition - which I think it clearly does - then we have to call it terrorism.

I can see your point of view here, but if you're trying to "achieve political aims or to force a government to do something" it's implicit that there's going to be people around after your death to push your agenda, (or that you're going to survive whatever you plan is) to push it forward.

So which organization was behind the Oklahoma City bombing?

The militia movement in rural parts of the US, which the federal government more or less neutered after the bombing.

Really? On what terms are you privy to this information that the militias were behind the bombing?

... just another casualty to propaganda spreading disinformation.

yep. The mentality is that we are in a war against terrorism, most people understand you cannot actually attack terrorism so when you say "war against terror" most people really think "war against angry foreign influenced Muslims". If someone who isn't a angry Muslim commits a crime that invokes Terror (flying planes into buildings) it isn't terrorism.

It's simple. The goal of terrorism is to terrorize. If the perpetrator was part of an organization from which similar acts could be expected in the future, than that has a terrorizing effect.

The pants-bomber isn't a terrorist then, coz' he's just a lone suicide bomber. Yet what a commotion he did make.

"Terrorism" became an overloaded term once we coined the term "War on Terror".

While this is an act of terrorism for sure, this is not the Terrorism that originates from those we are supposedly fighting in the War on Terror, therefore we should not raise our country's alertness level, have reason to panic, or mobilize our armed forces in response.

(my 2 cents)

I tend to agree, but I'm a bit more cynical. These days governments use the word "terrorism" to describe acts against which they would like to retaliate with the backing of their citizens. The term has become a trigger word for prompting a particular reaction from the people. There's nobody to retaliate against here and using the word terrorism in this case would simply water down the trigger effect of the word in the future when the U.S. government wants to prompt a specific response from Americans.

Why can't he just be a crazy person who did something crazy?

Then we would have to ask which ones were not.

Labeling him a terrorist draws attention to his message.

This is it, government cannot accord him any attention overtly. Therefore, no labeling as terrorist.

His message is actually pretty valid and he has a similar situation to many Americans.

This is why the government doesn't want attention drawn to it.

The US Dept of State defined "terrorism" in its Pattern of Global Terrorism report (2004) as:

"premeditated politically motivated violence, perpetrated against non-combatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience."

I'd say it's clear he fits the government's own definition quite clearly.

How is this guy different than the Ft. Hood shooter? Both went on rants against the actions of the US Government; both apparently snapped; both wanted to inflict mass carnage. Senators like Joe Lieberman have insisted that the Ft. Hood shooter be labeled and tried as a terrorist.

Different administrations have different policies. My issue is the contradiction between this event and the Christmas underpants bomber. The only excuse I can come up with is that it would be politically impossible to not call that one terrorism.

Would you be so quick to assume the terrorism label if he hadn't used an airplane to commit his crime? I do think that's going to color a lot of people's perception of this wording issue.

I suspect they don't believe the term applies because he didn't claim to be acting on the part of an organized group or even a very specific ideology. His note made it pretty clear he thought of himself as some kind of lone warrior for justice.

Good point, he could have used a truck filled with fertilizer!

Read the final two paragraphs of his screed (posted in this thread). He says that he wants his act of violence to initiate change - I assume in the IRS specifically, but also in American politics in general. That's the definition of terrorism.

Terrorism does not have to be initiated on behalf of a group or a specific ideology. The definition is "the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes."

In my mind the difference here is that he was alone, committed his crime in a singular act, and now he's effectively out of commission. There's no terrorist at large to further perpetuate the terror. There's no looming sense of threat from this guy personally, and since he wasn't part of an organization, there's no nebulous "other" threat from that, either.

Had he enacted a long term plan where he was shooting at people randomly for days and making demands or something like that, then that's different in my eyes. At that point it becomes about using the fear of further violence as a tool and that's when you cross into terrorist land.

But who knows. I think DHS decided it'd be called a criminal act for now - so I guess that's what it gets to be called. Perhaps that label was politically motivated, but I can certainly understand the decision. Everything need not be a conspiracy and every large scale crime need not be a terrorist attack.

I think that the point is that the government selectively applies the 'terrorism' label when it benefits them (i.e. using the 'terrorism' label to get records to bolster a case against criminals that are certainly not terrorists).

"He says that he wants his act of violence to initiate change - I assume in the IRS specifically, but also in American politics in general. That's the definition of terrorism."

Tell that to Thomas Jefferson and George Washington...

Terrorism is a strategy not a sin, just because you happen to agree with what they are saying does not mean they are not terrorist's. Also you don't need actually kill people to induce fear, setting fire to an empty building can also count.

You use an apostrophe for possessives (and contractions). The word 'terrorists' is a plural; it's not a possessive; it's not a contraction.

Please don't use apostrophes for plurals. It makes my eyes bleed.

I agree in principle, but that's not how society defines it. By popular definition, a terrorist is someone who commits atrocities for a cause that one does not agree with. If there was agreement, they'd be labeled a "freedom fighter" or something like that.

The FBI's definition of terrorism: The unlawful use of force or 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.

He was angry and violent, but he didn't have any objective he was trying to achieve through the act. The objective in terrorism isn't the violence, it's a means to an intended end (such as changes in policy, release of prisoners, etc.).

And nor was he part of a group or even a sympathizer of a group looking to revolutionize or effect change. McVeigh was.

He states in the final paragraphs that his goal is to affect change in the government and coerce the public to change the government, so he very clearly did have an objective.

That definition includes almost all acts of force or violence which are not completely random.

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