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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday October 12 2017, @07:23AM   Printer-friendly
from the oink-I-say dept.

Newsweek has this article on America's skewed definition of terrorism:

What is terrorism? According to the FBI, animal activists who stole two piglets from a farm were terrorists. As of now, Stephen Paddock, who killed 58 people at a country music concert in Las Vegas two weeks ago, has not been labeled a terrorist by the federal security organization.

In a viral story posted on The Intercept, journalist Glenn Greenwald details an account of federal agents investigating animal activists and scouring farm-animal sanctuaries to find two missing piglets that allegedly had been stolen from a farm. The FBI devoted such resources to finding these two piglets because their alleged theft and the capturing of undercover videos of the farm's conditions count as terrorism.

Why is the piglet theft classified as terrorism, but not the Las Vegas shooting? The distinction is rooted in the definition of the term. In spite of the emotions the word "terrorist" might elicit, the definition is not "mass killer" or "Muslim extremist" or "very bad person." The legal definition of terrorism is "the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property in order to coerce or intimidate a government or the civilian population in furtherance of political or social objectives."


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by urza9814 on Thursday October 12 2017, @06:40PM (1 child)

    by urza9814 (3954) on Thursday October 12 2017, @06:40PM (#581272) Journal

    Greenwald is making himself stupider then he is. But it's because the (militant) "animal rights" people have been doing this for decades, stealing two piglets is part of on ongoing organized campaign and isn't some one time event as the LV-shooter incident. Same as all those other eco-terrorist that go around burning shit to the ground to "save mother nature" or whatever their excuse is.

    The entire part about the LV shooter comes from Newsweek, not Greewald. Greenwald's article doesn't mention it at all, it's mostly about factory farming practices.

    In some sense the definition of terrorism have become popularized. Now almost everything criminal can also be considered terrorism, at least by some people. After all most crime fulfill at least half the definition by using violence as a tool to in some way shape or form influence people or entities. They also probably have an agenda they are trying to advance. It's like the terrorism slippery slope.

    Yeah, I think that's kinda the point of the article. Sure, "Terrorism" has a strict legal definition. But that definition often doesn't match the popularized definition used by the general public. So when Congress declares that they're giving $x billion to fight terrorism, people support it because they think that money is being spent hunting down ISIS cells and mass shooters. They don't expect it to be spent on recovering abandoned farm animals, even if that *might* technically better fit the definition. The article isn't about what gets classified as "terrorism"; it's about where the big anti-terrorism funding is really going vs where people *think* it's going.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @04:30AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @04:30AM (#581554)

    I saw an article the other day where a sex worker said that Stephen Paddock would take her to a casino, lose a bunch of money, and pay her to have violent sex. [google.com]
    The dude had a loose screw, not an agenda.

    The Texas Tower sniper was mentioned upthread.
    Charles Whitman had a brain tumor. [google.com]
    Again: Not ideological; just nuts.

    (Thanks for shutting down all the mental health facilities, Ronnie Raygun--and thanks for the push-start, Jimmy Carter.)

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]