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Are you, your family, or your community at risk of turning to violent extremism? Now you can find out as The Intercept reports that a rating system devised by the National Counterterrorism Center titled "Countering Violent Extremism: A Guide for Practitioners and Analysts,” lets police, social workers and educators rate individuals on a scale of one to five in categories such as: “Expressions of Hopelessness, Futility,” “Talk of Harming Self or Others,” and “Connection to Group Identity (Race, Nationality, Religion, Ethnicity).” The ranking system is supposed to alert government officials to individuals at risk of turning to radical violence, and to families or communities at risk of incubating extremist ideologies. Families are judged on factors such as “Aware[ness] of Each Other’s Activities,” as well as levels of “Parent-Child Bonding,” (PDF) and communities are rated by access to health care and social services, in addition to “presence of ideologues or recruiters” as potential risk factors. A low score in any of these categories would indicate a high risk of “susceptibility to engage in violent extremism,” according to the document. Users of the guide are encouraged to plot the scores on a graph to determine what “interventions” could halt the process of radicalization before it happens.
Experts have suggested that intervention by law enforcement or other branches of the government in individuals’ lives, particularly young people, based solely based on the views they express, can potentially criminalize constitutionally protected behavior. “The idea that the federal government would encourage local police, teachers, medical and social service employees to rate the communities, individuals and families they serve for their potential to become terrorists is abhorrent on its face,” says former FBI agent Mike German calling the criteria used for the ratings “subjective and specious.” Arun Kundnani questions the science behind the rating system. “There’s no evidence to support the idea that terrorism can be substantively correlated with such factors to do with family, identity, and emotional well-being," says Kundnani. "“It is obvious that, in practice, [this] would mostly only be applied to Muslim communities."
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Fauxlosopher on Sunday February 15 2015, @12:31PM
After observing the massive [huffingtonpost.com] yet inefficient [princelaw.com] response [canadafreepress.com] to three individuals or teams of murderers, it seems obvious to me that given sufficient motivation and planning, US governments all the way up and down the heirarchy of authority are in no way able to deal with even small numbers of individuals. (Linked stories are just basic references; a little digging in obvious places such as wikipedia will reveal the absolutely massive amount of government resources expended to little effect in each case.)
There are many more examples to choose from, scattered across recent history, from the Battle of Athens [jpfo.org] to the Colorado Killdozer [marvin-heemeyer.com]. There are also some more insidious examples [ieee.org] involving infrastructure. The take-away message seems to be that, in spite of France calling the USA the "world's lone hyperpower", its governments are very vulnerable to even tiny numbers of dedicated individuals of even moderate abilities. US governments want to project the facade that they are competent and in complete control of the populace... but after close examination, that's all it appears to be: a facade.
As a side note, given how peaceful things are in the USA relative to the population numbers, infrastructure vulnerabilities, and actual ineffectiveness of government control, I like to think that my neighbors and I really aren't as bad as the mainstream media makes us all out to be. Things could be even more peaceful if governments would stop denying access to courts for drug dealers and users via its second (and unconstitutional without an authorizing amendment like its predecessor required) Prohibition - as it is, if there's a dispute in that business sector, about the only way to resolve it involves trying to kill the other party.