The United States government activity defines terrorist act as " premeditated , politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant butt by subnational groups or clandestine agentive role " [ source:2008 National Counterterrorism Center ] . Terrorist chemical group are difficult to name and cut across . Unlike military building block or agents , a terrorist ’s tie-up with a particular country or ideology does n’t have to be prescribed . terrorist may operate with or without the knowledge of any prescribed authorisation .
The namelessness and mobility of terrorist is part of what make them so life-threatening . It ’s also difficult to apply political pressure to turn back terrorist natural action . While one government might be able-bodied to pucker external support to force another regime to end hostile activities , there are few political channels a authorities can act on to cut back terrorism .
In some countries , governmental sureness is n’t firm enough to snap down on terrorist groups . In others , the governing might have a similar philosophy to terrorist cubicle . These authorities might not put forth much effort to ending terrorist activity .
That ’s why the United States consecrate billions ofdollarsto fighting terrorism – the 2010 budget request for theFederal Bureau of Investigation’scounterterrorism / counterintelligence programme was $ 3.1 billion [ source : U.S. Department of Justice ] . Other government activity agency also have budget for counterterrorism job military force . However , the details of the National Counterterrorism Center ’s budget are classified [ source : Hunt ] . So , it ’s really impossible to say exactly how much money goes to tracking terrorists .
But how does the government tail these groups in the first place ? What generator of info are reliable ? Is there coordination among various antiterrorist task forces ? Let ’s take a nigh look .
Countering Terrorism
The 9/11 tragedy in the United States raise many interrogative about how the administration gathers intelligence onterroristcells . The government recognize a need for a centralized task forcefulness to compile and store the stacks of information various intelligence organizations had built over the years . Most of these agencies had special communicating with other groups . While the United States as a whole had a great slew of information about terrorist , that selective information was split up among various agencies . The country needed a more unified coming .
Presidential Executive Order 13354was an attempt to establish an agency dedicated to such a goal . It established the National Counterterrorism Center ( NCTC ) in 2004 . The read/write head of the NCTC reports to two individuals : the President of the United States and the Director of National Intelligence . The NCTC employ around 600 analysts . It ’s their problem to collect entropy from other grouping such as province , local and tribal legal philosophy officials as well as federal government agency like the FBI . The NCTC then collates this entropy and makes it available to other law means to help oneself with investigations .
The NCTC oversees an enormous database forebode the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment ( TIDE ) . accord to the NCTC , there were more than 564,000 names in the TIDE database as of January 2009 [ source : NCTC ] . The NCTC points out that many of these names are aliases – the organisation count on that the list actually represents about 500,000 hoi polloi .
Most of these names come from story submitted by law enforcement and word officials . As these official gather data , they submit it to the NCTC . The NCTC must format and file the info in the TIDE organisation . This is more complex than it sound – each agency might have its own data format for collecting entropy . The NCTC must take all of these different styles and convert them into a single data formatting to make the database usable .
The NCTC make the list available to usage officials , the Department of State ’s visa berth and larboard authorities . The the great unwashed puzzle out in these offices are the United States ' first line of protection against terrorism . It ’s their Book of Job to check people entering into the land against the terrorist watch tilt .
Next , we ’ll look at how the regime trail terrorist cells .
Keeping Watch for Terrorism
The United States rely on its own agents as well as foreign governments to keep track ofterrorists . U.S. functionary investigate terrorist activities , interview locals and supervise foreign press to gather entropy .
In addition to canonic footwork , several intelligence service agency monitor global financial transactions to search for evidence of terrorist body process . This is a monumentally difficult undertaking – daily dealings bit in the billions . Sorting through those data would be impossible . agent must rely on leads to help regain dealing that connect to terrorism . They also keep an optic on various charities and businesses believed to be covers for terrorist financial backing program .
Once they do encounter such grounds , the United States governing will often apply pressure to have the terrorist ' accounts frigid . This cuts off the cash in hand a terrorist cell needs to pay its own agents and purchase supplies .
An emerge opportunity to forgather intelligence operation is through the Internet . Some terrorist cells enrol through message board and chat rooms . agent posing as potential recruit gather information online in an effort to enlarge our cognition about who the terrorist are and what their plans may be .
One area of contention is spying on personal communicating . In the backwash of 9/11 , the United States government expanded its ability to monitor private communication between individuals . polite liberty proponents criticized these policies . The formation of the Information Awareness Office ( IAO ) , in particular , caused headache . The IAO ’s goal was to achieve entire info awareness by leveraging engineering science to identify and track terrorist . Human rights groups said that such a end would dishonor privacy for sinless civilian .
The IAO had a short lifespan – after much bad press , Congress decide to dissolve the program . Many of the projects that existed under the umbrella of the IAO continued in various department , mostly at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ( DARPA ) [ generator : Cherry ] .
There will likely be a battle between security system and privacy for many years to come . Gathering intelligence is , by its very nature , trespassing . But without intelligence , it would be difficult or even out of the question to promise and prevent terrorist natural action .
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