Saturday, May 09, 2009

Guess how DHS defines who is a terrorist now

Two weeks before the U.S. Department of Homeland Security penned its controversial report warning against "right-wing extremists" in the United States, it generated a memo defining dozens of additional groups – animal rights activists, black separatists, tax protesters, even worshippers of the Norse god Odin – as potential "threats." Though the "Domestic Extremism Lexicon" was reportedly rescinded almost immediately, Benjamin Sarlin of The Daily Beast recently obtained and published online a copy of the unclassified memo, dated March 26, 2009. While many of the groups listed in the lexicon – such as Aryan prison gangs and neo-Nazis – may indeed be widely considered extremists, others will likely take offense at being described as a potential "threat." The lexicon states its purpose is to provide "definitions for key terms and phrases that often appear in DHS analysis that addresses the nature and scope of the threat that domestic, non-Islamic extremism poses to the United States." Apparently, the DHS analyzes the "threat" level of Internet news websites like WorldNetDaily, for the lexicon defines "alternative media" as "a term used to describe various information sources that provide a forum for interpretations of events and issues that differ radically from those presented in mass media products and outlets."...WorldNetDaily

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