Right-Wing Resurgence: How a Domestic Terrorist Threat is Being Ignored by Johnson Daryl

Author:Johnson, Daryl [Johnson, Daryl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2012-09-13T21:00:00+00:00

Looking back over the conference findings, there was an overwhelming support for what would later serve as the foundation for the DHS right-wing extremism report. A severe and prolonged economic downturn, an unprecedented presidential election, and the continued fermentation of polarizing national issues, such as illegal immigration, were major themes addressed in the report. They were also issues brought to light as a result of the working groups and panel discussions at the 2008 HS-SLIC conference.

Upon the conclusion of the conference, we arrived back at DHS headquarters mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted. To say the least, planning the content and logistics for 150-plus people over a four-day period, which included their travel days, was extremely stressful.

We had little downtime after the conference adjourned. Connell had been anticipating our return to the office. While we were away, she had spent her time carefully crafting a rigorous production plan for a relatively new I&A product line—the Homeland Security Reference Aid (HSRA). She wanted to capitalize on the conference’s success and produce several HSRAs on domestic extremism–related topics. We had already produced three of these products prior to the conference. Each of these HSRAs had been very well received by state and local law enforcement and fusion centers. Our reference aids on the National Socialist Movement (neo-Nazi group), Volksfront (another neo-Nazi group), and the Hammerskin Nation (racist skinhead group) were major topics of discussion during one of the breakout sessions.

Connell wanted at least a dozen more of these products, and she wanted them finished by the end of the year. I met with the other members of my team, and we compiled a list of likely topics for these HSRAs. Among the identified topics were a couple of racist skinhead organizations, a couple of Ku Klux Klan factions, two national sovereign citizen movements, several neo-Nazi groups, a couple of militia extremist groups, and three single-issue movements: the Animal Liberation Front, Earth Liberation Front, and Army of God (a violent antiabortion group). In order to keep track of all of the reference aids, I found a whiteboard with easel and created a matrix for tracking the status of each product. We had a lot of work ahead of us and a short deadline to meet. I wanted to make sure that each product was written in a timely fashion, routed through the various editors, and coordinated properly. It was quite the visual aid, and it generated considerable discussion and jeers from those who passed our work space. We were now getting a lot of attention from the organization’s leadership as well as its customer base. It was finally our opportunity to “shine” and capitalize on our growing popularity.

We had come a long way since the day I arrived. I remember when, in 2005, I attempted to distribute our first domestic terrorism product. The Domestic Terrorism Newsletter consisted of four pages of incident and case summaries of extremist-related events within the United States. The article summaries were often accompanied by pictures and analytical comments. It resembled a mini-newspaper focused entirely on domestic extremism.

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