FBI Seeks to Target Lone Extremists

[babylonsister]

FBI Seeks to Target Lone Extremists

By GARY FIELDS and EVAN PEREZ


The recent killings of a U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum guard and a Kansas abortion doctor came a few months after the Federal Bureau of Investigation stepped up efforts to pre-empt violence committed by just such political extremists working alone.

"Lone-wolf offenders continue to be of great concern to law enforcement," the agency said in a February memo reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The FBI is "trying to identify a potential lone wolf before he or she would act out violently," Michael Ward, the bureau's deputy assistant director for counterterrorism, said in an interview earlier this year.

The lone-wolf initiative is one element of a broader strategy to fight domestic terrorism, dubbed "Operation Vigilant Eagle," launched late last year in response to what the memo identified as "an increase in recruitment, threatening communications, and weapons procurement by white supremacy extremist and militia/sovereign citizen extremist groups."

The memo, and the recent killings, also show the limits of the lone-wolf effort. Both James von Brunn, who is charged with the Holocaust Museum shooting, and Scott Roeder, the man arrested in the murder of George Tiller in Kansas, had openly expressed to associates and on Web sites their extremist views, on anti-Semitism in Mr. von Brunn's case and on abortion in the case of Mr. Roeder. The FBI, in fact, was aware of Mr. von Brunn because of the postings but wasn't tracking him.

more...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124501849215613523.html

[grannie4peace]

1. very good idea!

[get the red out]

2. Wolves live in packs

And so do these animals the FBI is interested in. They just can't admit it because the rest of the pack will get all crazy on the pack TV News station and the pack AM radio shows.

[elehhhhna]

7. Your post should be it own thread.

Why are "they", in unison, calling each RWExtremist criminal terrorist a "lone wolf"? Lone my foot. They are Right Wing Homeland Terrorists. Also, random thought here -- wasn't Sarah Palin referred to as a lone wolf?

[Turbineguy]

3. These "lone-wolf offenders" are

victims of a sort themselves, listening to RW propaganda from Fox and Rush.

[pipoman]

4. Three cheers for justifying continuation of the Patriot Act..

Hip-Hip Hurray! Hip-Hip...:bounce:

[Hugabear]

5. Freeperville would be a good place to start

Some of the posters over there are pretty downright scary.

Same with the anonymous trolls who frequent the Topix forums.

[kickysnana]

6. That would be Cheney? n/t