In April 2015, FBI officials arrested Keonna Thomas in her Philadelphia home as she was preparing to abandon her two daughters and travel to Syria to join an Islamic State fighter she had married over Skype. Thomas pleaded guilty Sept. 6 to terrorist charges in federal court and became one of the latest sources of one of Americans’ biggest fears.
More than 800 individuals have faced terrorism charges in U.S. courts since 9/11, according to a database of public records maintained by Trevor Aaronson and Margot Williams of The Intercept, a news organization founded in 2013 to publish reports from National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The number of prosecuted terrorist cases in the U.S. ticked up in 2015, and so did American paranoia.
According to the Chapman University Survey of American Fears, terrorist attacks rank second in a group of 65 fears assessed, up two spots from a year earlier. The fear is linked to Islamophobic beliefs, though experts debate whether those fears are perpetuated by federal and institutional systems.
More than 60 percent of Americans believe the U.S. is likely to experience a large-scale terrorist event like 9/11 in the near future, according to the report, and about a third believe that Muslims are more likely to engage in terrorism.
“These attacks have added urgency to the need for the public to understand the precursors of terrorism,” Ann Gordon, associate dean of the Wilkinson College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Chapman University and one of the three researchers on the study, said in a press statement.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s “See Something, Say Something” campaign “encourages people to report situations and behavior as possible terrorist or violent acts rather than beliefs, thoughts, ideas, expressions, associations or speech unrelated to criminal activity,” Gordon said. “More education is needed. Our survey indicates Americans are more likely to report a shoplifter than a terrorist.”
But federal prosecutors and investigators aren’t necessarily heeding that advice, which may be perpetuating negative stigmas against Muslim neighbors and individuals from certain Muslim-majority nations.
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In 2001, 75 percent of the terrorist cases prosecuted involved charges related to immigration offenses. In recent years, the primary charge has shifted to the material support of terrorist activities, a broad-reaching statute that criminalizes terrorism in early stages, often before thought becomes act.
“It’s one of the broadest, if not the broadest, federal statute in the so-called war on terrorism,” says Jimmy Gurule, University of Notre Dame law professor and former U.S. Treasury Department undersecretary. “It criminalizes the aiding and abetting of aiding and abetting, or even the conspiracy to.”
Keonna Thomas pleaded guilty to material support charges that included social media posts under the aliases “Fatayat Al Khilafah” and “YoungLioness” that encouraged sponsorship of jihad fighters and discussed travel plans to become a martyr for the Islamic State.
In other cases, “material support” charges are more hazy. The use of stings and informants has also increased, drawing criticism from Human Rights Watch.
A 2014 report from the advocacy group found that “U.S. law enforcement overstepped its role by effectively participating in developing terrorism plots” and by “loosening regulations and standards governing the conduct of terrorism investigations.”
“Discriminatory investigations,” according to the report, also brought some Muslim community members to say that “fears of government surveillance and informant infiltration had negatively transformed the quality of the mosque from a place of spiritual sanctuary and togetherness to one of vigilance.”
Current terrorism prosecution tactics also raise concerns regarding federal priorities for Gurule, who has served as an expert witness and consultant for several terrorist financing cases.
Targeting “terrorist wannabes” and encouraging them to fulfill their fantasies may come at the expense of prosecuting those providing significant material support to terrorists in the form of powerful weapons and funding, he says, and also feeds the fear that terrorism is everywhere in the U.S.
Broad-reaching statutes likely lead to a larger number of prosecutions and public awareness of terrorism, which can be bad for the collective psyche, according to experts.
According to a study by Rezarta Bilali, assistant professor of psychology and social intervention at New York University, “terrorist threats communicated through mass media, government agencies, and other sources influence levels of perceived threat.”
However, the study found that the perceived threat is reduced for Americans who feel a shared sense of national beliefs and values.
To that end, Kelly Currie, former acting U.S. attorney and chief of the Violent Crimes and Terrorism Section for the Eastern District of New York, emphasizes the importance of public trial to American democracy.
“An investigation process that is transparent, where everyone sees the evidence, overseen by a district judge and decided by members of the community who are on a jury all contribute to confidence in the outcome of a trial,” Currie says.
A history of assimilation — as opposed to isolation — has helped the U.S. avoid the growth of homegrown terrorists to the extent many European countries have experienced, he says, and the justice system has played a key part in that.
Data collected and released in June 2016 by the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, chaired by Jeff Sessions, aimed to dispel fears of the proliferation of terrorism.
The data found that about 85 percent of the individuals prosecuted for international terrorism since 9/11 are not from the countries included in President Donald Trump’s travel ban, signifying that country of origin is not a good indicator of the need for heightened security concern.
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U.S. Terrorism Prosecutions Shift Toward Prevention Since 9/11 originally appeared on usnews.com
