Domestic Terrorism And Incident Management

After reading this text, the reader will have a fuller understanding of the nature of domestic terrorism and a clearer understanding of the basics. These basics include a review of the complex history that spans thousands of years, an explanation of definitions, a review of contemporary domestic terrorism, and the examination of intelligence gathering, threat analysis, and emergency responses to terrorism-incident management. It is hoped that such knowledge as presented here will enhance the public's understanding of domestic terrorism and law enforcement's ability to prevent and respond to its acts. It focuses almost exclusively on right-wing domestic terrorism because of its strong presence in the last twenty years and the projection of experts that right-wing terrorism will prevail well into the twenty-first century. The book is divided into three parts. The first part deals with definitional problems associated with policymaker's and law enforcement's handling of terrorism, an historical overview of terrorism and terrorist incidents in the global community, and an historical examination of terrorism from below in the United States. Part Two addresses the American Hate Movement and patriot-militia activities. It also discusses the emergence of special-interest extremist and terrorism groups that advocate violence based on an ideology or belief, which may include the desire for political and social change. They include ecological resistance groups, antienvironmental movements, animal rights and antiabortion activists. Part Three focuses on effective criminal intelligence-gathering techniques and the implementation of terrorism-incident management strategies.

"This paper reviews the current legislation and policies that govern the military's role when supporting law enforcement in a domestic terrorism crisis and highlights some of the issues confronting the U.S. government. To fully understand the military's role in domestic crisis response it is necessary to explore existing national level structures and response options prior to the involvement of military forces. Crisis management is predominately a law enforcement function that manages the resources necessary to prevent or resolve a terrorist incident, including one involving WMD. Current U.S. government terrorism response policy is contained in presidential directives. Among other matters, these directives address National Security Council structure and federal agency crisis response roles when responding to a domestic terrorism incident. The creation of the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Northern Command has not yet changed the basic roles and relationships described herein.

The Oklahoma City bombing, intentional crashing of airliners on September 11, 2001, and anthrax attacks in the fall of 2001 have made Americans acutely aware of the impacts of terrorism. These events and continued threats of terrorism have raised questions about the impact on the psychological health of the nation and how well the public health infrastructure is able to meet the psychological needs that will likely result. Preparing for the Psychological Consequences of Terrorism highlights some of the critical issues in responding to the psychological needs that result from terrorism and provides possible options for intervention. The committee offers an example for a public health strategy that may serve as a base from which plans to prevent and respond to the psychological consequences of a variety of terrorism events can be formulated. The report includes recommendations for the training and education of service providers, ensuring appropriate guidelines for the protection of service providers, and developing public health surveillance for preevent, event, and postevent factors related to psychological consequences.

On February 28, 2003, the President issued Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD)-5, Management of Domestic Incidents, which directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to develop and administer a National Incident Management System (NIMS). This system provides a consistent nationwide template to enable Federal, State, local, and tribal governments and private-sector and nongovernmental organizations to work together effectively and efficiently to prepare for, prevent, respond to, and recover from domestic incidents, regardless of cause, size, or complexity, including acts of catastrophic terrorism. This document establishes the basic elements of the NIMS and provides mechanisms for the further development and refinement of supporting national standards, guidelines, protocols, systems, and technologies. Building on the foundation provided by existing incident management and emergency response systems used by jurisdictions and functional disciplines at all levels, this document integrates best practices that have proven effective over the years into a comprehensive framework for use by incident management organizations in an all-hazards context (terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and other emergencies) nationwide. It also sets in motion the mechanisms necessary to leverage new technologies and adopt new approaches that will enable continuous refinement of the NIMS over time. This document was developed through a collaborative, intergovernmental partnership with significant input from the incident management functional disciplines, the private sector, and nongovernmental organizations.

The Metropolitan Medical Response System (MMRS) program of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) provides funds to major U. S. cities to help them develop plans for coping with the health and medical consequences of a terrorist attack with chemical, biological, or radiological (CBR) agents. DHHS asked the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to assist in assessing the effectiveness of the MMRS program by developing appropriate evaluation methods, tools, and processes to assess both its own management of the program and local preparedness in the cities that have participated in the program. This book provides the managers of the MMRS program and others concerned about local capabilities to cope with CBR terrorism with three evaluation tools and a three-part assessment method. The tools are a questionnaire survey eliciting feedback about the management of the MMRS program, a table of preparedness indicators for 23 essential response capabilities, and a set of three scenarios and related questions for group discussion. The assessment method described integrates document inspection, a site visit by a team of expert peer reviewers, and observations at community exercises and drills.