Australia Could Make Everyone a Terrorist

2015/09/29 Leave a comment

Appears an initiative aimed at providing teachers with tools to identify potential radicalization went a bit too far with too broad a reach:

Last week the Australian government sparked public furor over a campaign to help teachers identify signs of the radicalization process in the classroom with a prepared pamphlet.

The 32-page document, known as the “radicalization awareness information kit,” provides warning signs to indicate whether a young person is on a path to violent extremism. The pamphlet paints outlandish examples of radicalized youth who range in character, including a student named Karen who was “involved in the alternative music scene, student politics and left-wing activism.” Local media lambasted the government for conflating activism with violent extremism, blurring the line between national security threats and political expression.

While the illustrations were exceptionally misguided, the greater concern lies with creating a simplified checklist to identify young people as potential terrorists. As the Guardian rightly pointed out, doling out a canned guideline of behaviors to identify extremism not only engenders intolerance, it creates a culture of profiling—akin to the one that led to the arrest in Texas of a 14-year-old Muslim student who wanted to impress his teachers with a homemade clock that was mistaken for a bomb. A similar program in the U.K. led to an at-risk radicalization list to include a three-year-old as a potential future extremist.

…Gary Bouma, a professor involved with the initiative, reportedly distanced himself from the report upon learning it was distributed to teachers. Bouma tells the Daily Beast he did not “distance himself” from the research, but was merely concerned that teachers would not be provided with training to complement the booklet. Bouma says he’s been assured that teachers will receive the proper training to use the manuals, but what type of training would that entail?

“There’s a difference between people who get involved in what you would call incidental violence as a result of a political protest,” Victoria University professor Michele Grossman told the Guardian, referring to the case study linking a student’s penchant for left-wing activism to extremism. “To me, that’s not what we mean when we talk about facing and tackling the very serious issues around violent extremism.”

Source: Australia Could Make Everyone a Terrorist – The Daily Beast

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Kent Roach & Craig Forcese: Press the reset button on security

2015/09/19 2 Comments

Always worth reading, and likely one of the first in a series of ‘transition advice’ should there be a change of government:

The problem is, however, that our anti-terrorism dilemmas are more acute than “C-51 good; C-51 bad.” To be sure, we believe strongly that it is bad. It infringes the Charter rights of Canadians without appreciable security gains.

That said, Canadians are right to be concerned about terrorism. A close examination of the data suggests it is not an existential threat, but it is a real one. Terrorist attacks are overt acts of political violence, the scope and lethality of which are limited only by the capacity and imagination of their perpetrators. They are unpredictable and designed to make us do things, or at the very least fear things. Terrorism is a conscious assault on freedom, in a way that is dramatically different from the accidental perils of living. Such conduct demands a response from the state.

But Canadians are also right to be concerned about the freedoms sacrificed by C-51. They should be even more alarmed that those rights are sacrificed unnecessarily, for no appreciable security gain. And they should be especially concerned that no party has so far shown itself prepared to grapple with the real problems that ail anti-terrorism efforts in Canada.

In our new book, False Security: The Radicalization of Canadian Anti-terrorism, we urge that C-51’s misguided “quick fixes” are no substitute for efficient terrorism investigations and prosecutions leading to convictions and meaningful prison terms for terrorism offences. They are also no substitute at the front end for multi-disciplinary and community-based programs attempting to curb radicalization to violent extremism, including in prison.

Bill C-51, read in association with the earlier Bill C-44, runs the serious risk of undermining anti-terrorism efforts, while at the same time sacrificing elemental constitutional rights. But even if C-51 were swept from the earth, we would still have a woefully deficient anti-terrorism strategy. There are many reasons for this, but two stand out.

First, as compared to other democracies, Canadian terrorism prosecutions are unnecessarily unwieldy, complex and remarkably infrequent. The inquiry into the Air India bombings pointed urgently to the need to resolve this issue in its 2010 report, and also underscored long-standing (and still persisting) difficulties in the process by which CSIS intelligence can be used as evidence in criminal trials.

The government ignored the Air India report even in the face of decisions, like one from the famous Toronto 18 case, where a trial judge reported that, “CSIS was aware of the location of the terrorist training camp.… This information was not provided to the RCMP, who had to uncover that information by their own means.”

Any suggestion that C-51 fixes the structural reasons for this dangerous conduct is nonsense. It allows information to be shared about just about everything, but does not compel CSIS to share information about terrorism.

Second, Canada lags behind other democracies in developing multidisciplinary programs to counter violent extremism. Counter violence extremism initiatives require close attention, and then careful consideration of empirical evidence on how best to dissuade persons from moving toward political violence (or for those at risk of further radicalization in prison, disengage from it).

Bill C-51’s new speech crime, the government’s political messaging and its near exclusive focus on hard-nosed tactics without a meaningful overall anti-terrorism strategy are serious barriers to success.

Exactly what the parties would do in these and related areas if elected is unclear. Certainly, we welcome proposals for enhanced accountability review of the security services — long overdue and identified in detail by the Arar inquiry almost a decade ago. We support the idea of a more informed parliamentary process, including parliamentarians competent to review secret information. Our book outlines suggestions in both these areas.

But accountability reform alone is insufficient.

After Oct. 19, a government of some sort will take office. Canadians deserve a government willing to embrace complexity, and the maturity to step back from anti-terrorism as a subset of gotcha politics. There are members in each political party who share this ambition — we have spoken to them. We hope those voices are raised in the weeks to come.

Source: Kent Roach & Craig Forcese: Press the reset button on security

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ICYMI: Stephen Harper pledges $10M to research terrorism, radicalization

2015/09/16 Leave a comment

Good investment and one that any government should maintain and possibly strengthen:

On the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S., Conservative Leader Stephen Harper is committing new money to research terrorism and radicalization.

Harper said Friday that a Tory government would provide $10 million over five years to the Kanishka Project, an initiative — established in 2011 and named in recognition of the 1985 Air India bombing that killed 331 people — to better understand radicalization and effective ways to prevent attacks.

The Kanishka Project is administered through Public Safety Canada and has funded research by academics both in Canada and abroad. For example, in October 2014 the government put out a call soliciting research on how jihadists use the internet, while in July it was announced that the project would provide $170,000 over two years to an Australian sociologist studying why some Canadians convert to Islam.

Source: Stephen Harper pledges $10M to research terrorism, radicalization – Politics – CBC News

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Asking why people become terrorists is natural, but it’s better to recognize the signs and act, new book says

2015/09/15 Leave a comment

Interview with Phil Gurski, author of The Threat From Within: Recognizing Al Qaeda-Inspired Radicalization and Terrorism in the West:

During the last two years of Gurski’s career, he spoke to many community groups.

“In most cases what really impressed me was how engaged people were,” he said. “They know it’s happening in their midst, they’re a little bit confused about it.”

He said while people generally want to help, they’re not always sure what to do and may have misconceptions about extremism. The “solutions” they propose often include jobs, education, integration, mental health funding, addressing underlying grievances and developing “a true understanding of Islam.”

But he calls those unhelpful against radicalization.Employment, education and integration “do not correlate with lower levels of radicalization,” he writes. Meanwhile, trying to resolve grievances only creates more grievances and the “oft-pronounced view that extremists have a poor grasp of Islam and only need to be nudged (or coerced) back to the true path is overly optimistic.

”Extremists believe they have found the true essence of faith, he writes, adding, “what is ‘true’ religion, anyway? Does any one person or body have a monopoly on religious interpretation?”

He supports early intervention programs run by people with the proper training. But he cautions there are times police will have to investigate and make arrests. He also wants Canadians to know that those threatening to attack Canada in ISIL videos are not necessarily the monsters we make them out to be.

In fact, they tend to be fairly ordinary.“They are us,” he writes.

Source: Asking why people become terrorists is natural, but it’s better to recognize the signs and act, new book says

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Don’t overstate risk of terrorism among refugees, experts say

2015/09/11 Leave a comment

Good placing in context:

“When we are dealing with people that are from, in many cases, a terrorist war zone, we are going to make sure that we screen people appropriately and the security of this country is fully protected,” Harper said at a campaign stop in Welland, Ont.

“We cannot open the floodgates and airlift tens of thousands of refugees out of a terrorist war zone without proper process. That is too great a risk for Canada,” he added during a question-and-answer session.

Harper’s remarks continue a security narrative the Conservatives launched after the fatal terror attacks by ISIL sympathizers in Ottawa and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu almost a year ago. National security is a key plank in the party’s election platform.

But the government should not be presenting refugee resettlement here as an either/or option with anti-terrorism efforts, says Scott Watson, an associate professor of international relations at the University of Victoria.

“I think it’s possible to do a large-scale operation of assisting refugees that (also) has a thorough screening component for security reasons, if there was enough political will to do so. I think both can be done,” he said.

“The vast majority of the people have no interest in contributing to further violence. There could be a couple of people who are sympathetic to ISIL coming in, but if there’s proper security screening and proper integration once refugees are brought into the country, I don’t think it’s something we need to be concerned about.” Besides, “there’s much better ways for them (ISIL) to do what they want to do than to use refugees as the means of doing it,” said Watson.

He and Whitaker have done extensive research on the rise of national security fears that have accompanied concentrated waves of immigration to Canada. Harper’s framing of the Syrian refugee crisis in security terms is similar to concerns, ultimately unfounded, that communist infiltrators would accompany the arrival of Hungarian refugees to Canada in 1956, or with the Cambodian and Vietnamese boat people in the late 1970s.

Whitaker concludes many refugee groups now tend to be seen as importers of external political conflicts to the West.

Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) officers overseas are responsible for much of the security vetting of refugees and immigrants. Many refugees understandably have no official identity documents. But, “you can’t go back to the Syrians or an area that’s no longer under Iraqi government control and say, ‘by the way, is Mohammed a resident of Erbil?’” said Ray Boisvert, a former CSIS assistant director of intelligence.

“You try to do your best to interview them and get a decent sense of their background and see if you can poke any holes in it.”

Source: Don’t overstate risk of terrorism among refugees, experts say | Ottawa Citizen

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Would-be terrorist Chiheb Esseghaier is clearly insane, but should that even matter in court?

2015/08/31 Leave a comment

The small interesting fact that emerged from the ongoing trial of Chiheb Esseghaier, convicted of terrorism in the Via train plot, subject of a psychiatric assessment and awaiting sentencing:

There are also plenty of mentally ill terrorists, says Paul Gill, a senior lecturer in security and crime science at the University College London. In a recent study, he found 40 per cent of lone-actor terrorists suffered from some kind of mental illness and 40 per cent of those were diagnosed schizophrenics.

“And just because they had histories of mental illness doesn’t make them irrational, spontaneous actors,” Gill said. “Many of them, they were just as likely to engage in really rational, thought-out planning as the guys without mental health problems were.”

Source: Would-be terrorist Chiheb Esseghaier is clearly insane, but should that even matter in court?

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How families can counter the pull of violent extremism

2015/08/25 Leave a comment

Michelle Walrond, mother of suspected extremist, Luqman Abdunnur (see ‘My son has screwed up his life,’ Ottawa woman says), on indications of radicalization:

  1. If they don’t accept your family, they don’t accept you. If their new friends or teachers or clergy don’t want to know their family then they don’t want a “whole person” to join their ranks, they want a cog in the wheel of their mechanisms. When I converted to Islam, the first thing my imam-appointed guardian did was to ask to meet my parents. I barely spoke to my mother before I converted, but I was told if I wanted to be a Muslim, I had to make good relations with her. When I said I was once married but living on my own, he insisted on meeting my husband too. When my son, who was born Muslim, joined the mosque that taught him radical ideology, they told him and his classmates, “Most of your parents are not (really) Muslims.” And by a fabricated extension, he no longer had to give them their rights as family members. That lie was antithetical to Islam.
  2. If you get to meet your loved one’s new acquaintances, it shouldn’t be too much to ask that your loved one and his or her influencers provide verifiable facts about themselves. Mr. Bledsoe says: “Involve them in conversations. Get them to talk to you.… Go where they are going, even if it’s a religious institution.… We tried to go to Nashville to meet Carlos’s friends, but they would disappear.”
  3. Radical extremists prey on people with weak personalities. Unfortunately, moderate Muslim communities often encourage conformity, close-mindedness and banality. Positive influences should strengthen character, encourage creativity and innovation. In ultra-conservative Muslim communities “innovation” is a sin, but skewed interpretations of social responsibility are presented as activism. Encourage your loved one to challenge their fabrications and deceptions.

How families can counter the pull of violent extremism – The Globe and Mail.

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Can a Song Change the Meaning of ‘Jihad’? – The Daily Beast

2015/08/25 Leave a comment

Interesting approach – using a music video to influence opinion:

Spiegel tries to correct the misunderstanding of the word within the first minutes of the music video for “Jihad Love Squad” with a title card that reads: “Jihad: The spiritual struggle within oneself between good and evil.”

Now just so it’s clear, there is a jihad within Islam that means a holy war. But to most Muslims, the concept of jihad is part of the everyday struggle to the best person you can be. That is why Spiegel’s friend wore a ring bearing that word and why I know Muslims with the first name “Jihad.” (I can’t even imagine how tough that name is at the airport?!)

Spiegel, who was born in New York but is now based in Los Angeles, increasingly became concerned over how the song, and especially the video, would be received by both the Muslim community and the Muslim haters as the released date approached.

He fully gets that the anti-Muslim bigots could target him. After all in 2013 when the Council on American-Islamic Relations spearheaded a campaign to redefine the word “jihad” with a series of ads, it was met with outrage by the queen of anti-Muslim bigotry, Pam Geller.  She even spent money to put up ads to define jihad in the most negative light possible in hopes of stoking the flames of hate against Muslims.

On the flip side, Spiegel is keenly aware that some Muslims may watch the video and believe that he’s not deconstructing a negative stereotype about Muslims, but perpetuating it.  And to be honest, some will likely see it as that. I showed the video to a cross section of Muslims and some did voice concerns that the video could be misunderstood.

The music video, which Spiegel directed, was beautifully shot in India. It opens with a woman greeting customers at a restaurant. She then goes into a backroom, straps on what appears to be a suicide vest, covers herself in a full burka and heads out in to the street.  She soon walks into a schoolyard where young kids playing see her and freeze in apparent fear. As the tension builds, she presses the button to activate the vest.

But as you can imagine, there’s a twist. Instead of an explosion of material that can kill, it releases different colored powders, the type used in the Hindu festival of colors known as “Holi.” Spiegel explained that the powder represents the woman spreading love, not death.

Can a Song Change the Meaning Sam Spiegel of ‘Jihad’? – The Daily Beast.

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Calgary mom whose son died in Syria opposes Harper’s proposed travel ban

2015/08/20 Leave a comment

Good interview with Chris Boudreau who nails the problems with the Government’s approach:

Why are you opposed to Mr. Harper’s proposed law?

A few people have said it’s a great idea. But then I explain to them it’s smoke and mirrors because the politicians are not really doing anything about the problem. They’ve cut back all the programs in prisons for counselling. They’ve cut back a lot of resources for youth. That’s what they’ve done; it’s cut, cut, cut … [The politicians] are thinking, ‘We’ll give it harsh words and it will look like we’re doing something.’ The only way [the terrorists] are getting in is through other countries. So what are you going to do – stop them from going to the surrounding countries as well? It’s not well thought out. It’s just whole window dressing, smoke and mirrors. They can fool everybody because people are just not educated in this topic and that makes it easy for politicians to turn it around for an election program.

If the federal government passed a law forbidding travel to terrorist regions, would it make a difference?

A lot of the fixes and the laws and the rigidity, that’s at the back end. That’s dealing with the symptoms. The root cause of the problem is something completely different even if it’s not radicalization in this sense. And going over to join ISIS – you’re still looking at white supremacy on the rise and lots of other different cults. So there’s a root problem we really have to start looking at. We can’t just turn a blind eye and think that by throwing everybody in jail that fixes it.

Calgary mom whose son died in Syria opposes Harper’s proposed travel ban – The Globe and Mail.

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How do you spot the next terrorist? Doug Saunders

2015/08/18 Leave a comment

Doug Saunders on the changing nature of counter-terrorism work:

A couple of years ago, those analysts began asking the question: What if we have it backward? Could it be that terrorists are not people with extreme ideas trying to build up the courage to turn them into murder, but rather violence-prone people hunting for some excuse to turn their proclivities into deeds?

This was in part because the old “violent extremism” approach was failing to produce results. Studies of thousands of known terrorists and killers have identified little that will predict violent behaviour. Religious upbringing doesn’t make people more likely to commit attacks. Nor does poverty. Nor does age, neighbourhood, ethnicity, social class, marital status, education level or immigration status. Even extremism itself: People who hold fundamentalist Islamic beliefs or racist right-wing beliefs are not hugely more likely than anyone else to commit an attack.

But a new type of analysis was producing results – one that started to attract the attention of Canadians in the wake of last fall’s Parliament Hill shootings and in other countries at around the same time or earlier.

Analysts began looking at the work of Paul Gill, a criminologist at the University College of London. In a highly influential 2014 paper titled “Bombing Alone: Tracing the Motivations and Antecedent Behaviours of Lone-Actor Terrorists,” Dr. Gill and his colleagues analyzed known terrorists not by what they thought or where they came from, but by what they did.

In the weeks before an attack, terrorists tend to change address (one in five) or adopt a new religion (40 per cent of Islamic terrorists and many right-wing terrorists did so). And they start talking about violence: 82 per cent told others about their grievance; almost seven in 10 told friends or family that they “intended to hurt others.”

A huge proportion had recently become unemployed, experienced a heightened level of stress or had family breakdowns. And most had done things that looked like planning – including contacting known violent groups.

In other words: People who commit violent terror attacks, it turns out, are not identifiable by the ideas they hold, but rather by the things that they do. The violence comes first, the thinking second.

Analysts in Canada and elsewhere came to realize this, from their own analyses, before they were aware of Dr. Gill’s work – and their findings matched his very precisely.

This new approach, which has come to be widely adopted within counterterrorism circles in Western countries during the past 24 months, has changed the intelligence-gathering needs of agencies: They aren’t so interested in trying to monitor and change people’s thoughts (which involved infiltrating communities, often with disruptive results). Instead, they want to hear about people who have suddenly changed, started talking of violence or dropped out of their usual social circles. It still isn’t precise or easy, but it involves less mass intrusion into the privacy and communications of citizens.

Unfortunately, governments, including Canada’s, are behind the curve: Just as their terrorism experts and security employees have abandoned policies which resemble the policing of thoughts, they’re passing disturbing laws to make such obsolete practices easier.

How do you spot the next terrorist? – The Globe and Mail.

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