"Terrorism" Defined? Re: [Vision2020] {Longish] letter with facts of interest

[Andreas Schou]

> Is someone crossing the Mexican/US border a "terrorist" if they smuggle
> large quantities of illegal drugs and kill their competitors and some of
> their "innocent" family members in the USA in gang warfare?

The answer is "no." No, they are not a terrorist; no, they are nothing
like a terrorist; no, whaterver similarities their actions have to
terrorism does not make them a terrorist. Terrorism has one specific
meaning: acts of politicized destruction intended to intimidate a
nation into changing its policy. Drug mules are not trying to do this.

Once we start defining hacking as "cyberterrorism" and drug mules as
"narcoterrorism," the laws we have in place to fight actual
blow-up-some-buildings terrorism can be applied however the government
pleases. We allow some of these laws, like FISA, so that intelligence
activities can be coordinated with law enforcement. This, as Frank
Church taught us, is a very, very bad idea except in very limited
circumstances.

-- ACS