Sunday, August 12, 2007

U.S. military headed next for Mexican soil?


WND Exclusive

PREMEDITATED MERGER
U.S. military headed next for Mexican soil?
Help in war on drug cartels on coming SPP summit agenda

Posted: August 10, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

A Texas congressman is leading discussions with the White House to develop a military plan to assist Mexico in the war President Felipe Calder�n is waging against the drug cartels.

Yolanda Urrabazo, spokeswoman for Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, told WND the discussions involve the possibility of utilizing the U.S. military directly in the effort in addition to providing military assistance.

The Bush administration is considering a multi-year multi-million dollar military assistance package that could include telephone-tapping equipment, Blackhawk helicopters, radar to track drug shipments and training, according to the Associated Press.

Until now, there has been no mention that the assistance might include direct U.S. military involvement in Mexico.

Urrabazo also confirmed to WND that the issue of involving the U.S. military and providing military assistance to Mexico would be on the agenda of the upcoming third summit of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, or SPP, scheduled Aug. 20-21 in Montebello, Quebec.

Cuellar's district includes Laredo, Texas, which has been considered ground zero for spillover of the Mexican drug war into the U.S..

On Jan 17, Cuellar filed H.R. 502, entitled the "Prosperous and Secure Neighbor Alliance Act of 2007," which originally proposed providing military assistance to Mexico to fight the war on the Mexican drug cartels.

H.R. 502 proposed to spend $90 million to provide Mexican law enforcement with sophisticated military technology, training and equipment from the U.S. military to assist Mexico in fighting the drug war.

The other goal of the bill was to spend another $80 million to provide economic development assistance to Mexico under the premise that combating Mexican poverty would also combat Mexican drugs.

H.R. 502 was referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The committee press office told WND no hearings on the bill have been scheduled.

The legislation, however, placed Cuellar at the forefront of the effort to involve the U.S. military in Mexico's war on the drug cartels.

Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, whose district includes El Paso, has joined Cuellar in urging the Bush administration to allocate up to $850 million over the next five years to help train Mexican law enforcement and military personnel to utilize the advanced military equipment the U.S. is planning to send to Mexico in a drug-related military assistance effort.

Soon after taking office this year, Calder�n ordered some 20,000 Mexican troops to get involved domestically in combating the Mexican drug cartels. Current efforts to involve the U.S. military attest to the limited success Calder�n and the Mexican military have had in their war on drugs. Over 3,000 Mexican civilians have been killed in the drug war so far this year.

WND previously reported a document obtained through an Access to Information Act request in Canada shows a secondary focus of the SPP leader's meeting in Montebello will be to prepare for a continental avian flu or human pandemic and to establish a permanent continental emergency management coordinating body to deal not only with health emergencies but other unspecified emergencies as well.

WND previously reported on National Security Presidential Directive No. 51 and Homeland Security Directive No. 20, which allocate to the office of the president the authority to direct all levels of government in the event the president declares a national emergency.

WND also previously reported that under SPP, the military of the U.S. and Canada are turning USNORTHCOM into a domestic military command structure, with authority extending to Mexico, even though Mexico has not formally joined with the current U.S.-Canadian USNORTHCOM command structure.

WND inquired of USNORTHCOM whether the U.S. military's involvement in the Mexican drug war, either directly or indirectly through foreign military aid, would involve USNORTHCOM.

USNORTHCOM spokesman Michael Kucharek responded, saying it was premature for USNORTHCOM to discuss any possible involvement with Mexico in any military assistance program which might be forthcoming from the Bush administration.

The White House, the State Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration did not return WND phone calls asking for comment.


Return to the Article



August 09, 2007

Local Law Enforcement and Homeland Security

Last month I had the pleasure of briefing a large group of local and state law enforcement officials on the Islamic extremist threat in their area. My interaction with these professionals reminded me that they are THE frontline defenders in the War on Terror and play an indispensable role in our Homeland Security.

Joining me in speaking at this event was my friend and occasional American Thinker contributor, LTC Joseph C. Myers. What struck us both is how quickly they "got it" when presented with the right amount of actionable information about what Islamic extremist groups were already operating in their communities. It was also impressive to see some of these agencies and departments who were doing very high-quality counterterror investigations even with limited personnel and financial resources. And in this case, those departments were working together to share that knowledge.

Having been raised in a police family (both my father and brother are retired from the job), I'm familiar with the unique instincts developed by police officers day-by-day as they go about their beat. Recognizing something or someone out of place and a natural curiosity are necessary tools to being a good cop. However, one does not develop these skills and instincts sitting at a desk; they come from doing hundreds of traffic stops, shaking door knobs, talking to people and doing patrols in the community every day.

The value of this irreplaceable asset in the War on Terror was seen this past weekend when a Berkeley County, South Carolina police officer pulled over two men on a routine traffic stop and discovered incendiary devices in the car in a search after he observed one of the suspects attempting to hide a laptop underneath his seat. The two men, Youssef Megahed and Ahmed Mohamed, both University of South Florida students (former stomping grounds of Sami Al-Arian), were charged on Monday.

In addition to good standard police work in the field, many local departments, such as the ones in attendance at the conference LTC Myers and I spoke at, are committed to developing their own local intelligence capabilities. In the current issue of City Journal, Judith Miller takes a close look at the local law enforcement intel operations of the NYPD and LAPD, "On the Front Line in the War on Terrorism."

As Miller points out in her article, New York City in particular has developed an impressive operation with hundreds of full-time personnel meeting with informants, doing undercover work, and analysts looking at open source information for developing threats as part of a "preventative approach" on the local level. In Los Angeles, they have had to adapt the same preventative approach to their local political circumstances.

What this trend of local intel units indicates is that while FBI and Homeland Security efforts might be all well and good, local law enforcement authorities facing growing terror threats are not content to believe the Feds can handle the task all on their own. Citing an incident in Summer 2003 involving a reported "dirty bomb" threat (which later proved to be false), Miller reports that the NYPD discovered the peril of relying exclusively on federal agencies: "What we learned from that episode was that when and if we needed federal assets, we were still on our own, even after 9/11," one former official told Miller. This assessment from the city that suffered the brunt of the 9/11 attacks.

While this preventative approach might occasionally stumble on or uncover an active immediate terror plot, it really is intended to address the "down the road" threat that federal agencies just simply don't have to time to look at. One only needs to observe what is happening currently in the UK, France or Sweden regarding the rapid escalation of Islamic extremism to see the wisdom in that strategy.

One problem is that few departments have the ability to create the intelligence infrastructure anywhere near what NYC and LA have. But there are some strategic steps local law enforcement leaders can dramatically improve their department's capabilities to address growing threats:
  • Realize that the Federal government will not save you. The response to Hurricane Katrina should provide ready evidence of this, but also understand that federal agencies responsible for counterterrorism are simply swamped just dealing with immediate threats. They do not have sufficient manpower to catch every single threat. This makes working with federal agencies all the more imperative. Communicate regularly to your political leaders the message that counterterrorism is also a local and state government issue.
  • Invest in dedicated personnel as much as possible. Even if you are only designating a few individuals to be responsible for tracking local threats, having someone looking at these issues everyday is much preferable to creating a squad and spreading their duties out in multiple areas. And don't make counterterrorism the last stop before retirement. Utilize seasoned personnel, but remember that it is the "down the road" threat you're looking at. The effectiveness of your department's efforts in that regard will be significantly diminished if you're rotating counterterrorism personnel every 2-3 years due to retirements.
  • Develop public/private partnerships. Some of the best experts in some areas of the counterterrorism field are not in government. For example, the Southern Poverty Law Center is one of the best resources for any law enforcement agency to get trained on the threat from neo-Nazi and other racist organizations. And at times private partners are able to go beyond what law enforcement can occasionally do in terms of intel gathering and open source data mining.
  • Be smart about your Homeland Security funds. You would think this would be common sense, but in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio, Homeland Security funds were used a few years ago to purchase bulletproof vests for their K-9 units. I'm sure they thought this was a worthy cause, but in an area where we have had one of the largest known al-Qaeda cells in the US, was that really the best use of that money? Is it any wonder that Columbus was near the bottom of the list for the recent announcement of forthcoming Homeland Security funds?
  • Provide opportunities for field personnel to get even minimal training in potential local threats. The guys on the street doing traffic stops and responding to calls can be effective intel gatherers with even the most basic of training of what they might encounter and what to look for. This is especially true as the nexus between criminal networks and terror networks continues to grow.
  • Stop legitimizing CAIR and other extremist groups. You certainly want to develop relationships and ties to your local Muslim community, but these groups are not representative of such. In some cases, they represent the very parties that pose the "down the road" threat in your area. As CAIR has shown, they will use contact with your department as a propaganda tool to claim leadership and push out more moderate voices. Find out who the real Muslim leaders are in our area.
As LTC Myers and I discovered first-hand last month, local law enforcement is a vast potential resource in Homeland Security. Increasingly, local and state agencies are being more proactive in cultivating those resources to better protect and serve their own communities. As this trend continues there are certain to be jurisdictional turf wars, but the end result of increasing local involvement in counterterror efforts to compliment what is already ongoing on the federal level can only benefit everyone in the long term. More and more we see evidence that local law enforcement are key players in defending our country against the global terror threat.

Patrick Poole is an occasional contributor to American Thinker. He is the Executive Director of Central Ohioans Against Terrorism, and he maintains a blog, Existential Space.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/08/local_law_enforcement_and_home.html at August 12, 2007 - 03:52:27 AM EDT

Friday, August 10, 2007

Control of Internet

James Harris: Welcome to another edition of Truthdig. This is James Harris sitting down with Josh Scheer. On the phone we are talking to Elliot Cohen, the author of “The Last Days of Democracy.” Elliot, let’s start with your theory. For the most part, you’re saying that our government in the United States is coming to an end. And that we are headed toward a dictatorship, toward authoritarian rule. The idea that we will one day be like Nazi Germany was … is hard for a lot of Americans to swallow. Why do you believe it to be true?

Harris: I was reading something you said about the Internet and of course it’s at least in one respect the ability of alternative press to be heard and seen by others who wouldn’t normally see it. You say the regulations we’re seeing right now are just one example of the way we are being stripped of our democracy, our, at least an access to continuing democracy. Explain that.

Cohen: The Internet is really a great bastion of democracy. If we didn’t have the Internet we wouldn’t even know about the Downing Street Memos, for example. Because the mainstream didn’t cover it. And so what we’re up against is, if we can hold on to the Internet, then we still have a source of a democratic press. But the problem is, it’s being encroached upon just like mainstream media and it’s in danger of becoming really an arm of these large corporations who are now dominating the Internet. And this started in 2000, well, well before. But in 2005 there was the landmark decision by the Supreme Court, which was the Brand X decision, where the court essentially turned over the pipes that send the information down the Internet to these large corporations. It basically said that they own the conduit for the Internet. The Supreme Court ruled that the Internet is like a cable TV station and can be owned and can be operated like such. For instance, Fox broadcasts its program and you have no control—we have no control over what it broadcasts. Well, essentially, this is the way the Internet is now conceived, legally. They can send and control, you know, send things down and control the content. And if they can control the conduit, they can control the content of the Internet pipes. And even wireless there are these fights to try to hold on to control of the Internet, and that’s the first stage to do away with what’s common carriage, which means that just like on a phone conversation, anybody can enter a phone conversation and use the phones. Well, the Supreme Court said that that is no longer the case with the Internet. The Internet is now—. The Net’s not going to be seen as a telecommunications system but rather it’s going to be conceived as an information system just like CNN or Fox cable. And what that does is open up the door effectively for various modes of control, and one of the ways in which these large corporations like Comcast are trying to control the Internet right now is through setting up these tollbooths where they are instituting, or want to institute—and there’s a lot of powerful lobbies in Congress to try to do this—they are trying to set up these tollbooths which will regulate how much, what kind of bandwidth different Internet sites can have, depending upon how much they are wiling to pay. So we have a pay-for-play system where the bandwidth will determine how quickly you connect then, and whether or not you end up spinning out in cyberspace versus reaching lots of people. And obviously those corporations with the deepest pockets are going to be able to have the best connectivity. What that means is money is going to control truth.

Thursday, August 9, 2007

Sen. Hillary Clinton today will tout a $10.3 billion “Youth Opportunity Agenda”


Sen. Hillary Clinton today will tout a $10.3 billion “Youth Opportunity Agenda” that starts, according to a campaign preview, “even before young children reach kindergarten by investing $10 billion in universal preschool and expanding nurse-home visits for first-time mothers.” She flies from her home in Chappaqua, N.Y., to Las Vegas to make the announcement at the 32nd National Association of Black Journalists annual convention and career fair at Bally’s Casino and Resort.

THE POINT: Clinton is promising “a national response” to “the crisis of the more than four million young people between 16 to 24 who are out of school and out of work.” Barack Obama has announced an “urban poverty” agenda that covers some of the same ground.

The programs are interesting because they show how the conversation in Washington would change with a Democratic president. Some Clinton details from a campaign prĂ©cis: “She will … launch a $100 million Public/Private Internship Initiative to give at-risk middle- and high-school students job skills and work experience during the summer. … In addition, she will offer 1.5 million disconnected youth a second chance with meaningful job training in growing industries in their own communities, including renewable energy, healthcare, construction and financial services.”

“She will reverse the Bush Administrations cuts to the EEOC and restore the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division to its historic role as a body that vigorously enforces people’s civil rights,” the summary continues. “Hillary will restore funding for child support enforcement to make sure that fathers do their part to support their children.”

BUT: The senator’s program would reward “responsible fatherhood” through economic opportunity and an expansion of the earned income tax credit. Finally, according to the document, “Hillary will invest $200 million in Reentry Partnership Grants to reward successful community-based approaches to reintegrating ex-offenders into the economy and society.”

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Law outlawing smoking

Necrotyranny
posted by Linda

by Thomas Fleming - Chronicles Magazine

A week or so ago Illinois passed a barbaric law outlawing smoking in all business locations, including outdoor places within 16 feet of a business entrance and including even homes, if part of the home is used for an office that might receive an occasional client.

The lives of EVA PERON and HILLARY CLINTON

New York Times best-selling author CHRISTOPHER ANDERSEN compares the lives of EVA PERON and HILLARY CLINTON in his new book. We talk to the author!


Argentina had the passionate and glamorous EVA PERON and America has the driven and ambitious HILLARY CLINTON. In his new book, American Evita: Hillary Clinton's Path to Power (in stores now), New York Times best-selling author CHRISTOPHER ANDERSEN


"There are many striking similarities to Eva Peron and Hillary," Andersen claims. "Here we have two very strong-willed women who engineered their husbands' rise to the presidency. Then they used their power as first lady -- some would say abused their power as first lady -- and in the process became two of the most loved, hated, revered, feared women in the world. Sex, money, power, betrayal, tragedy, charges of corruption, all these things really characterized the lives of both Evitas."


Andersen says Bill and Hillary had a secret arrangement known as "The Plan" and that their relationship was a partnership of brains and sex appeal -- her brains and his sex appeal. But Andersen says it was that sex appeal that caused problems in their marriage.


"Hillary always knew that Bill was a womanizer," Andersen says. "When she was working on the Senate Watergate committee in 1974 in Washington and Bill was running for Congress for the first time in Arkansas, she actually sent her brothers TONY and HUGHIE to spy on Bill." He continues: "What's interesting and disturbing is that she's always the one to lead the charge -- always been the one to go after those women who accused her husband, and to discredit them and to call them sluts and trailer trash and liars, and worse, she knew all along they were telling the truth."


Andersen also claims Hillary had a considerable impact on Bill's decisions as president and often sat in on many of his meetings. According to the author, Bill's staff was more afraid of her than of him. "There's a lot of fighting between them, but her behind-the-scenes personality really doesn't jive with what you see in public," he says. "Bill is famous for a volcanic temper. He erupted every day, first thing in the morning ... but then it passed and he went on." He continues: "The staff was not afraid of Bill Clinton, the staff was afraid of Hillary Clinton -- they were terrified of her. She had a tremendous temper."


Less than four years ago, Hillary left the White House as first lady, but Andersen believes she has a good chance of going back, only this time as the head honcho.


"When you look at Hillary, you realize that she is in fact not only the most powerful Democratic woman in the country, she is the most recognizable Democrat in the country. And she really is the first woman with a serious chance of being elected president."


For more Hillary Clinton insights, check out tonight's ET!
delves into the lives of both fascinating women to demonstrate how very similar the powerful women were, and how they helped their respective husbands rise to the top of the political ladder.

Know your enemy on Domestic terrorism: New trouble at home.

Know your enemy on Domestic terrorism: New trouble at home.

Since Sept. 11, the nation's attention has been focused on possible threats from Islamic terrorists. But home-grown terrorists have been steadily plotting and carrying out attacks in unrelated incidents across the nation, according to federal authorities and two organizations that monitor hate groups.

None of the incidents over the past few years matched the devastation of 9/11 or even the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, which killed 168 and remains the deadliest act of terrorism against the nation by a U.S. citizen. But some of the alleged domestic terrorists who have been arrested had ambitious plans. The people and groups range from white supremacists, anti-government types and militia members to eco-terrorists and people who hate corporations. They include violent anti-abortionists and black and brown nationalists who envision a separate state for blacks and Latinos. And they have been busy. "Not a lot of attention is being paid to this, because everybody is concerned about the guy in a turban. But there are still plenty of angry, Midwestern white guys out there," says U.S. Marshals Service chief inspector Geoff Shank.

Shank, who is based in the Chicago area, says the concerns about domestic terrorism range from anti-abortion extremists who threaten to attack clinics and doctors to some violent biker gangs that may be involved in organized crime. And the FBI said in June that eco-terrorism - acts of violence, sabotage or property damage motivated by concern for animals or the environment - was the nation's top domestic terrorism threat. The bureau said then that eco-terrorists had committed more than 1,100 criminal acts and caused property damage estimated at least $110 million since 1976. Alleged terrorist plots by U.S. citizens are not new, but many of the recent conspiracies were overshadowed by 9/11 and the hunt for terrorists abroad. Most of the foiled plots didn't get very far. And few got much publicity. But there were some potentially close calls, such as the scheme by William Krar, an east Texas man who stockpiled enough sodium cyanide to gas everyone in a building the size of a high school basketball gymnasium before he was arrested in 2002.

Shank, whose unit mainly searches for fugitives, including some wanted on domestic terror-related charges, led the manhunt for Clayton Lee Waagner, 48, of Kennerdell, Pa. Waagner was convicted in December of mailing hundreds of threat letters containing bogus anthrax to abortion clinics in 24 states.. During his trial in Philadelphia, prosecutors documented Waagner's ties to the Army of God, an extremist group that believes violence against abortion providers is an acceptable way to end abortion. 'A very serious threat'

"There's been a very, very heavy focus nationally on foreign terrorism since 9/11," says Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., which has tracked hate groups since 1971. "The reality is that, meanwhile, domestic terrorism has hummed along at quite a steady clip. It.... still poses a very serious threat." Among the incidents since 9/11:

.. In Tennessee, the FBI arrested a man who agents say hated the federal government and was attempting to acquire chemical weapons and explosives to blow up a government building. Demetrius "Van" Crocker, 39, of McKenzie, Tenn., pleaded not guilty Nov. 5. His attorney, public defender Stephen Shankman, did not return calls.

.. Krar, 63, of Noonday, Texas, was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison after he stockpiled enough sodium cyanide to kill everyone inside a 30,000-square-foot building. Krar, described by federal prosecutors as a white supremacist, also had nine machine guns, 67 sticks of explosives and more than 100,000 rounds of ammunition. Investigators and the federal prosecutor said they didn't know what Krar intended to do with the potentially deadly chemicals. Krar's common-law wife, Judith Bruey, 55, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess illegal weapons and was sentenced to nearly five years.

.. In Utah, two men described by the U.S. attorney there as "domestic terrorists" pleaded guilty to setting separate arson fires related to eco-terrorism. Justus Ireland, 23, admitted starting a fire that caused $1.5 million damage at a West Jordan lumber company and spray-painting "ELF" at the site. The Earth Liberation Front has been connected to dozens of acts of vandalism and arson around the country since 1996. Joshua Demmitt, 18, of Provo, pleaded guilty to starting a fire at Brigham Young University's Ellsworth Farm, where animal experiments are conducted, in the name of the Animal Liberation Front. A third man, Harrison Burrows, 18, also of Provo, pleaded guilty earlier.

.. The FBI's domestic terrorism unit charged seven members of an animal rights group with terrorism after investigating what they said was a marked increase in crimes to stop the use of animals for product-testing. The activists, arrested in New York, New Jersey, California and Washington state, are members of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty. The group seeks to shut down Huntingdon Life Sciences, a New Jersey product-testing company.

Prosecutors allege that the activists set fire to Huntingdon employees' cars, vandalized shareholders' homes and threatened their families. They are charged with conspiring to commit terrorism against an enterprise that uses animals for research and could face up to three years in prison if convicted.

.. In Brookfield, Wis., man labeled a domestic terrorist by federal prosecutors received an eight-year prison sentence for interfering with Madison police radio frequencies. Rajib Mitra, 26, had blocked police radio signals and later broadcast sex sounds over police radios. His attorney argued that the transmissions were an accident. Mitra was one of the first defendants sentenced under guidelines changed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The changes, effective Nov. 5, 2003, impose stiffer penalties for domestic terrorism. Under the previous sentencing guidelines, Mitra probably would have been sentenced to 18 to 24 months. Mitra's attorney, Chris Van Wagner, says his client was not a terrorist and should have received a lesser punishment. "It's clear that (the guidelines) were put in place to punish those who seek to subvert our government and not intended to increase the punishment for people who simply engage in criminal mischief but had no terrorist angle or connection whatsoever," Van Wagner says. "He was just a dolphin caught in a tuna net." Mitra was charged under provisions of the Patriot Act that make it a crime to cause such public-safety problems, even if there were no monetary damages. "This is a vivid example of how the Patriot Act has been used in cases that clearly have nothing to do with terrorism and that are far removed from what Congress was concerned about when it passed the Patriot Act," says Timothy Edgar of the American Civil Liberties Union. 'Black helicopter' crowd

During the 1990s, anti-government groups sprang up all over the country, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League, which was founded in 1913 to combat anti-Semitism and now monitors hate groups. Many formed militias to prepare for large-scale resistance to the government, which the groups blamed for the Randy Weaver siege at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992 and the Branch Davidian confrontation in Waco, Texas, in 1993.

Many of these group members believed the federal government was secretly setting up concentration camps for dissident Americans and was planning a takeover of the United States by United Nations troops as part of a "new world order." Many also said that mysterious black helicopters were conducting surveillance in the West, according to the ADL.

"The 'black helicopter' crowd is still out there," says Wisconsin federal prosecutor Tim O'Shea, referring to extremists who distrust and abhor the federal government. Potok says the Southern Poverty Law Center identified 751 hate groups last year, a 6% increase over the 708 such organizations it counted in 2002.

Mark Pitcavage, director of fact-finding for the Anti-Defamation League, says incidents of domestic terrorism often don't get much media coverage beyond the local areas where they occur. He says he was surprised that the Krar case did not get wider attention. "This was the only case in U.S. history where we had a person in the U.S. building an actual chemical weapon," he says.

He cites two other cases. In 1997, militia members gathered in central Texas allegedly to plan to attack a military base on Independence Day. They were arrested the morning of July 4 near Fort Hood. Three years later, he says, three heavily armed people described by federal investigators as anti-government extremists shot down a California Highway Patrol helicopter near the California-Nevada border during a standoff with police. Potok, director of the center's Intelligence Project, which monitors hate groups, says, "I don't mean to minimize the work of groups with ties to al-Qaeda. Obviously, there's a huge external threat as well. But there's a tendency to want to externalize the threat and say the people who want to hurt us don't look like us, they don't worship the same god and don't have the same skin color."

Earlier this year, the National District Attorneys Association, which has about 7,000 members, held a first-ever conference on domestic terrorism in Washington, D.C., to help local prosecutors identify potential terrorist groups.

"It was very well received," says the association's vice president, Robert Honecker, a prosecutor in Monmouth County, N.J. "They were appreciative of getting the information and the knowledge so they would be prepared should something happen in their jurisdiction." Man sought nuclear materials

Some of the alleged efforts by domestic terrorists are chilling.

According to an FBI affidavit in the Tennessee case, Crocker had inquired last spring about where he could obtain nuclear waste or nuclear materials. An informant told the FBI that Crocker, who had "absolute hatred" for the government, wanted "to build a bomb to be detonated at a government building, particularly a courthouse, either federal or state." In September, according to the affidavit, Crocker told an undercover FBI agent "it would be a good thing if somebody could detonate some sort of weapon of mass destruction in Washington, D.C.," while both houses of Congress "were in session." Crocker allegedly told the agent he admired Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. He said "establishing a concentration camp for Jewish insurance executives would be a desirable endeavor." Crocker later bought what he thought was Sarin nerve gas and a block of C-4 explosive from the undercover agent, the affidavit says.

Authorities arrested Crocker. Pitcavage of the Anti-Defamation League says such arrests thwart possible attacks and show that U.S. law enforcement is effectively fighting domestic terrorism. "One of the measures of this is that the number of people arrested for (plotting) terrorist acts is far greater than the number of people arrested for carrying out such attacks. So we're arresting them before they can carry out these acts, which is very important. 9/11 raised awareness generally among law enforcement." Contributing: Kevin Johnson in Washington