When a man fueled by rage against the U.S. government and its tax code crashes his airplane into a building housing offices of the Internal Revenue Service, is it a criminal act or an act of terrorism?
For police in Austin, it’s a question tied to the potential for public alarm: The building set ablaze by Joseph Stack’s suicide flight was still burning Thursday afternoon when officials confidently stood before reporters and said the crash wasn’t terrorism.
But others, including those in the Muslim community, look at Stack’s actions and fail to understand how he differs from foreign perpetrators of political violence who are routinely labeled terrorists.
via Read Full Article.
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All of these acts are criminal in nature. If you were to charge him with a crime, tthe crime would be destruction of gov’t property, attempted 1st degree murder and other charges. All terrorists commit criminal acts. there actions as far as blowing things up, killing people, or whatever are in fact criminal. The only thing that seperates this is that they belong to a terrorist organization. But terrorists commit criminal acts. If they are mirandized, that is a criminal act. If they go to prision that is a criminal act. Find me a charge for terrorism. I can find a charge for murder, kidnapping, destuction of property and other crimes. I can’t find one for terrorism.
If the person is a part of a group that has set itself against the citizens of the US or the Constitutional Government of the US, then it would be terrorism. If its a single person doing the act it would be a criminal act.
Reading the Patriot Act, it is apparent any “Act” whether legal or illegal that supports terrorism can be judged as a Terrorist Act. The premise because someone attacked a government building they should be held strictly liable for Terrorism under the Patriot Act is absurd on its face. Had the pilot’s (intent) motive for flying his plane into the IRS building was different, for example an auditor stole his girlfriend, that “Act” would constitute a crime against an individual, not terrorism against a government—although the nearby Civilian population might be no less intimated. Had the Pilot instead used other force, punching out IRS employees at their office, critically injuring them because he did not like being charged back taxes—that would be a violent crime against federal employees not Terrorism? In the pilot’s actual case mentioned in the article, the pilot used stronger force, crashing a plane into an IRS building over Taxes, but that doesn’t appear to amount to terrorism.
One reason the War on Terrorism is gaining public support is that the Government appears to be going after people that are clearly terrorists. That public support could erode if government prosecutors are perceived by the public as being overly zealous to charge independent criminal acts as terrorism.