Friday, April 22, 2005
Those Darn Terrorist Tree-Huggers!
WASHINGTON - The Homeland Security Department is focusing on possible terror threats from radical environmental and animal rights activists without also examining risks that might be posed by right-wing extremists, House Democrats said Tuesday.
A recent internal Homeland Security document lists the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front with a few Islamic groups that could potentially support al-Qaida as domestic terror threats.
The document does not address threats posed by white supremacists, violent militiamen, anti-abortion bombers and other extremists that Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (news, bio, voting record), D-Miss., called "right-wing hate groups."
ALF and ELF "are the left-leaning groups that they identified," said Thompson, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee. "But they absolutely left out any of the other groups."
"If your responsibility is to protect the homeland from these domestic terrorists, then you have an obligation to identify all of them — not just some of them," Thompson said.
Homeland Security spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the internal document — which was not meant for public distribution — identifies only general categories of threats and vulnerabilities, and is not meant to be a comprehensive list.