That's a tricky standard to define.
It is indeed, Firebird! And you made some good points there. In terms of reactions it is how the public define the words and the actions. And again, thise definitions are under a degree if "control" by anyone who wishes to inflame feelings against one or another group. Actually even the politicians who know better use language to promote their ideology and politics that influence the public in a negative way.
The police over here tend to be a bit cagey by using phrases like, "We are investigating to see if there are terrorist connections to the . . ." before iutright labelling the event as a terrorist action.
Again, our security firces do not investigate "personal grudges", you have a very different security set-up over there.
What classifications do we have, top down:
1. Direct action by foreign agents "imported" into the victim country for the specific purpose, 9/11 being the most obvious example.
2. Immigrants, 1st or whatever generation, or native converts being radicalised or coerced directly by forieign agents brought in for that purpose.
3. The above in self-radicalising groups or radicalised in a college, university, mosque or penal institution by other immigrants not "imported" specifically for that purpose.
4. Self-radicalised individuals.
5. Individuals angry at authority for perceived oppression or those "taking the law into their own hands" because of a perceived lack of action by the authorities over a previous event or their perception of the general situation.
6. Action by mentally ill individuals.
There may be others I have missed and there may be combinations of the above.
Perhaps "Threats to the nation" can be said to mainly cover 1. and 2. mainly - the direct involvement and/or actions of foreign agents. Next comes the "home grown" self-radicalising groups. 5. and 6. do not represent a direct national threat - other than the indirect one of inflaming others in reaction.
1. to 4. are definitely terrorist actions, though of two kinds in the UK. 5. is less easy to define. 6. is, in my mind, not terrorism, possibly legally not even a crime but is non-the-less bad for victims and needs to be handled carefully and transparently not to provoke the victim community. That includes very careful use of language.
In the UK the 5th branch of Military Intelligence, MI5. On
their website they define their role as:
[quoteThe role of MI5, as defined in the Security Service Act 1989, is "the protection of national security and in particular its protection against threats such as terrorism, espionage and sabotage, the activities of agents of foreign powers, and from actions intended to overthrow or undermine parliamentary democracy by political, industrial or violent means."/quote]
Thus nothing of a purely criminal nature. The MI5 took over most of the roles of the old police "Special Branch" the police started agencies to cover the remainder themselves.
The UK's legal definition of "terrorism" is wrapped up in there somewhere, and then subdivided between direct foreign and locally inspired action. The police have to define whether it is terrorism or not, who handles it then if it is of domestic origin is probably a joint effort between several agencies.
Terrorism may be defined as a criminal action but whether a criminal actions can be defined as terrorism probably needs a whole disputation of lawyers!
Damn glad I am not a police lawyer! Or a lawyer if any kind in this area come to that.
