PETA/ELF: Animal & Environmental Extremists and Homeland Security
My personal experience w/ state and local law enforcement relating to GWOT can be summed up by the response I saw at a terrorism class in Portland for LEOs. The officers had very little to say or add as we talked about international terror organizations, but when the topic of "animal rights" groups came up, the officers had a great deal of comments and questions. Afterwards in the group planning piece, the officers could only think about how they were going to use this new information to catch these eco-terrorists. I walked away very disheartened to learn that a lot of "homeland defense" money was going to be wasted tracking down what were essentially petty vandals. Oversight and training is needed.
Reed
Counter-terrorism and Domestic Violent Extremism
In the U.K. for several years now domestic violent extremism (DVE), which includes animal rights and the political extremists in various causes has been split off from counter-terrorism. The political priority given to DVE has varied and after several animal rights attacks pressure led to more resources. At one stage, now many years ago, the Special Branch approach was applied, with their expertise in covert intelligence techniques and then lessened as other threats took priority.
CT is kept apart from DVE. This is well explained on this official website: http://www.netcu.org.uk/about/domesticextremism.jsp
The threat here is different, with specific campaigning in a few places, notably Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) and Oxford University - who are building a new laboratory. Ecological extremism to date has been rare, although one airport was "invaded" and a power station.
Local priorities differ and will affect funding priorities. I can understand why in the USA access to DHS funding can cause controversy; time to think about stopping "pork barrel" allocation of funds?
davidbfpo