Terrorism: International, Domestic, Cyber

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Running Head: TERRORISM: DOMESTIC, INTERNATIONAL, AND CYBER

Terrorism: Domestic, International, and Cyber

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Abstract

Terrorism is one of the most remembered and feared occurrences in the world. Terrorism changes the lives and hearts of everyone that it affects. This paper explores the different types of terrorism, who commits the acts, how it affects the surrounding world, and what can be done to prevent it. This review of the different types of terrorism focuses primarily on the specific types of terrorism. This paper then tries to relay to the reader the understanding of all types, and the differences between them.

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Terrorism: Domestic, International, and Cyber

Terrorism is defined as any action taken to cause fear in order to achieve a social, religious, or political goal. There are different types of terrorism, primarily domestic, international and cyber. Domestic terrorism is when the terrorist is a member of the state of which he or she terrorizes. International terrorism is defined as terrorism done to another country of which is not the terrorist's native country (Elrich, 1998). These types of terrorist attacks are normally done by a fanatical religious group. The last type of terrorism is cyber terrorism which is defined as the use of computing resources to intimidate or coerce others (Adrel, 1997). While all types of terrorism are different they all relate in the way that they attack a person or a group of people in an attempt to make some kind of statement, whether it's for political, religious, or social reasons. Some acts of terrorism might not affect as many people as others, but no act or terrorism should be overlooked, and all should be punished severely.

Domestic Terrorism is done quite often in a society. It can range from small things such as wearing some kind of t-shirt or hat that's prejudice towards one person or a group, all the way up to killing a political figure. One's motives behind a domestic terror act are never the same. Some plead insanity; others do it to make a religious statement, and others even do it for revenge that gets out of control. An Example of a domestic terrorist attack is the Oklahoma City Bombing, where Timothy McVeigh planted an enormous bomb in the basement of the Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, the bomb killed 168 people (Suder, 1998) . Some other notable domestic terror cases include: the assassination attempt on President Truman in 1950 and the U.S. Senate bombing in 1983 (Adrel, 1997). The are also many forms of minor Domestic Terrorism like acts of vandalism on a particular group whether it be against a specific

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race or a counterculture. Even such acts as many in America sending Anthrax and other deadly

chemicals in the mail to people in attempts to kill them is considered domestic terrorism. Why try to kill a random person for no other reason than personal satisfaction? There is enough sexually transmitted diseases, viruses, and cancers in the world to kill people, without having to worry about your fellow man.

International terror, while not as common, is definitely the most remembered. An example of International terrorism happened on September 11, 2001, when four U.S. planes hijacked by terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania killing nearly 3,000 people in a matter of hours (Devost, 2004). This is a good example of why international terrorism is the most well known. When the word terrorism is said most people think of actions like this. This could also be because international terrorist attacks like the one on September 11, are done by religious fanatical groups that do not like the democratic way of life (Suder, 1998). This terrorist attack, along with many other things, caused a war, which is still going on today.

Cyber terrorism might be the most overlooked type of terrorism there is, because it has been going on for the shortest amount of time. The problem with this is that, there needs to be

stricter laws and restrictions on internet and computer activity. The amount of possible information at anyone with even a little computer savvy could turn anyone into a cyber terrorist. The possibilities for such an action are endless. An example of cyber terrorism would be hacking into a hospital computer mainframe and giving someone a lethal dose of their prescribed medicine. Many other such cyber acts of terrorism would include: creating a virus to shut down an entire banks database or even the entire stock market, creating some type of e-mail bug that crashes thousands of computers around the