{"id":53626,"date":"2015-02-16T12:00:33","date_gmt":"2015-02-16T12:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=53626"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:26:06","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:26:06","slug":"is-your-child-a-terrorist-u-s-government-questionnaire-rates-families-at-risk-for-extremism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/02\/is-your-child-a-terrorist-u-s-government-questionnaire-rates-families-at-risk-for-extremism\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Your Child a Terrorist? U.S. Government Questionnaire Rates Families at Risk for Extremism"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<\/a>

Photo: Robert Nickelsberg\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

Are you, your family or your community at risk of turning to\u00a0violent extremism?\u00a0That\u2019s the premise behind a rating system devised by the National Counterterrorism Center, according to a document marked For Official Use Only and obtained by The Intercept.<\/em><\/p>\n

The document\u2013and the rating system\u2013is part of a wider strategy for\u00a0Countering Violent Extremism, which calls for\u00a0local community and religious leaders to work together with law enforcement and other government agencies. The White House has made this approach\u00a0a centerpiece of its\u00a0response to terrorist attacks around the world and in\u00a0the wake of the Paris attacks, announced plans to\u00a0host\u00a0an international summit on Countering Violent Extremism<\/a>\u00a0on February 18th.<\/p>\n

The rating system, part of a 36-page\u00a0document<\/a>\u00a0dated May 2014 and titled \u201cCountering Violent Extremism:\u00a0A Guide for Practitioners and Analysts,\u201d suggests that police, social workers and educators rate\u00a0individuals on a scale of one to five in categories\u00a0such as: \u201cExpressions of Hopelessness, Futility,\u201d \u201cTalk of Harming Self or Others,\u201d and \u201cConnection to Group Identity (Race, Nationality, Religion, Ethnicity).\u201d\u00a0The ranking system is supposed to alert government officials to individuals at risk of turning to radical violence, and to families or communities at risk of incubating extremist ideologies.<\/p>\n

Families are judged on factors such as \u201cAware[ness] of Each Other\u2019s Activities,\u201d as well as levels of \u201cParent-Child Bonding,\u201d and communities are rated by access to health care and social services, in addition to \u201cpresence of ideologues or recruiters\u201d as potential risk factors.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0low score in any of these categories would indicate a high risk of\u00a0\u201csusceptibility to engage in violent extremism,\u201d according to the document. It encourages users of the guide to\u00a0plot the\u00a0scores on a graph\u00a0to determine\u00a0what\u00a0\u201cinterventions\u201d could\u00a0halt the process of radicalization before it happens.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea that the federal government would encourage local police, teachers, medical and social service employees to rate the communities, individuals and families they serve for their potential to become terrorists is abhorrent on its face,\u201d said Mike German, a former FBI agent who is now with\u00a0the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. German called the criteria used for the ratings \u201csubjective and specious.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"family-risk-rating-760x1024<\/a>Arun Kundnani, a professor at New York University, said that enlisting communities in the way the administration suggests in the guide,\u00a0\u201cleads a range of non-policing professionals to cast particular suspicion on Muslim populations and profile them for behaviors that have no real connection to criminality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kundnani also questioned the science behind the rating system. \u201cThere\u2019s no evidence to support the idea that terrorism can be substantively correlated with such factors to do with family, identity, and emotional well-being,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The guide itself notes that the effects of Countering Violent Extremism\u00a0programs\u00a0are \u201cnot easy to quantify.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. government isn\u2019t alone in its attempts to spot youth allegedly at risk of becoming terrorists.\u00a0The government of France recently issued a widely mocked<\/a> graphic demonstrating ostensible warning signs of radicalization, which suggested that abrupt diet or lifestyle changes are correlated with proclivities for violent extremism. (White House counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco last April warned<\/a> parents and community members to look out for \u201csubtle\u201d signs, like \u201csudden personality changes in their children at home\u2014becoming confrontational.\u201d)<\/p>\n

The British government has put forward a plan\u00a0to begin monitoring signs of radicalization at the pre-school level<\/a>, and in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, children in France\u00a0as young as eight years old<\/a> have been detained and questioned by police for allegedly espousing radical views.<\/p>\n

Experts have suggested that intervention by law enforcement or other branches of the government in individuals\u2019 lives, particularly\u00a0young people<\/a>, based solely based on the views they express, can potentially criminalize constitutionally protected behavior.<\/p>\n

In some cases, as The<\/em> Intercept<\/em> has reported<\/a>, community outreach from law enforcement has also\u00a0crossed the line into intelligence gathering.<\/p>\n

Most of the document\u00a0is a review of the literature on a \u00a0variety of approaches to dealing with the threat of radicalization. Examples given include a community policing program in Lewiston, Maine (population 36,000), and Saudi Arabia\u2019s rehabilitation program for former jihadists, including Guantanamo detainees.<\/p>\n

Though the White House has insisted that Countering Violent Extremism is not directed at any specific group, the NCTC guide only cites examples drawn from Muslim communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is obvious that, in practice, [this] would mostly only be applied to Muslim communities,\u201d said Kundnani, the NYU professor.<\/p>\n

A public affairs officer for the National Counterterrorism Center declined to answer questions about the rating system, the methodology behind it, or why the document was marked For Official Use Only.<\/p>\n

_____________________________________<\/p>\n

See the full document here<\/a> (or download it as a PDF<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Email the authors: murtaza.hussain@theintercept.com<\/a>, cora.currier@theintercept.com<\/a>, jana.winter@theintercept.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 firstlook.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Are you, your family or your community at risk of turning to violent extremism? That\u2019s the premise behind a rating system devised by the National Counterterrorism Center, according to a document marked For Official Use Only and obtained by The Intercept.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-focus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53626\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}