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Respond to James:

Unlike the terrorist of the past, where terrorists needed to have in person interactions with others with the same mind set, but in the current age of technology, that is a thing of the past. The internet has brought information to the finger tips of the potential terrorists, along with being able to communicate to like minded people with terrorist intent. Because of this, there can be long distance encouragement to become radicalized into Lone wolves’ terrorists may become radicalized within an Internet chatroom group that offers the emotional support and security that human beings often seek. and even commit acts of terror on the suspecting public. (Dr. Mouras, 2015). Furthermore, the internet has become the tool of choice for how to advice on acts of terrorism, while being able to mask the identities of all persons, who access the information. “However, even with the prevalence of online forums where hate-speech and pro-terrorist sentiment flourishes, distinguishing between the thousands of individuals accessing and posting content on these websites and the handful who may at some point act on their feelings is nearly impossible” (Connor & Flynn, 2018). It basically turns the situation into a needle in a hay stack, with really no way to tell who would commit an act or terror versus someone venting and complaining about parts of society and or the government. Moreover, social media has become more aggressive in removing content related to extremist views and possible in sighting of terrorism from their platforms. I even thought this is in good intent but makes is harder for law enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security to identify and track the persons involved with these postings (Connor & Flynn, 2018). In these cases, intelligence is limited with lone wolves and once these people go off the grid, there is almost no way to detect a lone wolf terrorist attack until the attack is actually taking place. Terrorist have taken note of the degree of difficultly and are calling for an increased effort of lone wolf attacks (Connor & Flynn, 2018).

It is best said “In light of the inevitable terrorism-related “public overreaction to highly publicized, low-probability risks,” “[t]he best response is information and education (Barnes, 2013). Information is key to everything on the planet. If you do not have the needed information, something you are looking for could be in front of you and you would never realize this. That is no different in law enforcement and the general public. As the campaign from Department of Homeland Security says “See something, Say Something”. Most law enforcement offices, unless they are New York Police officer general receive limited information about terrorism in the police academy. Furthermore, getting the public involved in reporting active goes a lot further than some may realize too. Who knows the streets better than anyone in a city, the people who live by them, work near them and so on. Community policing goes along way when the community has a good relationship with their police departments, Moreover, the use of informants, surveillance, requiring additional reporting of material that is hazardous or unstable when bought in larger than average amounts, which could led to what is called a denial of means and police departments conducting physical security assessments of location (Barnes, 2013). All of these can help lower the chance of a lone wolf terrorist being able to carry out an attack at the local police level of enforcement. Without chances as stated, it would further increase the complexity and the degree of difficulty in attempting to locate and or discover a lone wolf terrorist, which is why terrorists see this as the way of the future of terrorism and I believe this will increase over the next decade. The public and the police departments around the United States need to be prepared to share information that could possibly save the lives of incent Americas.

James

Connor, J. C. & Flynn, C. R. (2018) What To Do About Lone Wolf Terrorism? Examining Current Trends and Prevention Strategies. Foreign Policy Research Institute. Retrieved from https://www.fpri.org/article/2018/11/what-to-do-about-lone-wolf-terrorism-examining-current-trends-and-prevention-strategies/

Barnes, B. D. (2013) Confronting The One-Man Wolf Pack: Adapting Law Enforcement and Prosecution Responses to the Threat of Lone Wolf Terrorism. Boston University School of Law. Retrieved from https://www.bu.edu/law/journals-archive/bulr/volume92n4/documents/BARNES.pdf

Dr. Mouras, T. (2015) Lone Wolves: Are They Really Alone in the Radicalization Process? In Public Safety. Retrieved from https://inpublicsafety.com/2015/02/lone-wolves-are-they-really-alone-in-the-radicalization-process/