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Import/Export Legal Terrorist Definition
Executive Order 13224 Definition of Terrorist States and Organizations (2001)
Patterns of Global Terrorism Definition of Desginated Terrorist States and Organizations (2002)
The Bonn Summit in 1978 agreed to sanctions against states which aided and abetted the hijacking of aircraft. In the process of finalizing this agreement, the attendees defined terrorism as:
"Acts of kidnapping, hostage-taking, bomb attacks on innocents, hijacking ..."
It was also recognized later by the signatories, that assassination while being a political tool, also is a form of terrorism. Events in the late 1980s and 1990s would seem to bear this extension out...witness the ability of South American Drug Cartels to dissuade the public from reporting their activities by murdering both govenment officials and civilians.
This agreement thus sets the boundaries, at least for those recognizing the World Court, for which terrorism can be further legally defined. See Legal History for more information.
But despite the 1978 interest in definition of terrorism, little direct laws or regulation have come from these acts in the U.S. until the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City. The result of this act, and the Oklahoma City domestic terrorism incident drove the U.S. Congress to enact the The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 which put teeth into U.S. anti-terrorism laws. Other countries, such as German, France and Great Britain, have enacted at particular times, laws that temporarily suspended certain aspects of their constitution in order to more forcibly enforce existing laws.
In the case of Germany, the anti-terrorist units were given the rights to search and seizure without warrant during a two year time-frame. It was a well controlled suspension of their constitutional law, and was only won due to German citizen's fear and abhorence of the level of terrorism in their country.
In Northern Ireland, Great Britain has continued to make use of the Terrorism Act to search and seize evidence as well as provide fast tracked sentencing for acts of terrorism. Recent starts in serious disarmement talks between the United Kingdom and Irish radical groups promises to at least scale down the violence if not stop it all together. The world is hopeful these talks will produce positive results.
Only recently has the U.S. proposed laws aimed directly at the terrorist. During the Reagan Administration, terrorism and the countries which sponsored terrorism became a key thrust in world affairs. With the capture of hostages by terrorist groups in Lebanon, the U.S. President became, for all practical purposes, obssessed with winning the freedom of those hostages by almost any means.
The public statements at the time centered on a "no negotiation" stance, but in some special cases, the administration worked through middle men to offer incentives to some countries who might deal directly with the hostage takers. In the end, only a few terrorists were freed due to these efforts, and the disclosure of these actions later nearly brought down the Reagan administration. Certainly a number of key members of the President's team faced serious charges of defying Congress, in part due to these activities.
Recent large scale terrorist events in the U.S. have finally brought to fruition, the authors predictions 10 years ago...Terrorism has come to the U.S.
As each new terrorist event occurs (World Trade Center, Oklahoma Federal Building), government has voiced concerns that more intrusive powers be given the FBI or other agencies.
Anti-gun radicals also use terrorist activities as a rallying cry for abolishment of handguns and so called "assault-weapons" in the U.S.