NCJ Number
95573
Date Published
Unknown
Length
11 pages
Annotation
In a speech to the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, the Attorney General of the United States reviews actions undertaken by the Reagan administration to develop and implement a more effective response to terrorism.
Abstract
Whatever their purported motives -- nationalistic, ethnic, religious, ideological, or pure hatred -- terrorists indiscriminately use criminal violence, which constitutes a risk to all. Terrorist acts are easy to identify, but they are difficult to combat. Since the Reagan administration took office in 1981, the Justice Department has played a critical role in improving the Nation's antiterrorism programs. More funds and more FBI agents have been assigned to terrorist investigations, and the FBI has trained a 50-man hostage rescue team to respond to a terrorist incident anywhere in the United States. The FBI has created a Terrorist Research and Analytical Center to study and computerize data on terrorists in the United States. In addition, the Department has more effectively used existing enforcement tools and techniques such as electronic surveillance and undercover agents. New guidelines for domestic security investigations were issued in 1983 to prevent abuses by the Government without inhibiting the Government's antiterrorism activities. The Justice Department's intensified effort is bearing fruit; in 1983, terrorist incidents in the United States decreased almost 40 percent. However, Federal law enforcement officials need improved legal tools, as proposed to Congress by the Reagan administration.