Terrorism DA

Terror risk is at an all-time high

Mayer 16 [Matt Mayer, visiting fellow at AEI, President @ Buckeye Institute for Public Policy, “Terrorism’s dark clouds are
gathering on the horizon”, https://www.aei.org/publication/terrorisms-dark-clouds-are-gathering-on-the-horizon/)]

The terrorist threat is higher than ever . It is only going to get worse. Two trends
occurring in the Middle East foreshadow a worsening threat environment in the West.
First, with the collapse of ISIS’s dominance in Syria and Iraq, the foreign fighters who made
their way to the Middle East are coming back . Security entities in the West are doing all they can to prevent their return, but,
given the numerous land and water entry points around the Mediterranean Sea and continued migrant flows within which they can hide, they simply can’t stop every returning

Equally troubling is the presence in the West of frustrated fighters who wanted to
fighter.

travel to the Middle East to join ISIS, but couldn’t find a way. Estimates place the number of these radicalized
individuals at more than 10,000 — roughly 10 times the number of returning fighters. Combined with the million-plus migrants (about whom we know very little) who poured
into Europe over the last year, European security agencies are spread too thinly. Their ability to identify and monitor, let alone stop, all of these individuals is weak, at best.

The second trend is the re-emergence of al-Qaeda (not that it ever went away), especially in Syria where an al-Qaeda
affiliate has patiently established itself. In a shift toward the ISIS model, al-Qaeda has moved from focusing largely on spectacular, catastrophic attacks on the West to calling on
adherents to “attack the West by whatever means.” The West’s intelligence agencies have become very good at detecting and thwarting the former types of attacks, but simply

the Federal Bureau of Investigation,

aren’t constructed and resourced for an Uberized terrorism environment. In the United States,

with only 35,000 personnel, is grossly outmanned . Moreover, a centralized entity is ill-equipped to fight a decentralized
enemy. The only way to increase our capabilities and odds of winning is to evolve our national security apparatus by decentralizing elements to local law enforcement, which has

a growing volume of terrorist recruiting,

a million badged officers and decades of experience to contribute to the fight. First, with

communications, planning and execution occurring behind encrypted

technologies, substantially increasing the use of human intelligence (HUMINT) being done by local law enforcement is vital. Given their years of experience
infiltrating organized crime, gangs and transnational networks, local law enforcement in our higher-risk cities possess the skill and legal framework to monitor, surveil and go

.
undercover when necessary. HUMINT will give us the access undermined by the decline in signals intelligence due to encryption Next, we can’t defeat terrorism without the
help of Muslim communities. Most of the attacks over the last year involved suspicious precursor activities witnessed by family, friends, neighbors or acquaintances. We must
build inroads into the Muslim community to increase the trust they have in law enforcement and open critical lines of communication. Doing so will facilitate cooperation, as
Muslim parents realize reaching out to law enforcement could get their wayward child help, not handcuffs or worse. We need to build off-ramps before young Muslims are too
far down the radicalization path. Last, we must reform our domestic intelligence enterprise to consolidate information and intelligence activities in our states. Currently, in too
many places, those activities are bifurcated into two different entities (FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Forces and DHS-funded fusion centers) residing in physically separate
locations. While sincere efforts are made to connect the two entities, it is axiomatic that separation and distinct operations increase the odds key data are not gathered and

analyzed in one place. We can’t keep failing to connect the dots. Terrorism’s dark clouds are gathering on the
horizon. Our Constitution gives the federal government great powers to act to keep us safe. It also recognizes the important role local law enforcement plays in our
domestic security. We need a president who will bring both pieces together to form a national security whole.

Laxing immigration policies leads to an increase risk of terrorism

French 17 [David French, 5-23-2017, "The World Is Too Comfortable with Terror," National Review,
https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/05/terror-attacks-rising-immigration-safe-havens-isis/] TA – H.G.S.

While it’s impossible to predict any given terror attack, there are two laws of terrorism that work together to guarantee that attacks
will occur, and they’ll occur with increasing frequency. First, when
terrorists are granted safe havens to
plan, train, equip, and inspire terror attacks, then they will strike, and they’ll keep
striking not just until the safe havens are destroyed but also until the cells and
affiliates they’ve established outside their havens are rooted out . Second, when you import
immigrants at any real scale from jihadist regions, then you will import the cultural, religious, and political views that incubate jihad.
Jihadist ideas flow not from soil but from people, and when you import people you import their ideas. Let’s look at how these two
ideas have worked together in both Europe and America. The map below (from AFP) charts significant terror
attacks in Europe (including Turkey). You’ll
note a significant increase in activity since 2014,
since ISIS stampeded across Syria and into Turkey and established a terrorist
caliphate in the heart of the Middle East. There existed a safe haven and a
population to inspire back in Europe. The result was entirely predictable: What about the United States? A
similar phenomenon was in play. This Heritage Foundation timeline of terror attacks and plots documents a total of 95 incidents
since 9/11. The numbers are revealing. After
the implementation of the (now) much-derided Bush
strategy, there were a grand total of 27 terror attacks and plots — almost all of
them foiled. After the end of the Bush administration, the numbers skyrocketed,
with 68 plots or attacks recorded since . A number of them, including the Fort Hood shooting, the Boston
Marathon bombing, the San Bernardino mass murder, and the Orlando nightclub massacre, have been terrifying successful. Indeed,
there have been more domestic terror plots and attacks since the rise of ISIS in the
summer of 2014 than there were in the entirety of the Bush administration after
9/11. And make no mistake, jihadist terrorists are disproportionately immigrants and children of immigrants.

Lone wolf attacks are growing and cause extinction

Ackerman and Pinson 14 [Gray A., Director of the Special Projects Division at the National Consortium for the
Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START); Lauren E., Senior Research/Project Manager at START and PhD student
at Yale University, 2014 (“An Army of One: Assessing CBRN Pursuit and Use by Lone Wolves and Autonomous Cells,” Terrorism
and Political Violence (Vol. 26, Issue 1)]

The first question to answer is whence the concerns about the nexus between CBRN weapons
and isolated actors come and whether these are overblown. The general threat of mass
violence posed by lone wolves and small autonomous cells has been detailed in
accompanying issue contributions, but the potential use of CBRN weapons by such perpetrators
presents some singular features that either amplify or supplement the attributes of the
more general case and so are deserving of particular attention. Chief among these is
the impact of rapid technological development. Recent and emerging advances in a
variety of areas, from synthetic biology 3 to nanoscale engineering, 4 have opened doors
not only to new medicines and materials, but also to new possibilities for malefactors to
inflict harm on others. What is most relevant in the context of lone actors and small
autonomous cells is not so much the pace of new invention, but rather the
commercialization and consumerization of CBRN weapons-relevant technologies.
This process often entails an increase in the availability and safety of the technology,
with a concurrent diminution in the cost, volume, and technical knowledge
required to operate it. Thus, for example, whereas fifty years ago producing large
quantities of certain chemical weapons might have been a dangerous and inefficient affair
requiring a large plant, expensive equipment, and several chemical engineers, with the advent of
chemical microreactors,5 the same processes might be accomplished far more cheaply
and safely on a desktop assemblage , purchased commercially and monitored by a
single chemistry graduate student.¶ The rapid global spread and increased user-
friendliness of many technologies thus represents a potentially radical shift from the
relatively small scale of harm a single individual or small autonomous group could
historically cause. 6 From the limited reach and killing power of the sword, spear, and bow, to
the introduction of dynamite and eventually the use of our own infrastructures against us (as on
September 11), the number of people that an individual who was unsupported by a
broader political entity could kill with a single action has increased from single
digits to thousands. Indeed, it has even been asserted that ‘‘over time. . . as the leverage
provided by technology increases, this threshold will finally reach its culmination—
with the ability of one man to declare war on the world and win. ’’7 Nowhere is this
trend more perceptible in the current age than in the area of unconventional weapons.¶ These
new technologies do not simply empower users on a purely technical level. Globalization and
the expansion of information networks provide new opportunities for disaffected
individuals in the farthest corners of the globe to become familiar with core
weapon concepts and to purchase equipment—online technical courses and eBay are
undoubtedly a boon to would-be purveyors of violence. Furthermore, even the most
solipsistic misanthropes, people who would never be able to function socially as part of an
operational terrorist group, can find radicalizing influences or legitimation for their
beliefs in the maelstrom of virtual identities on the Internet.¶ All of this can spawn,
it is feared, a more deleterious breed of lone actors, what have been referred to in some
quarters as ‘‘super-empowered individuals.’’8 Conceptually, super-empowered individuals
are atomistic game-changers , i.e., they constitute a single (and often singular)
individual who can shock the entire system (whether national, regional, or global) by
relying only on their own resources. Their core characteristics are that they have
superior intelligence, the capacity to use complex communications or technology
systems, and act as an individual or a ‘‘lone-wolf.’’9 The end result, according to the
pessimists, is that if one of these individuals chooses to attack the system, ‘‘the
unprecedented nature of his attack ensures that no counter-measures are in
place to prevent it. And when he strikes, his attack will not only kill massive amounts
of people , but also profoundly change the financial, political, and social systems
that govern modern life.’’10 It almost goes without saying that the same concerns attach
to small autonomous cells, whose members’ capabilities and resources can be
combined without appreciably increasing the operational footprint presented to
intelligence and law enforcement agencies seeking to detect such behavior.

Bioterror is possible and an existential risk

Von Hippel 17 – Frank Von Hippel, Professor of Public and International Affairs at the
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, former assistant director for
national security in the White House Office of Science and Technology, Ph.D. in Physics from
Oxford University (“Bioweapons Then and Now,” Nuclear Futures Lab @ Princeton University,
February 19th, https://nuclearfutures.princeton.edu/wws353-2017-blog-week03-1/)

“ Bioterrorism could kill more than nuclear war – but no one is ready to deal with it,” says Bill Gates at
the recent Munich Security Conference (Washington Post, 2017). His remarks focused on the world’s governments’ relative lack of
preparation to respond to any pandemic, manmade or not. Although the probabilities of either large-scale war event are low, the
potential threat of a deadly biological weapon on major civilian areas is high. Even
developed countries’ public health regulations and precautions could provide little defense towards a virulent, engineered microbe.
Bioweapons were originally considered in the same league as chemical weapons
until germ theory and epidemiology were well understood. After use in World War I, chemical
weapons faced opposition by the public and many governments around the world for its inhumane killing mechanism. The Geneva
Protocol, signed 1925, prohibited chemical weapon use primarily – bioweapon use was included on the virtue of similar
unconventionality. While bioweapons were ineffective for the short battlefield timescales, some saw the wartime advantages of using
them to cripple enemy cities, economies, and supplies. The Protocol did not have binding restrictions nor enforcement, and states
such as France and the Soviet Union pursued bioweapon research and development under intense secrecy. According to the
Guillemin chapter, a few visionary scientists were responsible for advocating for and heading the state-sponsored programs in the
face of adverse international treaties and public opinion. This stands in contrast with scientists’ attitudes towards nuclear weapons,
who were more reluctant to aid in development after recognizing its destructive power. As a few countries developed bioweapons
under secrecy, the threat of the unknown spurred other countries to adopt defensive programs to understand bioweapons. These
programs gradually expanded into offensive capabilities. For example, the U.S. tested how sprayed microbials might spread in a
metropolitan area by releasing a benign bacteria over San Francisco in 1950 (PBS, 2017). Fortunately, these
weapons
were never used and President Richard Nixon denounced them completely in 1969. Not much later,
151 parties signed the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972 which formally banned development, production, and possession of
bioweapons. Today, bioterrorism is a more likely source of biological attacks . It
requires malicious intent, process know-how, and the right supplies – all of which
are available . While crude nuclear devices can also be fashioned with general ease,
domestic and international nuclear activity is much more closely monitored than
biological research is. It would be rather difficult to regulate and restrict activities
that could be precursors to bioweapons. Rather, governments may only have responsive measures to counter
this form of terrorism, of which Bill Gates claims governments have not seriously considered yet.