30 Crimes the Government Chooses to Not Label Terrorism

We recently looked at why the government and the press (outside of some bloggers and opinion columnists) have not labeled the murder of an abortion provider as â€œterrorism.â€ Itâ€™s important to remember, though, that this isnâ€™t an isolated incident. The word terrorism is used by the FBI and Department of Justice only when it fits a certain political agenda.

The government has systematically labeled animal rights and environmental activists who have never harmed anyone as â€œthe number one domestic terrorism threat.â€ Yet the term is not applied to individuals who have committed much more serious (and often violent) crimes either for personal gain or for right-wing motives.

Here are 30 cases that the government has chosen to not label as â€œterrorismâ€:

Of course we could keep going, there’s no shortage of examples to draw from. To be clear, I am not arguing that all of these examples are in fact “terrorism” (I’ll be outlining what I think are the top criteria for defining acts of terrorism in a future article). But if the government defines “terrorism” so broadly as to include releasing mink from fur farms and protesting legally while wearing masks, then why don’t any of these qualify?