Jane Harman: “On 9/11 we were attacked by foreigners who had come to this country legally. The next time and, sadly, I believe there…”

“On 9/11 we were attacked by foreigners who had come to this country legally. The next time and, sadly, I believe there will be a next time, my assumption is that many who attack us will already be here, and some will be U.S. citizens. Homegrown terror is a phenomenon many countries are scrambling to understand, including the British, as they are under major threat from it. Theirs is a peculiar kind with a large Pakistani population that is not well assimilated. But America has a problem too, unique in nature, and we fail to understand it at our peril. Far from being immune to the danger of homegrown terror, think Timothy McVeigh or Theodore Kaczynski, the threat today is infinitely greater and more likely to be influenced by events in the Middle East or by the larger struggle against radical Islam. What causes an individual or group to, first, coalesce around a set of radical principles or a charismatic leader, activities permitted by our Bill of Rights, but subsequently to embrace a violent agenda intended to inflict maximum pain and disruption on his neighbors, potential treason, is not well understood.”