WE DISCUSS DOMESTIC TERRORISM AND THEIR MOTIVATIONS

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Episode Transcript

(00:06):
Welcome to Inside the Criminal Mind podcast, where we analyze some of the most
notorious criminal cases with psychology and criminologycombined. Well, welcome everyone, and
welcome Andy, Hey, Carlos,how are you today? Doing great?

(00:31):
We're gonna have an interesting conversation today. I guess you're gonna tell us a
little bit about this model that youdeveloped called the PEPs model before we get
started. To make sure everybody,if you want to support our podcast,
to share and subscribe. But we'regonna talk about the PEPs model and domestic
terrorism. So we're going to coversome groups like Antifa, Proud Boys.
We'll get some insight about them,and we'll also talk a little bit about

(00:56):
was that other group I think Boogaloowas the one that people were was coming
around. Yeah, and I'll mentiona little bit about those groups. Andy,
if you want, then you cancategorize them as you wish. Sure
if that works. Interesting because theProudboy founder Gavin McGinnis MCI and as he's
actually from Canada. In a videohe posted this is about two years ago,

(01:19):
he publicly claimed to have quit thefar right group Proud Boys. The
book came two days after the Guardianexclusively revealed that the FBI had categorized the
Proud Boys as an extremist group withties to white nationalism and a briefing to
Washington State law enforcement maybe just coincidence, I don't know, and sometimes rambling

(01:41):
video mcinness reference to Guardian story andthe prosecution of seven group members over a
street brawl in New York City inOctober of twenty eighteen, as he offered
reasons for resigning as of today,I'm officially disassociating myself from the Proud Boys,
and then he goes on to talka little bit of about them.
It's known as a far right group, depends really what outlet you're looking at,

(02:04):
how they're labeling them. And that'swhy I think it's going to be
a great discussion today with Andy.He's going to give us some more clarity
about these and what motivates these individuals. Gavin McGinnis actually was born in England
and he lived in Canada. It'sreally interesting too, because I've seen a
lot of I'm not saying this isbut I've seen a lot of inciting from
foreign entities like China and Russia,which they've known to do in the past

(02:29):
inciting groups. We know a fewyears back, I think on twenty sixteen,
one of the Black Lives Matter groupson Facebook has actually had nothing to
do with Black Lives Matter. Groupactually was ran by a Russian who had
over one hundred and fifty thousand followersand were even setting up events through this
Facebook group. Kind of weird stuff. So we're going a lot. I

(02:52):
don't want to go down that rabbithole, but it's interesting to see it,
and I know there's other groups aswell. Andy. I think the
newest one was a boogaloo came inin the news the other day, just
to give it people some quick briefinsight on boogleloo. It refers to as
several genres of American popular music inthe nineteen sixties. It was a Latin

(03:15):
boogaloo and bogloo funk dance, asocial dance over there, but the participants,
I think it was a dance.Since I don't dance, I don't
really know. But the bogloo movementadherence to which are often referred to as
the Boogaloo Boys, is loosely organized, and we're gonna find out some of
these are American far right extremist movement. Participants generally identify as a libertarian citizen

(03:38):
militia and say they're preparing four orseek to in sight quite different each one
the boogaloo a second American civil warthat will overthrow the US government. The
movement consists of pro gun, antigovernment groups. The specific ideology of the
group varies, and it seems tobe the common consensus for a lot of
these groups. They seem to bewhether it's the right wing a lack of

(04:01):
jobs that I call them, likethe bouvuloos, or the left winners like
Antifa, if you have. Thefirst thing we look at from an investigative
standpoint is the structure of the group. I've been doing this for a long
long time, Carlos, as youknow, and have published and studied and
actually worked these ceases. You know'scriminal investigations. I have yet to uncover

(04:24):
a case of a state, anation's governance being overthrown by a network based
terrorist group. It doesn't happen.They have to coalect into a hierarchical group.
There have to be a clear leader, command and control, and by
doing so they become more obvious,They loser autonomy, They become targets.

(04:47):
We saw this with ISIS, Wesaw this with al Qaeda. It was
a dangerous thing to be the leaderof Alcata as of Samma Binlan found out.
It was a dangerous thing to bethe leader of Isis, as bag
Daddy found out. So the ideaof loose based groups that have this autonomy
to act on a conception or aphilosophy, like out the Animal Liberation Front,

(05:11):
like ELK, the Earth Liberation Front, it's not new. These are
not new. So the Boola boosor the power Boys, or the whatever
you want to call them. Today, what we really look at is the
structure of the group and then theunderlying philosophy, if you will, to
determine the mindset of the individuals whowould join or follow that particular group.

(05:33):
And you know, Andy, Iknow we have a brief time today and
I my apologies folks on that,but and also apologize for I think we
had a little bit of long stretchwithout a show. Busy lives here,
busy lives here, consulting and whatnot. As Andy, I also want to
make sure if we can't, whetheryou can do it now or at the
end of so I know you're goingto talk about your PEPs model. I

(05:53):
can't wait. But I also wantedto know if you could tell us a
little bit about what doesn't mean ifyou designate Antifa, for instance, as
a terrorist group. What legal differencesdoes it make? Does it change the
capacity and the resources that it givesthe federal government and law enforcement towards these
groups? So I'll let you decidewhen you share that info. That's a

(06:15):
that's a you know, a there'sa couple of distinctions via the presidential order
h you know, naming uh Antifaas a terrorist organization one the way the
data is collected on their activities.In more practical terms, if it's an
international case, if you're aiding inthe betting the terrorist organization, you can
be charged criminally for doing so.Uh So, if you you know,

(06:38):
talk about joining ISIS and you doany overt acts in regard to joint ISIS,
including sending emails or communicating uh throughother ways, sending money, those
those then you know, give yousome liability for criminal charges. So those
are the big But in this particularcase, and again this is my opinion,

(06:58):
it's just grandstanding because really in TIFAdoesn't exist other than as a concept
of a bunch of anarchists. Uh. And so you know it's it's to
me, it's not It really doesn'taddress anything in practical terms. Would it
be more is more beneficial to likediagnose but to designate the drug cartels as
a terrorist organization in your opinion,Well, they can't, and we can

(07:21):
get into that for a specific reason. Uh. Going to the definition of
terrorism, you could, you couldif you if you're willing. Congress is
willing to change the definitions of terrorismand Department of Justice follows with a change.
Maybe that's a good place to startwith. The conversation is if you're
looking at terrorism, you're you're lookingat a specific act of criminal activity.

(07:44):
Uh. Be merely being an extremist, you know, mearly Uh espousing Uh,
cognitively closed rhetoric in a in anextreme mindset is not in and of
itself a terrorist. Uh. Itdoes not make a terrorist. You could
be an extremist that won't meanings.But then we have a bunch of them
on the radio and the media whoobviously skew hatred and conspiracies and so for

(08:11):
those people aren't terrorists. So thedefinition there are three in the federal government.
Some would argue there only should beone, but there are three for
for a specific reason. The Departmentof Defense has a terrorism definition, Department
of State has the terrorism definition,and the Department of Justice has the terrorism
definition. Each three of those agencieshave very separate missions. The military fights

(08:33):
wars, obviously, so the merethreat of action by a terrorist, not
the actual you know, violence,but the mere threat in a war zone
allows them to take legal actions.A good example of that. An enemy
of the estate of our state wasanwar ALACKI, an American citizens. He
happened to be in a war zonein Yemen. The US military didn't have

(08:56):
to tell him hanging hands up,you're under arrest. Because their definition of
terrorism allows them to use lethal force. They put a healthcat missile. One
is trucking chill then, right,So in that case the military calls are
putting the warhead on the forehead,and they can do that under their construct
and their definition, even though byrules of law and due process that act

(09:20):
would have been illegal for an FBIagent to do it. The Department of
states that terrorism can be sponsored bya state, but a state cannot act,
you know, as a terrorist.So you know, a quote unquote
terror state like you know famously Libya. They were sponsors of acts of terrorism,
which allows the State Department a littlebit of wiggle room for diplomacy because

(09:45):
our policy is we don't negotiate withterrorists. So by saying that they're not
a clandestine state but a governing state, they can sponsor terrorism in our department,
they can still negotiate with them.In practical terms. The Department of
just this definition, and this isgoing to your question. It means that
there has to be acts of violenceagainst people or property to coerce the government

(10:09):
or a segment of population in furtheranceof political or social objectives. So there's
you know, several parts to thatdefinition. First of all, there has
to be violence against people. Obviously, that's that's a given right. You
blow up nine to eleven, youblow up buildings like the Pentagon, or
use incindiary devices airplanes in this caseto blow up the twin towers, and

(10:31):
you're killing people and damaging property.That's an act of terrorism if it's in
furtherance of political and social objectives,and in the particular case, the terrorists
were acting on of Alcada Alcada's statedgoal was to overthrow the United States,
which is a political goal. Andthen you meet the elements of terrorism.

(10:56):
So let's go into your PEPs modelhere and we'll talk about that. So
an Antifa group, for instance,what would be some of the driving forces
for that groups? I know youin your PET model you describe motivational factors
in the UH. So if youhave let's say in TVA, you have

(11:18):
a loose network of actors right whoare looting, their busting up windows.
Their their agenda is to create chaos, to promote anarchy. They're one is
wanting to They absolutely want to defundthe police. In fact, they want
to defund all governments. They wantno rules or regulations or laws. So

(11:39):
uh they want autonomous zones in placeslike Seattle where they took over the East
Preachings, they were citizens to bethe US rule. So in TIFA,
this loose, loose network based organization, their goal is to create chaos,

(12:00):
to promote anarchy. They want tobe fund policing. The East Precinct in
Seattle is a good example. Butthey don't want to. They don't want
to have no RUK. They simplywant to impart their owns. Here's one
thing we found out, Carlos,in terms of our research on terrorists organizations.
When you have two or more people, you have a group. And

(12:20):
every group we study, from theBoy Scouts of America to Alcata to the
US military, every group has tohave rules for behavior. These anarchists that
are promoting chaos, they just simplywant to replace the rules that we have
with their own set of rules.And so, going through the pest model,

(12:41):
we look at what are the motivationsfor these individuals to commit these crimes,
and we started with the very definitionsas I mentioned earlier. So the
definition of terrorism by the Department ofJustice says that it has to be in
furtherance of political and or social motives. You have to do it in furtherance
of political social objectives. So thosebecame the first two criteria for motives in

(13:07):
terms of, you know, terroristbehavior. Specifically, it has to be
socially motivated I'm doing it for thegroup, or has to be politically motivated
I'm looking to replace a system ofgovernance with another system of government. Then
we looked at, well, whatabout people that are killing other people because
they're just pissed off. You know, I'm angry and I go into a
school and then I start shooting things. You mentioned the drug cartels and the

(13:31):
reason why they're not included is they'renot part of the definition. The motive
for drug cartels is economic. Now, now, you could argue, and
some have argued that what about agroup like fark, a Colombian based the
narco terrorist group, because they usedterrorist acts and tactics to help them,

(13:52):
you know, grow and sell theirnarcotics, and in fact, in some
cases they actually became involved in thepolitical process. Isn't that a proof that
these narco groups can be also terroristgroups? And the answer is yes,
if you can show the nexus toa political and or social objective in terms
of their violence against people of property, even if they're uh uh you know,

(14:15):
uh supplemental motive is economic. Let'ssay you're robbing banks as a white
supremacy flight Robert Matthews and the Orderdid, but they also have a political
objective, then absolutely they fall withinthe definition of terrorism. But if they're
purely economically motivated, right, thenthey're not a terrorist organization. If they're
purely personally motivated. CHOI goes intoVirginia, tech and starts shooting people that

(14:39):
he's pissed off. Stephen. Uhh, yeah, Stephen Paddock. So we
just did c We did a reviewof that case. He was personally motivated
the best we at best evidence wehave, there was no political end or
social motivation. Therefore he's not aterrorist. So if you expand the definition,

(15:01):
and absolutely you could, you couldmake the definition as broad as you
want. But what we found waswhen we did the research that people are
motivated based on a tax on sofour categories, and that's that's created tests
personal motivation, economic motivation, powerbased or political motivation, and social motivation.

(15:22):
Now, some years later with interestingCarlos, is that a guy named
Clark McCauley from you know Clark Yet, a well known terrorist author and researching,
wrote a book. Co authored thebook with a female I forget her
name, but the book was calledFriction, and he looked at seven trajectories
towards political violence. He included thingslike unfreezing, which you know, means

(15:48):
that you believed in the system ofgovernance that you were in, but some
process you decided to believe that systemof governance and develop your own philosophy and
say like a homegrown violent extremist likeAdam Hitler grew up in Austria, becomes
you know, a German chancellor andthen a charitan. Many people's love you,

(16:10):
so unfreezing's one personal grievance, groupgrievance, slippery slope. So he
created seven variations of what we hadin four categories. Right. The AR
taxonomy is very simple on its outset, personal economics, power based on social
but then it becomes more nuanced becausenobody acts simply for personal motives. There's

(16:36):
always some underlying, perhaps group motivesand or power based motives. They're trying
to make a point politically, maybethey're trying to make a point personally as
well. In some cases though it'snot clear, and we can only define
what is clear. So I'll giveyou a real world example, Joe Stack.

(16:56):
Joe Stack was a person like LeeHarvey Hicks, who hated the i
R arrest. The i R she believed had done him personally wrong.
So he had a personal grievance.So he writes a manifesto railing against the
federal government and our tax system,and then he gets in his airplane he
sets his house on fire. Sothe I r S doesn't have a house,
you know, the to seas.He gets in his ASSESSMA airplane and

(17:18):
flies it into an I R Sbuilding in Austin, Texas, killing an
I r S employee. But inthe assessment of that crime the Bureau of
the FBI and the Department of Justice, his motives were personal even though he
killed the person and committed violence againstproperty, but he wasn't doing it to
coerce the government for political or socialobjectives, and so they ruled it,

(17:44):
you know, just a loan actof a crazy man. So going back
to your point's point, so welook at whether it's Antifa or the Boogaloos
or the Proud Boys or the kuKlux Klan or whatever. The way it
works as you look at the organizationto structure first, and that determines your
investigative approach. So we use differenttechniques and I won't get into great detail,

(18:10):
but we get into different techniques againsta hierarchical group where we use the
Creni price theory versus a network basedgroup where we may use more intelligence based
and covert operation techniques. Another interestingpoint I think you made an opening introduction
is the history of terrorism and domesticterrorism specifically. A lot of Americans don't

(18:37):
know that the FBI didn't have aterrorist division until October of nineteen ninety nine.
Before that period, all of theterrorism came out of Division five,
which is the same division that workscounterintelligence cases. And back in the nineteen
sixties, where we saw a foreigninfluencer trying to all themselves in our domestic

(19:02):
politics, that being Russia. Russiawas sowing the seeds of unrest in the
civil rights movement, paying millions ofdollars to organizations like the Black Liberation Army,
the Weather Underground, even Martin LutherKing's Southern UH, the Southern Democratic
Conference. I believe they were gettingmillions of dollars in the FBI. The

(19:25):
FBI actually infiltrated the Communist Party ofthe United States. So when you talk
about designations of yes, the bookI would offer to our audience to read
is Operations Solo. It details theFBI's infiltration of the Communist Party of the
United States. And so again we'relooking at the you know things I'm talking

(19:48):
about here, you know, interms of how we go about identifying the
sure of the organization to influence andor UH to uh infiltrate that organization,
so the can be neutralized because ofthe criminal activity they're engaged in. And
so in the Operation Solo, theFBI able to identify and develop two individuals

(20:11):
as informants. That that allowed theFBI to follow the money from the Soviet
Union into these various organizations. Atthe time, the FBI didn't refer to
them as domestic terrists. They referredto these as national security cases. They
were called domestic security investigations of subversives. And so, you know, people

(20:36):
like Martin Luther King were labeled subversivesbecause they were getting money from the Soviet
Union to commit you know, unrestin the United States. And it's interesting
we've come full circle because now wedon't know where Antifa is getting their money.
People say sorrows and you know Clinton, you know, just weird,

(20:56):
wacky conspiratorial side. I think youwere hitting it on the mark. I
think China, I Ran, Russiaare looking at the situation of the United
States and certainly spending money to tryto create imlitate unrested here in the United
States during a very important election cycle. That's interesting because I know, I

(21:17):
think Operation Infection by Russia where theyactually were spreading rumors and saying false newspapers
that the HIV virus started at Fordtricin the United States. And then China
just jumped on the bandwagon about amonth and a half ago, saying that
the COVID nineteen started at four DTrick as well. Well. Actually earlier

(21:40):
than that, the Chinese were startingpropaganda. It was brought to China by
a delegation of American soldiers in Octoberof last year, twenty nineteen. Ye
and I'm not saying that right.And by the way, Carlos, you
know, we don't have clean hands. The United States does the same type
of intelligence operations. Again, withoutgetting into details, you know, there's

(22:03):
a long history of Pittsford cat kindof misinformation by our intelligence agencies to cause
and sew unrest in other governments.What were Here's the big thing, though,
here's the difference on the seen isand part of it is the structure
of the way we get our information. So Americans have you know, you

(22:26):
know, fairly recently within the lastdecade, received information not from a straw
like we used to get from ABC, CBS and the NBC, and even
when we went to the twenty fourhour news cycle in the mid seventies with
CNN and the other ones, FoxNews, cable news, it was still
like a trickle, but now it'slike a hydrant. And the amount of

(22:48):
misinformation and disinformation that is on theInternet that people promulgate through Facebook and other
platforms is unbelievable. Isn't that daythat goes by my nu speed, I
don't get some bullshit article. Itis absolutely false. And if you took
five minutes as a as a youknow, as a consumer, so caveat

(23:10):
Antor if you take five minutes andtake just the headline of what is on
social media, snap it into yourGoogle, you're gonna find fact check locations.
Whether it's USA Today, whether it'sFox News, whether it's Snoops,
you're gonna find that the story wasfalse. Right, But that does to
stop people because it helps them confirmtheir own bias that you know, Hillary

(23:33):
Clinton or Hitley Clinton, if youprefer eats babies, or part of a
pedophilia ring in a pizza shop inDC, right, or the Sandy Hook
school shooting was all stage or orSteve Paddock was a member of ISIS,
or the Jews were the ones responsiblefor nine to eleven. And that's why

(23:56):
no Jewish person was killed in theTwin Towers, because they got three day
of warning. It's incredible that wesee this online. People believe it right,
that's truly, and so we goback to what we had. Here's
what we do now, Carlos.In terms of domestic roism, in the
nineteen sixties, as I mentioned,they were considered national security cases, and

(24:18):
you saw groups in a very tumultuoustime in our in our republic where there
was a lot of dismantling of systemicracist policy and law. Jim Crow laws
went away, these segregation laws wentaway. The civil rights movement led to
a lot of positive effects that inabout you know what, sixty years later,

(24:40):
fifty five there years later thereabouts,a blackmail was allowed, was was
was able, you know it wasallowed to run for president and then was
able to win the presidency. That'sphenomenal growth socially done, not not just
through peaceful marches. By the way, there was a lot of violence.
And then iineteen sixties and early seventies, So the FBI's response, the federal

(25:03):
government's response was to try to parcelout those people who had a peaceful and
google right to protests, list theirgrievances against the government, assemble and have
respeech, and to use the ballotbox and the judiciary, because that's what
our founding fathers gave us to changesocial change in this country. Not the
gun, not the musket, youknow, not the bumps. And so

(25:26):
the FBI split those two groups aslaw abiders and law breakers. That hasn't
changed today. In the domestic terroristworld of nineteen sixties, you had the
new left groups, the Weather Underground, you had the Black Panther Party,
the Black Liberation Army, so youhad the you know, white and black
leftist groups, Marxist groups that notnone like the ANTIFA, and so then

(25:51):
in the nineteen seventies you had thePLO, you had the emergence of the
Palestinian Liberation Organization, the nineteen seventytwo Olympic Terroistacts, and then you had
the Red Brigade and you had SLA, the Sybanese Liberation Army in California.
So in terms of domestics terrorism,it was pretty still pretty much you know,
leftist groups, but we started seeingan emergence of right wing groups in

(26:15):
the late seventies early eighties, BruceMatthews and the Order, anti terrorrists,
anti taxation groups like CSA, andthen you and then you started seeing militia
groups proliferate in the late eighties earlynineties because of fears of gun restrictions and

(26:36):
gun laws. You started seeing anemergence in the early nineties of single issue
groups, these groups that only caredabout one thing. So like the Army
of God was only about abortion,the Prenia, the Phineas Priesthood was only
about you know, the ending abortion. The Animal Liberation Front wanted to have
the same rights extended to all livingthings, not just humans. The Earth

(26:56):
Liberation Front was big in Conservancy becauseif you remember at the time, they
were talking about we're running out oflandfill space and we're fouling, I mean
this whole you know, global change, and you know the global warming stuff
that's not something recent, you knowPost two thousand, that started way back
in the late eighties early nineties,and by the way, animated from Europe.

(27:18):
And then you had the paper terrorists, like the Sovereign Citizens and these
lone wolf attacks, right, solike Timothy McVeigh, which wasn't technically a
lone wolf, but they had,you know, to at least one other
consferred and probably two. But youstarted seeing these these more loan attacks.
And by the way, the termlone wolf comes from a guy named Curtis

(27:38):
believe. His first name was Calm. White supremacists, I hate the term.
I'd rather refer to them as lonewat jobs, but or long criminals.
And then in the two thousands wesaw of course the international terrorism and
Islamits coming here to the States andattacking us, and white supremacists continuing on.
And right now what we're seeing isextremists from both sides, from the

(28:03):
one nationalist on the right and Antifaon the left. And that's where right
now. Great great way to end, because we're just running out of time,
great conversation. I think we shouldcontinue to explore this a little bit
more next time, or maybe nexttime we're going to a different talk.
I think we might be able tocover next time, uh, psyops,
right, psychological operations. We canget into that a little bit of what's

(28:26):
happening out there in today's world.I think I really think it's a great
justice we can do for society tohelp them out. Andy, thanks again
time yeah, I enjoyed it.I apologize for the barking dog, but
that's that's part of the COVID world. And when you have a puppy running
around and you have a thunderstorm inthe background, well that's what I like

(28:47):
about this show. It's just real, all right. Thank you everyone again
for listening to us. We'll catchall next time. Make sure to share
and subscribe. Hey, Bank,