New York Beefs Up Counterterrorism Efforts

Luigi Mangione's terrorism charge is symptomatic of a creeping counterterror state

Task force deployed to prevent New Year’s terrorism in New York

New York’s controversial decision to charge Luigi Mangione with terrorism was made possible by a law passed in response to 9/11. Following the 2001 attack, New York created a sprawling counterterrorism apparatus that continues to grow despite the official end of the Global War on Terror. Today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced “enhanced security measures” for New Year’s, including some new facts that shed light on the alarming growth of the counterterror state.

The announcement reveals that this year, the New York State Office of Counter Terrorism oversaw an 18 percent increase in its assessments of so-called “infrastructure locations,” an elastic term stretched to cover things like colleges, shopping centers and stadiums. Over 200 such “infrastructure locations” were visited by Office of Counter Terrorism staff and law enforcement teams, 58 percent of the locations never having been visited before, according to Hochul’s announcement. In addition to the assessments, the Counter Terrorism Office conducted exercises at nearly a thousand locations in each of what is ominously described as New York’s “16 Counter Terrorism Zones.”

Then there’s the Counter Terrorism Office’s “terrorism awareness presentations” to over 1,400 New Yorkers, as well as over 2,600 cyber threat briefings “to ensure awareness…” There are few things the counterterror state loves more than spreading awareness via this battery of briefings, threat reports, assessments, exercises and the like. They may not do much to actually reduce terrorism, but they’re great at spreading fear about the supposed threat, not just among government partners but private industry as well. The genius of the threat industrial complex is its warnings are shared privately with corporations and even the news media on the condition that those warnings not be shared with the general public. As a result, when they get things wrong, they’re almost never called on it. Good work if you can find it.

Oh, and as if all that isn’t creepy enough, there’s also a military component. Hochul’s announcement says that the New York National Guard “security force” was on duty this weekend in anticipation of New Years, “supplementing law enforcement” transit locations including even bus stations. The security force, called Joint Task Force Empire Shield, was established, of course, in response to 9/11.

The global war on terror is over but the counterterror state keeps growing because the authorities no longer define the terrorists as primarily global. In the government’s view, nowadays the terrorists are domestic, like Mangione and even his “sympathizers” online. See, for example, the leaked NYPD intelligence report I published last week that focuses on “a wide range of extremists” online expressing sympathy for Mangione. Or the Homeland Security Secretary’s singling out of these social media posts in remarks declaring “domestic violent extremism” as one of the greatest threats today.

In other words, the enemy is us.