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In Part 1 of this article, I pointed to the rapid post-election growth of the leftist so-called “anti-fascist” (Antifa) movement. This movement has some clear parallels to the draft protests of the late 1960s and early 1970s.  Now, in Part 2 , I’ll further describe how the threat spirals will likely develop.

The Crypto Guys

It is safe to assume that cryptography and novel communications techniques will be used by leftist domestic terror organizations, as they internally develop their tradecraft. It is very likely that anonymous mail forwarders, Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and a variety of cryptographic tools are already in use by Antifa. This can only be expected to expand, with the passage of time. I anticipate that the Antifa groups will assume that all publicly-available VPN services and encryption sites are fully co-opted or even the creations of national intelligence organizations. Therefore, some of their cells will be devoted to creating their own crypto tools and communications tunnels. The challenge for the intelligence agencies will be in detecting and countering that infrastructure.  This will probably create a whole series of spirals, just unto itself.

Going Full Cyber

The growing threat of cyber warfare cannot be over-stressed. The 2016 release of NSA-contracted cyber intrusion and data extraction tools marked a turning point in 21^st Century cyberwarfare. The release of these powerful tools into the wild has huge implications for future wars of any scope or level. Whether it is low-level domestic terror by a lone hacker, attacks by small cells, or even unrestricted warfare between major world powers, these tools will undoubtedly come into play. Clearly, the mass media pundits did not appreciate just how devastating these hacking tools could be, in the wrong hands. (If they had, then the uproar would have been much louder and more sustained.)

Continue reading“The Antifa Threat Spiral: Some Safe Predictions on the Coming Unsafe Era- Part 2”

The rapid post-election growth of the left’s so-called “anti-fascist” (Antifa) movement is alarming. This movement has some clear parallels to the draft protests of the late 1960s. These protests spawned a wave of domestic terrorism with groups like the Weather Underground, the Black Panther Party, the BLA, the FALN, and the SLA.  Anyone reading this who is under my age is probably missing out. This is because they don’t have a good recollection of just how profoundly violent the late 1960s and early 1970s were in these United States. Bombings, fake bomb scares, riots, arson, bank robberies, airliner hijackings, attempted assassinations, and kidnappings were all too commonplace.

This period of upheaval all started a few years earlier with large college campus anti-war/anti-draft protests staged by the SDS. But some of those “activists” spun out of control.  Soon, an amalgamation of inner city blacks and privileged college whites became increasingly radicalized. Although the FALN bombing campaign continued into the early 1980s, the most memorable climactic event of this age of domestic terrorism came in May of 1974 with the much-publicized SLA shootout. Near the end of the “Golden Age of Terror”, President Gerald Ford survived two assassination attempts in rapid succession–both perpetrated by white women.  One was a wacky Manson family follower but the other was a dyed-in-the-wool leftist and a fan of the SLA.

For some fascinating reading about this turbulent era, I highly recommend Bryan Burrough’s book Days of Rage.  The gist of his book was well-captured in a recent book review at the Lawfare blog.

History Rhymes

There is an oft-quoted modern proverb:  “History doesn’t repeat, but it often rhymes.” I posit that a similar age of terror is now dawning in the United States, as radicalized Clintonista uber-Democrats ramp up from street protests to overt acts of terrorism. (The attempted assassination of Congressman Scalise by James Hodgkinson was just a precursor event. In the tech world, Hodgkinson would be called an early adopter.) I predict that the greatest threat will come from the radical left, rather than from the right.

Most alarmingly, we now live in the 21st Century era of cyberwarfare, neurotoxins, and off-the-shelf quadracopter drones. So the potential damage that just a few malcontents can wreak is enormous.

Continue reading“The Antifa Threat Spiral: Some Safe Predictions on the Coming Unsafe Era- Part 1”