CounterInsurgency (reading reference) part 5

Brendan McQuade: The Return of Domestic CounterInsurgency?: "As Ahmad was writing, the FBI's COunterINTELligence PROgrams, COINTELPRO, domestic programs that used methods similar to counterinsurgency, targeted the Communist Party USA, Socialist Workers Party, the Black Power Movements, the Puerto Rican Independence Movement, and the American Indian Movement for 'neutralization.' While 'domestic counterinsurgency' has not yet returned to that scale, the militarization of US society has continued in the last forty years: surveillance and data-mining (NSA, DHS and private); the emerging nationwide intelligence network (DHS 'Fusion Centers'); the increasing 'paramilitarization' of police (intelligence-led policing); and the creation of the first domestic combatant command, US Northern Command or US NORTHCOM.

With all these measures put in place, domestic counterinsurgency along the lines of COINTELPRO could easily be resumed at a level hitherto unimaginable within the United States. While much would have to change politically for this to become possible, the appointment of Petraeus to head the CIA and the wider rise of the new counterinsurgents is not an encouraging development."