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CRIME AND TERRORISM A Tale of Two Priorities
10/15/07



On Sunday, three of our top counterterrorism execs held a training session on the increasingly important issue of homegrown terrorism and radicalization for law enforcement professionals attending this week’s annual conference of the International Association of Chiefs of Police in New Orleans.

On Monday morning, when Director Mueller addressed the larger general assembly, he touched only briefly on terrorism, instead spending the lion’s share of his keynote remarks talking about crime—particularly violent crime, which is steadily increasing in pockets around the nation for the first time since 1993.

For the FBI, the dueling presentations reflect the reality of the post-9/11 era: focusing on preventing terrorist attacks—whether by extremists based overseas or radicalized terrorists within our own borders—as our overriding priority, while still helping to tackle the most serious criminal threats impacting local communities.

“We are realizing that national security is as much about reducing the number of homicides on our streets as it is about reducing the threat of terrorism,â€