Left-wing extremism memo emerges

It seems the Department of Homeland Security report on rightwing extremism that leaked into the blogosphere yesterday was only one half of the equation.

Via Greg Sargent comes the left-wing version: “Leftwing Extremists Likely to Increase Use of Cyber Attacks over the Coming Decade,” a report by the same agency, the Office of Intelligence and Analysis (OIA), that released the widely criticized warning on rightwing militias. Read the new report here.

Dated January 26, 2009, the assessment “examines the potential threat to homeland security from cyber attacks conducted by leftwing extremists, a threat that DHS/I&A believes likely will grow over the next decade.”

OIA specifically mentions environmentalists, animal rights groups and anarchists as posing the largest threats.

Cyber attacks are attractive to leftwing extremists, OIA concludes, because leftists “view attacks on economic targets as aligning with their nonviolent, ‘no-harm’ doctrine and tactic of ‘direct action.'”

The OIA cites examples in which animal rights groups have deleted user accounts and overflowed email servers.

The logging and farming industries, OIA concludes, are particularly threatened because of their growing reliance on integrated networks.

The OIA defines animal rights and environmentalist extremists as groups who “seek to end the perceived
abuse and suffering of animals and the degradation of the natural environment perpetrated by humans. They use non-violent and violent tactics that, at times, violate criminal law. Many of these extremists claim they are conducting these activities on behalf of two of the most active groups, the Animal Liberation Front
and its sister organization, the Earth Liberation Front.”

Anarchists, meanwhile, “generally embrace a number of radical philosophical components of anticapitalist, antiglobalization, communist, socialist, and other movements.”

If anything, this report is likely to quell the notion that DHS is targeting conservatives, a meme pushed by conservative bloggers when the rightwing report came to light.

Michelle Malkin, for example, blasted the previous report as as “piece of crap” and a “sweeping indictment of conservatives.” She added: “In Obama land, there are no coincidences. It is no coincidence that this report echoes Tea Party-bashing left-wing blogs.”

We’ll keep an eye on the blogosphere’s reaction to this new revelation, on both the left and right.

UPDATE: Steve Benen at Political Animal suggests liberals shouldn’t and won’t response to the new memo as harshly as conservatives did:

Now, given this, are liberal media figures, pundits, bloggers, and talk-show hosts likely to throw a complete fit? It seems unlikely, for one simple reason: I don’t think DHS is referring to liberal media figures, pundits, bloggers, and talk-show hosts.

It’s what struck me as so strange yesterday. When DHS raised concerns about radical right-wing extremists who might commit acts of violence, Limbaugh, Hannity, Dobbs, Malkin, and others immediately thought, “Wait, maybe they’re talking about us!”

With DHS also concerned about “left-wing extremists,” it seems mainstream liberals aren’t especially concerned about being lumped in with a violent fringe.