In spite of the growing significance in counterterrorism of matters related to security, warfare, and military might, counterterrorist activities are comprised of a multitude of political, legal, military, economic, and cultural efforts, which are not always in complete harmony with one another. Most conspicuous at the level of formal state institutions are the extended counterterrorist powers granted to law enforcement institutions.

Strikingly, police organizations conceive of terrorism as a distinctly criminal enforcement problem requiring response with technically sophisticated means of policing. Police counterterrorism responses, both within nations and at the international level, thus demonstrate the relative autonomy of police to determine the proper means and to specify the objectives of their counterterrorism activities.

The reorganization of police power under conditions of an intensified concern with terrorism may lead to structural adjustments that will have effects long after the more immediate repercussions of the terrorist threat have faded. Moreover, police institutions might pay relatively less attention to other enforcement tasks and thus exacerbate criminal conditions unrelated to terrorism. Furthermore, because police organizations are not alone in conducting counterterrorism activities, they increasingly confront the counterterrorism operations of other state institutions, such as rival police organizations (e.g., the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the Department of Justice, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Department of Homeland Security), intelligence organizations, and military institutions. For example, police and intelligence efforts in counterterrorism do not always neatly harmonize, as policing activities focus on suspects in criminal cases, while intelligence work involves the routinized collection of information irrespective of a criminal incident. The new realignments of police, intelligence, and military brought about by the intensified focus on terrorism pose important problems of jurisdictional authority, the appropriate methods and means of interagency cooperation, and the relationship between civilian police and military power from a functional and organizational point of view.

Besides interagency cooperation within nations, moreover, the international nature of the current terrorist threat also places a premium on international counterterrorism cooperation. The centrality of international cooperation applies to various levels of counterterrorism, including treaties of international law, diplomatic efforts, police cooperation among nations and participation in international police organizations such as Interpol and Europol, coalitions in military operations, and the imposition of economic sanctions against nations that harbor or support terrorist groups. Interestingly, growing international cooperation in matters of terrorism has not yet fostered a truly global climate of counterterrorism inasmuch as national interests, concerned with the more locally confined implications of terrorism, remain paramount.

Again showing the multifarious nature of counterterrorism, international counterterrorism activities also include attempts to build public support against terrorist groups and practices and, belatedly, to foster the spread of democratic values across the globe. Presumably not unimportant in this respect are also the efforts taken in the academic research community to study the mechanisms, causes, and effects of terrorism and counterterrorism as well as the activities undertaken by civic groups to ensure a climate to obtain a sufficient degree of effectiveness in counterterrorism strategies without sacrificing civil liberties and human rights.

References:

1) Deflem, Mathieu. 2004. "Social Control and the Policing of Terrorism: Foundations for a Sociology of Counter- Terrorism." American Sociologist 35(2):75-92.

2) Deflem, Mathieu.. 2004. Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism: Criminological Perspectives. Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Elsevier.

3) Deflem, Mathieu. 2006. "Global Rule of Law or Global Rule of Law Enforcement? International Police Cooperation and Counter-Terrorism." The Annals 603:240-51.

4) Heymann, Philip B. 2004. Terrorism, Freedom, and Security: Winning without War. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

5) Pious, Richard M. 2006. The War on Terrorism and the Rule of Law. Los Angeles: Roxbury.

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