In order to be optimally efficacious, it is imperative that the proposed Risk Assessment adopt an increasingly domestic focus to preclude long since extant threats to National Security that exist here within the United States. To this effect, I also believe that the role of this risk assessment must transcend that of an advisory position; there needs to be some level of authority to act autonomously on the intelligence it gathers.

Almost eight years ago, the United States launched the war on terror, and though we may be safer from religious extremism abroad, it is none the less indispensable that our struggle against terror become increasingly introverted; but doing so will require a re-evaluation of what defines terrorism. In the putative vernacular, a “terrorist” is one who uses fear  ( or terror) as a means of coercion; a definition which is becoming increasingly applicable here in the US. By this definition, terrorism has become increasingly common in this country; whether it be through thersitical McCarthy-like politics or through acts of violence like the recent assassination of the late term abortionist Dr. George Tiller. Having said this, I believe that the proposed risk assessment, while efficacious in its own right, does not take into focus the clear and extant dangers found here within our own borders: earlier this year, DHS published a report amounting to a risk assessment that implied that the election of a black man to the office of the presidency could faiclitate a surge in political extremism from the right ( and to a much lesser degree, the left).