“Groups that believe that one’s personal and/or national ‘way of life’ is under attack and is either already lost or that the threat is imminent.” describes potential terrorists? WTH? DHS is using left wing hate groups and even Islamic groups with ties to terrorism as consultants to determine who are threats.

From a Jan, 2011 article “How Dept. of Homeland Security identifies ‘right wing extremists’:

The radical leftist group Southern Poverty Law Center has partnered with the Department of Homeland Security in a ‘Working Group’ called Countering violent Extremism to paint conservatives as hate groups and extremists.

[….]

Former Attorney General Edwin Meese says it is “despicable” for the Southern Poverty Law Center to classify the Family Research Council and a dozen other top conservative organizations as “hate groups” similar to the Ku Klux Klan.

The SPLC has a history of targeting conservatives and conservative groups as racist, homophobic, or extremist if they disagree with the radical left positions of the SPLC on any number of issues. An article at Discover the Networks.org says “What makes the Southern Poverty Law Center particularly odious is its habit of taking legitimate conservatives and jumbling them with genuine hate groups (the Klan, Aryan Nation, skinheads, etc.), to make it appear that there’s a logical relationship between say opposing affirmative action and lynching, or demands for an end to government services for illegal aliens and attacks on dark-skinned immigrants. The late novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand called this “the broad-brush smear.””

[….]

The SPLC has joined the Department of Homeland Security in a ‘Working Group’ called Countering violent Extremism. John Cohen, President and CEO of SPLC is listed as a member and Laurie Wood, Analyst, Southern Poverty Law Center/Instructor, Federal Law Enforcement Training Center is listed as an ‘expert in subject matter’. The members of the group also include three from Muslim organizations but we don’t see any conservatives. (see the list at the end of the report)

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) which has been determined by the courts to be a terrorist support group proudly points out on their Facebook page that its Michigan members ‘participated a Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Working Group meeting with law enforcement officials and community advocates in Dearborn, Mich.'[ibid].

So we have the Southern Poverty Law Center, also known as The Church of Morris Dees, which calls groups and individuals like the Family Research Council, Eagle Forum, the Heritage Foundation, Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Rep. Steve King (R-IA), and Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) ‘right wing extremists’ and the Council on American-Islamic Relations which the FBI has proven to be linked to a terrorist organization teaming up with the US Department of Homeland Security to determine what groups in America should be categorized as ‘extremist’ and potentially violent.

Now you can see why the DHS came out with its Rightwing Extremism report in April of 2009 that warned of potential violence by people against illegal immigration and gun control, and returning military veterans. Now that’s change.