Across the globe there are groups of human beings who are using terror to influence the minds of others to achieve a certain goal. We know these groups as terrorists, and we know what they are capable of. But most people some to oversee the effectiveness of their attacks. The primary target of the majority of terrorist attacks is the public mind [1,2]. There are specific attacks that have installed fear into the enemy mind, but in some cases people with hardened feelings against the terrorists just felt a boost for their previous thoughts [1,6]. In other cases we see that terrorist attacks can be used to cause political change, or to achieve other goals not solely based on fear [4].  It is hard to even define terrorism, because there is such a range of reasons why someone would want to use terror, and how they use it [3,5].

In Cory Doctrow’s novel he brings his definition of terrorism with a terrorist attack on the United States, by a bombing of the bay bridge in San Francisco that affects the mentality of the people and how government is conducted [2]. But I believe that there also may be at least two other examples of terrorism the he may not even know he depicts in his novel. The first is the Department of Homeland Security and their detainment of possible terrorist suspects. They tortured the teenagers that they held captive and through the use of fear of being tortured again they got their information, this is one of many views of terrorism [3]. The DHS also calls the underground group of Xnetters terrorists, which under the U.S. definition is true [2]. The Xnetters did cause people in the San Francisco area who were generally older to be afraid of them, and afraid that they might be actual threat to them, which would make them terrorists because they are inducing fear into the public mind. The DHS also cracks down on the city to try and catch the Xnetters, and under the Hardin definition the Xnetters would be considered terrorists for causing the DHS to restrict the rights of people living in the San Francisco area.