Evidence Supporting Claims in 'Rightwing Extremism' Report Lacks Depth, Group Says, page 1

While the Homeland Security Department's report on "right-wing extremist groups" sparked outrage and questions, it was not clear what was behind some of the details in the threat assessment, especially the infamous footnote focusing on "groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration."

Shortly after the report's release in April, the group Americans for Limited Government filed a Freedom of Information Act request with Homeland Security asking to see the supporting evidence for the assessment.

The report found no specific information that domestic right-wing terrorists were planning acts of violence but warned that they may be gaining new recruits by playing on fears about the recession and the election of the first black president.

The report also warned that disgruntled military personnel could be targeted to join with extremist groups looking to exploit their training and combat skills.

"We expected to receive back some hard-core analysis, some data analysis, looking at crime statistics and current trends that would back up conclusions in the report," said Nathan Mehrens, a news contributor to Americans for Limited Government and a former Labor Department official.

"Instead what we got was a list of URLs to various Web sites, all kinds of news stories across the board," Mehrens told FOX News.

The group dismisses the Web links to numerous media reports as nothing more than an afternoon of surfing the Web.

There is a little more at the link.

Well, after reading SkepticOverlords thread about his trip to DC, then coming across this I would really like to know what the hell is going on up there in DC.

The article goes on to say:

The assessment was launched under the Bush administration and completed by a career service employee within the department, not a political appointee of either former President Bush or President Obama.

So what I'm wondering is how deep does the rabbit hole really go? The report was started under Bush, and it just happened to be finished under Obama, and it wasn't a political appointee of either president that finished the report.

So, seriously what is going on up there? Our country is run by special interest and now it is coming out that a report started under the Bush admin and finished under the Obama admin that has thoroughly ticked off a lot of people for good reason, was mostly based off of a bunch of media reports on the internet.

Any clue as to what is happening? Because things just aren't making sense. Maybe this report is proof of the fact that the government is actually scared of the people? Any other thoughts or comments are welcome.