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Joseph Stack, the 53-year-old software engineer who crashed his small plane into a seven-story office building in Austin, Texas, was part of a growing, violent anti-tax and anti-government movement that has become increasingly alarming to law enforcement agencies.
Experts are pointing to the incident as further evidence of what they say is a proliferation of anti-government militia groups.
"There's been an explosive growth of anti-government militias and so-called Patriot groups over the past year, and the central idea of many of them is that taxes are completely illegitimate," Potok said.
There was an immediate response to Stack's violent act on anti-government and anti-tax blogs, and on Facebook, where multiple fan pages attracted hundreds of followers within hours of the plane crash.
"Half of them are making this guy into a hero, that's scary stuff. The other half is saying that this guy's a victim," said J.J. MacNab, a Maryland-based insurance analyst who has testified before Congress on the anti-tax movement and is writing a book on the subject.