...But it's very interesting to consider in terms of the
American right and in terms of the Bureau, what they define terrorism to be. And I'll give you just two examples of conflicting or contrasting examples to
explain this. Right wing fundamentalist Christians and
racist groups are responsible for probably between 600
and 700 terrorist acts every year in the U.S.

The principal groups involved are the Ku Klux Klan, the National Alliance, Aryan Nation and so on. To my knowledge, there hasn't been a congressional investigation of it, there is not much dedication of FBI resources to it and yet it is instrumental in creating an atmosphere of terror for every person of color in this country, for women and for gays. It is a program of terrorism against almost the majority of the people in the United States. It is of far greater concern to most people of color that they are likely to be murdered by the Klan than by international Islamic terrorists.

In fact Ashcroft used 9/11 as an excuse to divert resources from the enforcement of the nation's civil rights laws into anti-terrorist scams. The right in the U.S. and the media in the U.S. don't consider this terrorism. It's just murder, bombings, arson, but hey it's against people who don't have much political power so it's not important. To give you an example of the sort of terrorism they are concerned about, a quote from a U.S. Senate subcommittee investigation concerned with this terrorism - it describes a horrific act of terrorism committed by Earth First, a radical environmental organization:

"On October 16, 1997, my Eureka, California office was rocked by what sounded like a thunderous explosion. In fact the sound was that of a 500-pound tree stump being dumped off a truck into my office foyer floor. Upon responding to the horrific sound, my two female staff members were greeted by the visages of several Earth First terrorists - one wearing a black ski mask. These masked marauders were wearing combat boots and dressed in black from head to toe and their cohorts in the stump drop then dumped large garbage bags of sawdust on the floor…"

This wasn't a joke, they were quite serious about this.

Isn't this when they held them down and put swabs of tear gas in their eyes?

Yes…

…while handcuffed?

Yes. What we see here is an example of how anti-terrorism is going to be used. Anti-terrorism is going to be used to attack groups that are concerned about the environment, about civil rights, about the rights of gays and women. It's not going to be used to attack racist or fundamentalist religious groups that are murdering people outside of abortion clinics. It's a purely political term and it's being promulgated with a political agenda in mind - that is the rollback of Constitutional rights.