The Islamic State has waged bloody war throughout the Middle East and in Europe, and has vowed to attack U.S. soil again.
Now, a major hacking group allied with ISIS has announced a new hit list — and it contains the names and addresses of thousands of ordinary American citizens.
According to The Washington Post, the list “contained the names of more than 2,000 New Yorkers… [and] about 1,500 Texans. None of the people had known connections to government or to issues that the terror group cares about, according to counterterrorism officials.”
Even more chilling is the revelation Wednesday that up to 1,000 possible ISIS recruits are currently being monitored on U.S. soil, according to FBI director James Comey.
How would you know if you’ve been named on this recent list? So far, counterterrorism officials have gone out of their way to warn anyone listed for assassination by Islamic terrorists.
However, the staggering size and seemingly randomness of this most recent list has caused some debate of its credibility — and whether authorities should continue to notify thousands of everyday citizens one at a time in the future.
“That development is sparking a debate among counterterrorism officials about whether the government should keep notifying all the individuals identified. While ISIS has distributed kill lists for more than a year—typically over Twitter and other social-media platforms—officials say such lists are increasing greatly in size and have moved from targeting dozens of military or government officials at a time to thousands of ordinary citizens,” The Washington Post reported.
Reports say that for the time being, authorities will continue to warn anyone named by ISIS, despite the fact that to date there has been no known attempt to kill anyone named on the longer lists.
— The Horn editorial team
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