A new HBO documentary takes a look at the changing face of terrorism in the U.S. almost fifteen years after 9/11.
Homegrown: The Counter-Terror Dilemma, which premieres on Feb. 8, is the latest HBO documentary from Gregory Barker, who also made Manhunt: The Search for Osama bin Laden.
The new 90-minute feature examines the threat of self-radicalized individuals in the age of ISIS, the challenge of detecting plots that can spring up wherever there’s an IP address — and the danger of overstating the threat to a public saturated by warnings about terror.
“You could argue there are a lot more dangerous things than terrorism: cancer, obesity, gun violence,” says Andrew Liepman, formerly no. 2 at the National Counter-Terrorism Center, in the film. “But that doesn’t capture America’s imagination as much as the threat from ISIS.”
Homegrown was adapted from the forthcoming book, “United States of Jihad: Investigating America’s Homegrown Terrorists,” by Peter Bergen, who has been the dean of terrorism journalists since interviewing bin Laden in 1997.
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