Revisit TIME’s Unabomber Cover Story More Than 20 Years Later

In April 1996, domestic terrorist Ted Kaczynski was arrested after a nearly two-decade campaign of terror. Better known as the Unabomber, Kaczynski renounced industrialization and began targeting people he believed were advancing modern technology. Using handmade bombs that he mailed or hand delivered to victims from a hidden location, Kaczynski killed three people and injured nearly two dozen more before he was caught and sentenced to life without parole. It was the last chapter for the Unbomber, but not the last time America would confront the unique fear inspired by seemingly random attacks by individuals using homemade devices.

In the video above, TIME Editor-in-Chief Nancy Gibbs shares her experience writing about Kaczynski’s arrest at a woodlands cabin in Lincoln, Montana, a place Gibbs described as “America as the explorers found it, still sealed, unlit, unwired, resembling most perfectly the place the Unabomber wanted America to be.”

In the interview, Gibbs also speaks about journalism ethics, technology, and the importance of not letting acts of terror change the way we live our lives.

The story of the Unabomber is the subject of a new Discovery series, Manhunt: Unabomber, premiering August 1 at 9 p.m.

This video was produced in partnership with Discovery.