ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at crimes against the state—treason, sabotage, political assassinations, and domestic terrorism—as well as crime by the state, which include human rights violations, illegal domestic surveillance, and election fraud. Crime against the state is recognized in illegal attempts to oppose the government or to express beliefs about or alter in some way (violent or nonviolent) the existing sociopolitical structure. Crime by governments, sometimes called “state crime” or “state-organized crime,” is constituted by unlawful action against citizens. Political crimes—crimes by or against the government—are particularly difficult to view objectively, for they always involve moral and ideological positions.
