Military is cracking down on ‘questionable tattoos’ to combat extremism. Here’s how | National

“We owe the men and women of the Department of Defense an environment free of extremist activities, and we owe our country a military that reflects the founding values of our democracy,” he said in a Dec. 20 news release.

The report listed four action items completed by the Pentagon since April and an additional three recommendations moving forward. It includes a broadened defination of extremist activities, which now accounts for social media and other online behavior, as well as better training for service members leaving the military who may be recruited by supremacist organizations.

While the defense department didn’t list specific organizations that would be considered extremist, the agency identified six behaviors that constitute “extremist activities” as well as 14 examples of what constitutes “active participation” in those activities.

Knowingly displaying any sort of paraphernalia, words or symbols that support extremism or groups that are vocal proponents of extremist ideology is considered “active participation” under the new guidelines. According to the Pentagon, that includes “flags, clothing, tattoos and bumper stickers” on or off a military installation.

Officials also took a closer look at the screening process for new recruits, citing “several tragic incidents involving people with access to Department of Defense installations.”

The report mentions shootings at Fort Hood in 2009 and the Washington Navy Yard in 2013, both of which were carried out by current of former service members.

Defense department officials outlined new efforts to ferret out recruits with potentially dangerous extremist ideologies, starting with updating screening questionnaires to include specific questions about whether recruits have joined “racially biased entities and other extremist groups.”

The forms will notify recruits that any involvement in criminal gangs or extremist organizations is forbidden.

Recruiters and the Military Criminal Investigative Organizations also now have access to an FBI portal with “information on local gangs, white-supremacy and nationalist groups, gang signs, and extremist symbols and tattoos,” the report states. Officials said the portal will allow recruiters and investigators to better assess “questionable tattoos and branding that suggest propensities to extremism and violence.”

If a recruit either attests to being a member of an extremist organization or has a tattoo that’s been flagged by the FBI, senior leadership will have to issue what’s known as a “Morals Eligibility Determination” that allows them to move forward in the application process, the defense department said.

During a background briefing, a senior defense official outlined the screening process for applicants, which includes a recruiter interview, a look at their criminal history or past involvement with law enforcement, fingerprinting and an FBI name check.

“We look at that and the city, county, and state of residence at the time of enlistment,” the official said. “We also look for any offensive, racist, supremacist tattoos, including those that may reflect gang affiliation. Then we have a robust partnership with the FBI Cryptology and Racketeering Records Unit to be able to look at symbology as it may be evolving across the United States because, again, that’s one of the things that we found is that this changes so quickly and it can vary a lot region-to-region, state-by-state.”