PL
Terrorism has been threatening modern societies for many decades. Legislative response to this issue includes creating various definitions and classifications of terrorist acts on one hand and introducing „repressive” counterterrorism laws on the other. This is not a new phenomenon, however, in the history of fight against terrorism there has been many „counterterrorism acts” which did not succeed in resolving the issue – which is illustrated in the article with appropriate cases of XIX century’s terrorist acts. Appropriate, evidence based counterterrorism methods should be sought rather than repressive methods relying mainly on the society’s fear of terrorism.