While the terms have expanded to also include non-state actors and actions by states outside of their sovereign jurisdiction, “Terrorism” and “Terrorist” were originally terms for, respectively state actions authorized by the highest level of government for the control of the citizenry, and the government actors shaping and executing that policy.

And while those are perhaps not the terrorists your government wants you to be concerned about today, it remains a common form of terrorism (see, for a relatively clear current example, Duterte's fairly overt campaign of terror in the Philippines.)

The idea is to reinforce the fact that:

- only the State has a monopoly on violence, so State violence is legal

- terrorist violence is illegal

Perhaps it would be clearer to say, the always-illegal terrorist violence...but that seems like too many words. I'm happy with it as it is.