Terror.com

[welsh]

So the internet has become increasingly important in politics as a means by which folks can protest, voice their opinions, raise awareness and even draw petitions.

Ah, but terrorists love it too.

The internet

Terror.com
Apr 27th 2006
From The Economist print edition


“THE more websites, the better it is for us. We must make the internet our tool.” This could be a message from a chief executive urging his company to embrace the internet. In fact, these words appeared on a website used by jihadists and al-Qaeda for propagating violent anti-American propaganda.

As Gabriel Weimann, a professor at Haifa University, demonstrates in this book, the internet has become a tool of vital importance to terrorists around the world. His eight-year survey of terrorists' use of the internet found that the 40 organisations designated as active terrorist groups by America's State Department now maintain more than 4,300 websites.

If you look for them, you can actually find their websites.

The attractions of the internet to terrorists are obvious; it allows for cheap, anonymous, international co-ordination. More important, it enables terrorists to bypass the mass media and deliver propaganda directly. Modern terrorists, Mr Weimann notes, “are not necessarily interested in the death or injury of their direct victims as much as in the impact of this psychological victimisation on a wider public”. Terrorism is not just violence, but violence with a message. And the internet allows terrorists to deliver that message directly to the public in the form of text, such as statements from suicide bombers, or images and videos including gruesome footage of beheadings.

A terrorist group's various websites may be aimed at its supporters, at the population it purports to serve, at its enemies, or at wider public opinion. Many terrorist sites, Mr Weimann notes, resemble corporate websites, complete with mission statements, press releases and historical background material. Some even sell mugs, T-shirts, badges and other merchandise. Just as the website of a failing company will abound with euphemisms to hide the fact, some terrorist websites play down or omit direct references to violence, though others are highly explicit.

Al Qaeda merchandising? A picture of Osama on a T? The "Build your bomb" handbook?

I wonder of the Radical Right has figured this out and we can see skinhead/neo-Nazi merchandising as well.

What better way to show that you're an asshole?

Aside from communication—both with each other and with the public—terrorists use the internet to solicit money, recruit new supporters, distribute training and weapons-making materials and gather information about future targets. The bombers who struck in London last July relied heavily on the internet to plan their attack. But Mr Weimann is dismissive of the dangers of “cyberterrorism”—the much-hyped notion that attacks can be mounted over the internet itself, disabling power stations and other items of critical infrastructure by breaking into their computer systems. No such attacks have taken place, he points out, and no computers captured from known terrorists have even contained evidence that such attacks were being planned. Terrorists regard the internet, it seems, as a tool to facilitate real-world attacks, not an arena for terrorism in itself.

In which case, what can be done to prevent terrorists exploiting the internet? Just as they use electricity, cars and telephones, it would be surprising if terrorists did not use the internet too. It is important not to blame technologies for the misdeeds of their users—or to hinder the numerous beneficial uses of a technology by the many in order to prevent a small number of bad uses by the few. Some civil liberties should be traded for increased security, Mr Weimann suggests. But he warns that overly draconian surveillance of the internet's users, the vast majority of whom are not terrorists, would constitute a cure worse than the disease. He ends his book with a call for greater use of the internet as a peacemaking tool—an unconvincing conclusion to an otherwise informative and comprehensive analysis.

Isn't this the problem with free speech. By allowing it you risk having people using it for malicious reasons?

But doesn't that also go to the basic question of the war against terror- what is the price you are willing to pay? And is selling out your rights to free speech worth the cost?

 

[Bradylama]

No offense, but "duh."

Only some paranoid cretin would be willing to sell out his rights for a sense of security.

Besideswhich, if the real world data indicates correctly, the rolling back of our freedoms hasn't afforded us any tangible amount of security whatsoever.

We'll never secure our borders, and US customs is a joke. Unless these things change, the state of national security is a joke, and attempting to quell the spread of ideas isn't going to change that, since American Muslims aren't particularly vulnerable to Jihadist philosophy in the first place.

The Europeans are the only ones who have a significant cause for worry, in that regard.

 

[Carib FMJ]

Agreed... One who gives up their liberties for security doesn't deserve his freedom. Because anyone who gains power, wouldn't just surrender it, unless you are Geogre Washington or Cincinatus.

I stick to my guns, folks.

 

[Richoid]

I have to disagree, terrorism is a huge threat both to life and economy, freedom should definatly have limiattions.

 

[Member of Khans]

I have to disagree, terrorism is a huge threat both to life and economy, freedom should definatly have limiattions.

Yeah. The liberty of an individual shall be limited by the rights of another.

But seriously: If further limitations of personal freedom was a proved means of fighting terrorism, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, China, and certain middle eastern states had never discovered terrorist assaults. They have (and the difference between "terrorist assault" and "legitimate struggle for freedom" is a pure matter of definition).
Restrictions are hopelessly ineffective. For one prevented action it breeds another five as reactions towards higher pressure.
Pressure causes counterpressure.

Then you limited personal freedom for nothing. Safety through this is an illusion. The terrorists you are talking about are aiming at our free enlightened society. So we should definitely destroy it ourself. Great plan

 

[Carib FMJ]

The word terrorism does have to be used lightly. I am not excusing what Bin Laden is propergating, but people in power tend to frown upon anyone showing a different ideal and they simply label them heretics or terrorists just to silence them.

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Of course, Bin Laden and his buddies aren't interested in freedom but to gain power for themselves.

 

[Jarno Mikkola]

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Of course, Bin Laden and his buddies aren't interested in freedom but to gain power for themselves.

Yes they want to have power to themselves, to free themselves from the oppression that's weighting them down. Like not owning the oil wells that rightfully belongs to them. Like building a society of their dreams. Wow now I will be called terrorist.

Usually, the societies are build cause of the greed. Not just anyones, but everyones.

the rolling back of our freedoms hasn't afforded us any tangible amount of security whatsoever.
We'll never secure our borders...

And as long as the USA doesn't withdraw it's forces from all the foreign soils, it has a target tag on it's head. Some one is going to pull the trigger, and though it may take thousand years, but when the bullet is flying, you can't duck for cover, cause you won't see where it comes, and when it hits, we are all screwed. You might question why the US government doesn't do this(the withdraw), and the answer is corruption. The elected officials are paid by the business enterprises not to serve the public, but the enterprises themselves. So the USAs greed is twisted greed, one that's good for one, the only one, the money. Like the shipping yard saying "If it barely floats, it goes." "It wasn't our fault, it flowed in, and not floated out."

PS. I am really not a terrorist, I really am not. I do like the chaos, it's good for the species, as long as it doesn't destroy us all.

 

[c0ldst33ltrs4u]

But doesn't that also go to the basic question of the war against terror- what is the price you are willing to pay? And is selling out your rights to free speech worth the cost?

I always had a problem with authority, always hated it when someone tried to tell me that he knows what's best for me leaving me with no say in the matter. I do agree that living in a society requires some compromises and giving up some freedom but I always figured that most of the things you can't do without breaking the law you wouldn't do anyway, not necessarily because those things would be wrong, immoral or that sort of thing but simply because doing them would bring you more discomfort than advantages. To be more specific: I agree killing someone is wrong but not because the state, the law, God or whomever says it is; it's wrong because doing that will most probably start up a nice little circle of aggression and violence which is bound to turn on you, sooner or later. So one of the ingredients of a free society would be, as far as I am concerned, allowing the individual to fully understand the consequences of his actions (or at least most of them) and letting him make his own choices.
Of course there are people that believe the individual is not and can not make his own decisions due to several factors like ignorance, laziness, impulsiveness blah blah and see fit to take upon themselves the task of deciding what is good and what is bad, in other words acting like a supreme authority, forcing the individual to take a certain course of action without explaining in any way why the individual should do that (I don't consider scare tactics and religious pressure as valid explanations) in stead of presenting him with the whole picture, without withholding, distorting or inventing information and the allowing him to make a choice. I don't belive in the idea of an enlightened dictator, to me that is a chimera simply because power corrupts and absolute power absolutely corrupts. Is it right to let everybody say what they want? Yes it is! And even if some may use this right to try and spread fear, hate and so on there will always be others who will speak the truth and shutting everybody up just to suppress the former category would be unfair for everybody. And I say that because everybody should be free to say what they think but bear in mind that every individual has the right to reject certain messages and informations. In other words: you can say whatever you want and I can listen to whatever I want... that's about it, for now...
Oh and one more thing: I say we start a paypal account and raze some money in order to put Jarno through some English classes or something, not being able to understand what he says is really frustrating....