The Internet As Terror-tool

[Amadeus]

Internet an important tool for extremists

 

WASHINGTON — Government and community leaders aren't doing enough to counter multimedia-savvy terrorists from using flashy websites, provocative video games, hip-hop music and gruesome images of bloodied Muslim children to recruit young people online, according to a new report that says the Internet may be extremists' most powerful frontier.

 

"There's only one side on the battlefield, and it isn't us," says Frank Cilluffo, director of George Washington University's Homeland Security Policy Institute, who will testify Thursday on the Internet-Facilitated Radicalization report in the Senate. "We've created this global village — the Internet — without a police department."

 

The report found that terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda are becoming more sophisticated in their effort to recruit, train and raise money over the Internet. Such groups are also becoming better at avoiding detection, the report says.

 

"The Internet is a weapon in the hands of our extremist enemies," says Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, which investigates ways to combat radicalization at prisons, universities and on the Internet.

 

Among Web-based tactics terrorists use, according to the report:

 

• Hacking into legitimate websites and posting training manuals deep in subdirectories where no one is likely to notice them.

 

• Developing video games that spread "a simple but seemingly compelling message: Islam is under attack and young Muslims have a personal duty to fight."

 

• Using hip-hop and rap musicians "whose catchy, melodic messages contain calls to violence."

 

The content is typically developed abroad, but it is being placed on U.S. servers and is targeting domestic audiences, Cilluffo says.

 

.......The report doesn't advocate stripping people of their rights to communicate ideas on the Internet. Instead, it says national leaders need to develop a compelling "counter-narrative" that the "West is not engaged in a battle against Islam," hire more intelligence officers to infiltrate chat rooms and foster better relations with Muslims.

 

"Internet-Facilitated Radicalization" - I like that term - sounds posh, somehow...but Hip Hop? Personally, any sort of Hips-Hops Rap Crap music calls me violently smash up the stereo....

 

And where can I apply for that chat room infiltration job? Wonder what the job title is - Online-Counter-Terrorism-Anti-Internet-Facilitated-Radicalization-Agent...