[CJ Hinke of FACT comments: In my view, this man is a cyberterrorist. Despite our repugnance at pornography, hate speech, defamation, terrorism, these are real opinions by real people who deserve a voice. Call it the price a society pays for free expression. The real issue is who gets to decide what these 'crimes' are. We must not make free expression on the Internet different from freedom of expression in real life. Only when these crimes are put into practice, may we make use of satisfactory existing law to punish them. Incidentally, Shahda seems to be a purfeyor of another sort olf dangerous disinformation: the connection of Iraq's Saddam to 9/11. Yes, even Shahda deserves a forum! See article following specific to Thailand.]
What to Do About Pixels of Hate
Jodi Hilton
The New York Times: October 21, 2007
NOT WAITING FOR GOVERNMENT Joseph G. Shahda is waging a private war on militant Web sites.
ONE by one, starting a few weeks ago, 40 militant Islamist Web sites got knocked off the Internet. Gone were some of the world’s most active jihadi sites, with forums full of extremist chatter.
This disappearance mystified American counterterrorism officials. They hadn’t shut them down, they knew, so who had?
Happily claiming credit for the jihadi blackout is a Christian-Lebanese engineer named Joseph G. Shahda, who is waging a private, and passionate, war on terrorism from his home near Boston.“These sites are very, very dangerous,” Mr. Shahda said. “And I think we should keep going after them. They are used as recruiting tools for terrorists, arousing emotions, teaching how to hate.”
Except it’s not quite that simple, when you talk to some terrorism experts. Mr. Shahda’s one-man operation highlights the tension over what to do about online jihadi militancy — a tension that has grown along with the material. Perhaps it’s better to shut it down, and try to prosecute those involved. Or maybe the material should be left up, as a way to learn something valuable in the larger battle against terrorists.
“There’s a lot to be gained by watching these sites,” said Brian Fishman, a senior associate at the Combating Terrorism Center at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
One thing not in dispute is the sheer volume of the material. Al Qaeda has begun issuing videotapes as often as twice a week, while insurgents in Iraq pump them out daily, and the blood-drenched images appear on several thousand militant Web sites that now include upward of 100 in English.
Public concern rose a notch last week when The New York Times reported that one of the most popular English-language sites was run by a 21-year-old Qaeda enthusiast named Samir Khan from his parents’ home in North Carolina. Mr. Khan has done so since late 2005, unchallenged by law enforcement authorities.
“Isn’t there anything this fellow can be charged with, or is he completely free to aid the global jihad from North Carolina and give interviews to The New York Times?” Robert Spencer wrote on his site, Jihad Watch.
But those who are reading Mr. Khan’s blog include officials at the Combating Terrorism Center who, since last year, have been training F.B.I. agents and analysts with the government’s joint terrorism task forces.
Center officials say Mr. Khan’s blog yielded confirmation of an important discovery: that a host of militant sheiks and scholars, dead and alive, are today far more influential than Osama bin Laden.
These men include Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, a mentor of Mr. bin Laden’s who promoted global jihad with his writings until his death in 1989, and the center’s findings helped the authorities conclude that Al Qaeda is but part of a larger, and diffuse, ideological movement.
Similar efforts to monitor online jihadists are under way in cities like Berlin, where intelligence and law enforcement officials have created a new multi-agency Internet center, and New York, where the police department this summer published a report on Islamic extremism that drew from the department’s online sleuthing.
Quite apart from the intelligence value of leaving the sites up, it’s not clear what can be gained by shutting them down. Operators of the sites have proved difficult to put behind bars, although legal experts offered mixed views on Mr. Khan’s blog.
“If I were a prosecutor I would look at treason,” said Andrew C. McCarthy, a former chief assistant United States attorney who led the 1995 terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman. While treason has a large burden of proof and such a charge has been brought only once since World War II, Mr. McCarthy said the 1996 antiterrorism law should “make it much easier for prosecutors to win cases, especially in national security.”
“I’d also want to look at criminal solicitation,” Mr. McCarthy said. “I would probably scrub the information this guy is putting out, and see if it contains what you would need to convince a jury, specific commands to commit acts of violence.”
Mr. Khan insists that he has no links to Al Qaeda or other militant groups, and is merely conveying the religious grounds for attacks against American troops, that is, defending Islam from the West.
Some European countries are pressing further with their anti-terrorism laws. The British government this summer won convictions against several Islamic men who merely possessed militant material on their computers.
But in United States, the only online terrorism case that legal experts said had gone to trial was a loss for the government. An Idaho jury in 2004 acquitted a student accused of operating a Web site to help finance and recruit members for organizations like the Palestinian group Hamas.
Peter S. Margulies, a law professor at Roger Williams University who has written about terrorism cases, said if he were a prosecutor he would forget about Mr. Khan, based on what he read in the Times article. “Even under the material-support laws, which have been used in a number of cases since 9/11, you are going to have to show more than what is apparent in the story,” Mr. Margulies said.
“You need either a specific plan for attack, like the guys accused of plotting to attack J.F.K. airport, or show this guy is under the direction or control of a group like Al Qaeda, as a paid propagandist or shill.”
Mr. Shahda said he shared concerns about the intelligence value of jihadi sites. But the threat from the online jihadists now includes not only recruitment, he said, but also battlefield know-how. “They tell people how to build car bombs, use suicide belts, be snipers, do guerrilla warfare,” he said.
Mr. Shahda, who goes after the sites by identifying their Internet-service providers and sending those companies e-mail urging them take action, acknowledges that it’s a tough fight. He also said he worried that vigilante efforts were driving some jihadists deeper into cyberspace.
Most of the 40 sites he brought down eventually came back online by switching to new Internet providers.
While Mr. Shahda has prodded companies located as far away as Malaysia to cut their service to militant sites, his current target is closer to home. He said two influential militant sites have moved to an Internet provider based in Tampa, Fla.
“They did not respond yet,” he said, “after several e-mails.”
Margot Williams contributed reporting.
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[CJ Hinke of FACT comments: We have here a 2005 report from Internet Haganah's US branch. Internet Haganah ("Combatting the global jihad") is an Israeli group "monitoring" "terrorism on the Internet". It appears to be well funded and supports Thailand's own Thai Terrorist Web Hunter which now, thankfully, appears defunct. This is scary stuff for advocates of free expression and nothing short of vigilantism. Opinions are never the problem; antisocial actions are. All voices from the Muslim South deserve to be heard.]
Jihad in Thailand and the websites that promote it
Internet Haganah: August 18, 2005
Thailand has been the victim of a rising tide of Islamist violence over the last few years, and like any jihad, those promoting this violence have websites.
The violence has been centered in the southern-most Thai provinces that border Malaysia and the jihadis are believed to have connections with the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist organization.
The groups involved:
PULO - Patani United Liberation Organization
The General Union of the Patani Revolutionary Students
Free Patani (UTUSAN PATANI MERDEKA)
Their members are known to be active in Sweden, Malaysia, Netherlands and Syria, and their websites are used to facilitate communications between groups and individuals in these various countries.
The websites:
1. pulo.org/pppb.org
Description: Official website of the Patani United Liberation Organization
Status: offline
Whois summary (pulo.org)
Created On:17-May-2000 18:44:00 UTC
Expiration Date:17-May-2008 18:44:00 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:Network Solutions LLC (R63-LROR)
Registrant Name:PULO
Registrant Organization:PULO
Registrant Street:Pintu Gerbang Gajah
Registrant City:Kuala Bekah
Registrant State/Province:PN
Registrant Postal Code:10000
Registrant Country:PN
Registrant Phone:+1.65121212
Registrant Email:p_u_l_o@HOTMAIL.COM
Whois summary (pppb.org)
Created On:04-Jul-2005 07:16:38 UTC
Expiration Date:04-Jul-2006 07:16:38 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:Bulk Register (R21-LROR)
Registrant Name:Patani Patani
Registrant Organization:Patani
Registrant Street1:Box 12
Registrant City:Makkah
Registrant State/Province:SA
Registrant Postal Code:10000
Registrant Country:SA
Registrant Phone:+01.4621128222
Registrant FAX:+01.4621128233
Registrant Email:pppb.pulo@gmail.com
2. www.pataninews.com
Description: Known to be operated by the same group (PULO) from Sweden as pulo.org and pppb.org, this site is representative of the type we call “jihadist ‘news’ service”, i.e. it’s a propaganda site.
Status: Active
IP: 213.115.181.101
Host: Theland Consulting, Sweden
Whois summary
Sawa, Alexander
registry@theland.se
NA
NA NA
Sweden
4663515545
3. patanistudents.com
Description: Official site of The General Union of the Patani Revolutionary Students. This site is operated by an individual in Damascus, Syria and is hosted by a Syrian company with a .uk domain name on a server in Dallas, Texas. Examples of the site’s content:
www.patanistudents.com/thai/article/3.htm: Calls for the punishment of Patanese who do not fight against the Thai government
Please, all Patanese, try to fight and you will know that we could do and Thai flag will be destroyed. Islam Patani flag will be shown on the Patani land. Islam Patani will be the greatest country again. Allah Akbar!
www.patanistudents.com/thai/article/6.htm: Calls on Patanis to join their “Malayu Insurgency” fighing against the “Evil Thai”. Encourages the use of bullets, bombs, guns or anything else that can be used to kill Thai.
www.patanistudents.com/thai/article/2.htm: All Islamic Malayu Patani people are told to wage jihad against the Thai government.
www.patanistudents.com/thai/article/13.htm: Islamic Patanis are told to give their souls to Allah and wage jihad for his sake against the Thai, with the promise of Paradise after death.
www.patanistudents.com/thai/article/18.htm: Patanis are to think of themselves not as Thai but as Islamic and to fight against the Thai.
www.patanistudents.com/thai/article/11.htm: They offer to stop the violence if Thailand withdraws from south Thailand.
Status: Active
IP: 70.84.128.116
Datacenter: ThePlanet.com, Dallas, TX USA
Host: Nobalaa Co., Damascus SY dba webtophosting.co.uk
Note that Nobalaa is a Syrian company, that Syria is the subject of US trade sanctions as a result of being a state-sponsor of terrorism, and they are using the facilities of an American company to operate this site.
Whois summary
Abo Mouhammad
(abomouhammad@gmail.com)
+66.0066221592209
Cartage Tonis TN
The Tunisian address and Thai phone number notwithstanding, this individual is known to be in Damascus, Syria.
4. *.netfirms.com
Description: Run by the Netherlands-based Free Patani organization, this is a low-buget affair that prefers the free-hosting services of NetFirms.com (who close down their site as quickly as the sites are set up).
Status: Inactive (most of the time).
This report was prepared with the assistance of the Thai Terrorist Web Hunter, who has been waging a decidely Haganah-like campaign against the websites of the Thai jihadists for awhile now:
www.angelfire.com/trek/webcop/
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