Senate panel: no "cohesive" strategy to counter terrorists' Internet use

We posted a few weeks ago on a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty report describing how al Qaida and affiliated groups use the Internet, and concluding that there are limits to their mastery of the Web.

Now comes a much more somber report from the Senate Homeland Security Committee on the same topic. The staff report concludes that the federal government has "no cohesive and comprehensive outreach and communications strategy" to confront the threat posed by violent Islamic extremists using the Internet.

Even more darkly, it says that foreign terrorist groups using the Internet increase the threat to the U.S. homeland, by bypassing traditional "defenses" and potentially recruiting individuals in the United States.

"Left unchallenged, it is very possible that the core terrorist enlistment message espoused over the Internet will drive more individuals in the United States all the way through the four stages of the radicalization process and encourage them to conduct actual terrorist attacks." (The four stages are Pre-Radicalization, Self-Identification, Indoctrination and Jihadization).

But the report  seems to offer little but speculation that  the domestic terrorist threat is growing. It lists several previously reported cases of confirmed or alleged homegrown terrorist plots, all of which were broken up by federal law enforcement authorities long before the plots came to fruition.

The American Civil Liberties Union and 18 other groups took issue with the report, and warned about the impact of proposed legislation, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, which has passed the House, but is stalled in the Senate.

"Our concern is that this focus on the Internet could be a precursor to proposals to censor and regulate speech on the Internet.  Indeed, some policy makers have advocated shutting down objectionable websites," the groups wrote.  "Moreover, testimony at the (committee's) hearings indicates that such an approach not only fails muster under free speech principles, but is unlikely to be effective."

Comments

[murican]

Homeland Security...Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act...Is there really anyone out there who thinks that our federal government (including Dems also in lockstep with the Repubs) politicized by Bush Cheney and so fond of indoctrinating us with Nazi terminology will not use the Homeland/Homegrown/Fatherland statutes against us and not against the terrorists?

[xenophon]

Given the damage already done to our Bill of Rights, The gutting of the 4th. amendment, (protections from unreasonable searches and seizures),5th. amendment,(not having to give evidence against yourself), and 6th. amendment, (speedy trial), HR 1955 concerns me greatly.

In this era when dissent, even well within traditional boundaries is labeled by right wingers in authority as "giving material aid to the enemy", when people asking questions or expressing simple doubts are labeled as "wanting the terrorists to win", this new HR 1955 concerns me greatly.

It is a platform ripe for abuse by the frequently unscrupulous idealogues of the right, by our Dept. of Homeland Security secret police whose actions are exempt from review by the federal judiciary, and a direct threat to the 1st. amendment, and has a disturbing potential to open up new areas of discrimination, unfair labeling, suspicion, and tyranny.