Posted on 04/24/2005 11:53:12 AM PDT by JohnathanRGalt
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Bellevue firm tied to pro-Hamas Web site
By Peter Lewis
Seattle Times staff reporter, April 23, 2005
A Bellevue company has helped support a Web site dedicated to advancing Hamas, an Islamic organization the U.S. government considers a terrorist group. The site features videos of Humvees blowing up and U.S. soldiers being killed.
The site was down temporarily yesterday but was working again last evening. Content included a training video of the "Mujahideen Army" and a message to the American people that said in part they had "elected criminals and are responsible for their actions."
The Bellevue company, eNom, apparently is one of the Web's largest registrars. That means it sells Internet addresses, or domains. Records show the registrar for the pro-Hamas site is eNom.
John Kane, eNom's vice president of business development, yesterday said the company has 4 million registered users, and that it was impossible to police each one.
Web-site content is a freedom-of-speech issue, he said, and the company can't act as "judge and jury." Unless the company hears from the federal government, it has no plans to cut off the site, Kane said.
Juan Carlos Zarate, the Treasury Department's assistant secretary dealing with terrorist financing, said yesterday Hamas appears on the government's list of 400 individuals and entities designated as "foreign terrorist organizations."
It is illegal for U.S. companies and citizens to do business with such groups, he said. Zarate said he could not speak specifically to the situation involving the pro-Hamas site and eNom. "But in theory, that is a problematic transaction," he said of the business relationship.
Commercial transactions include sending, paying or receiving money or offering other types of services in exchange for money to a recognized terrorist organization or to a designated terrorist supporter, Zarate said.
In addition to charging for Internet addresses, eNom also hosts Web sites, though it's not clear whether it hosts the pro-Hamas site.
Zarate said it's "not common, but not unusual" for Internet companies to provide services to terrorist groups. On top of First Amendment issues, Zarate acknowledged that it could be difficult for such companies "to know what an organization is or who they are."
"But from our perspective," he said, "it's very important that Internet service providers and others in the U.S. business community not interact and not support in any way terrorist groups."
The pro-Hamas site's content has included the videos of last year's beheading of U.S. contractor Nick Berg and of the helicopter shot down by missile fire north of Baghdad earlier this week, killing 11 people, including six American contractors.
Mark, a man who runs a Web business in Wisconsin and asked that only his first name be used, said he learned of the site yesterday and contacted eNom to bring it to the company's attention. He said he reached an eNom tech-support worker who told him he was disturbed by the content, partly because the worker had recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq as a Marine.
"I could tell he was upset but very professional," Mark said.
In the 23 April, 2005 edition of the Seattle Times, we find a story about eNom, Inc. of Bellevue, WA USA and their role in keeping the Hamas Online site online. eNom's response to the press inquiry was less than satisfying:
John Kane, eNom's vice president of business development, yesterday said the company has 4 million registered users, and that it was impossible to police each one.I have news for Mr. Kane. Irresponsible corporate behavior is the issue here, not web site content, and it is eNom who is on trial.Web-site content is a freedom-of-speech issue, he said, and the company can't act as "judge and jury." Unless the company hears from the federal government, it has no plans to cut off the site, Kane said.
A cursory review of the Internet Haganah database shows eNom to be providing vital services to at least a dozen sites. Eight of the sites are directly associated with designated Terrorist entities, namely Hizballah, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Hamas. Another site, shareeah.org, is the site of Sheikh Abu Hamza Al Masri and his Soldiers of Shariah organization. Abu Hamza is currently under indictment in the United States for his role in setting up terrorist training camps inside the United State. He remains in the UK pending extradition. eNom also provides vital services to prominent pro-Al Qaida forum alm2sda.net (aka 'The Lions Den'), alawajy.net, site of Saudi cleric Dr. Muhsin Al-Awwaji, a man known for encouraging terrorist attacks against "Christian Crusaders and Jews". Finally there is ael-nl.org, site of the Arab European League, a group implicated in attacks against Jews in the Netherlands and Belgium.
And what services is it that eNom provides? First and foremost, they are a registrar. That means they maintain the record of which names are registered to which individuals or organizations. In addition they provide DNS service. This is how a request for a web site by its domain name gets forwarded to the correct server on the internet.
Consider the www.manartv.com domain. It is a domain of Hizballah's 'Al Manar' TV station. Remember that Hizballah is a designated Terrorist organization. That means a US company like eNom is not supposed to be taking money from them. Nevertheless they do. If you try to access www.manartv.com you will be forwarded to www.manartv.com.lb. That forwarding service is provided by eNom.
And speaking of criminal investigations, it is eNom who has provided the services required by notorious terrorist-enabling web hosting company 357hosting.com to remain in business over the last two years despite the best efforts of other, more legitimate companies to put them out of action. Four of the domains listed below are clients of 357hosting.com (hamasonline.com, hamasonline.org, shareeah.org, ael-nl.org). 357hosting is reported to be under investigation in the Netherlands and has sought to thwart a criminal investigation into one of their clients in Switzerland (islam-minbar.net). They are able to do this because eNom allows 357hosting to register domain names, and 357hosting uses that privilege to deliberately hide the real whois information in order to shield the actual site administrators from criminal liability.
The list of domains serviced by eNom follows:
ID: 205
Status: active -> www.manartv.com.lb
Domain Name: manartv.com
Orientation: Hizbollah
ID: 116
Status: active -> www.manartv.com.lb
Domain Name: web.manartv.org
Orientation: Hizbollah
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
ID: 286
Status: active
Domain Name: kataebabuali.com
Orientation: Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
IP: 65.254.36.154
ID: 287
Status: active
Domain Name: kataebabuali.org
Orientation: Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
IP: 65.254.36.154
ID: 288
Status: active
Domain Name: kataebabuali.net
Orientation: Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
IP: 65.254.36.154
ID: 244
Status: active
Domain Name: alresalah.org
Orientation: Hamas
IP: 209.59.145.97
ID: 218
Status: active
Domain Name: hamasonline.com
Orientation: Hamas
ID: 243
Status: active
Domain Name: hamasonline.org
Orientation: Hamas
IP: 67.15.82.156
Salafyist/Jihadist
ID: 124
Status: active
Domain Name: alm2sda.net
Orientation: Salafyist/Jihadist
IP: 61.129.115.56
ID: 263
Status: active
Domain Name: alawajy.net
Orientation: Salafyist/Jihadist
IP: 193.138.222.21
ID: 141
Status: active
Domain Name: shareeah.org
Orientation: Salafyist/Jihadist
IP: 205.234.145.216
ID: 181
Status: active
Domain Name: Ael-nl.org
Orientation: Salafyist/Jihadist
IP: 66.90.67.30
Posted by aaron at April 24, 2005 09:46 AM
http://haganah.org.il/harchives/004005.html
Mark, BTTT
Secondly, if there were no useful anti-terrorist methodologies in place then any business hosting such vile content should be boycotted and shunned. A listing of their most valued web assets ought to be assembed, and an organized effort launched to pressure them to cease their irresponsible actions.
I believe we should err on the side of caution and pressure these companies into being good corporate citizens instead of taking the terrorist's blood money and hosting their obscene content while hiding under the 1st Amendment. In other words, community standards should be applied.
And, he will probably not hear from the Federal Govt. -- that would violate the 1st Amendment Right of Freedom of the Press to advocate murder, insurrection, slaughter of innocents, host snuff porn, .... and businesses such as his to make a fast buck off of other people's pain and misery that Kane's eNom company helped facilitate.
ARUTZ SHEVA.com: "HAMAS BOMB-MAKER STAR OF SYRIAN PRODUCED TV SERIES A 12-part series on the life of the “father of suicide bombings,” Hamas bomb-maker Yihye Ayyash is set to be aired on the Lebanese-based Hizbullah satellite television station al-Manar." (April 18, 2005)
JIHAD WATCH.org (YNET): "PALESTINIAN GIRL HIDES GUN IN UNDIES" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "The soldiers in the Balata refugee camp, a terrorist hotbed, found the gunman inside his house and ordered him to surrender his weapon. He refused, saying he didn't have it. After questioning, they found the man's sister had hidden it her underwear. Troops then arrested the Hamas terrorist. They also found a gun holster and bullets inside the building.") (April 16, 2005) (Read More...)
WorldNetDaily.com: "DOCUMENTS SHOW ARAFAT PAID FOR DISCO BOMBING Sent Thank-You Note to Family of Terrorist Who Killed 21, Injured 120" by Aaron Klein (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "The attack on the Dolphinarium was one of the most brutal massacres of the Palestinian intifadah, killing 21 people, mostly teens, on a Friday night in June 2001. More than 120 people were injured in the powerful blast carried out by Hamas terrorist Hassan Khutari.") (September 15, 2004)
Does this make eNom legally responsable the next time Hamas blows up a public bus or pizza parlor? Could a lawyer get a court order to force eNom to release the information?
Registrant, Administrative, Billing, Contact:
Whois Privacy Protection Service, Inc.
Whois Agent (stbjylycty@whoisprivacyprotect.com)
+1.4252740657
Fax: +1.4256960234
PMB 368, 14150 NE 20th St - F1
C/O hamasonline.com
Bellevue, WA 98007
US
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Those are very good questions Mr. Galt.
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April 24, 2005
"The fundamentalist, jihadist, and outright terrorist websites serviced by eNom, inc. of Bellevue, Washington USA"
http://internet-haganah.us/harchives/004005.html
Bump and bookmark
Those are very good questions Mr. Galt.Another good question and subject for research. Do a Google search of: 357 Hosting and Terrorism. It's so friggin' easy, why doesn't someone in law enforcement do something?!?!
Yes, that is another good question.
As an aside, what law enforcement, the military and other agencies do with the information/propaganda on the various sites of interest -- I personally do not know.
bump
Congress should have formally declared war against every group and individual on the Designated Terrorists List, then we wouldn't have trouble shutting down these sites (and their proprietors) in a timely and unambiguous fashion.
Also would have solved the Gitmo problem.
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