Note: This is just a snippet. Read the whole thing.
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http://cbs2chicago.com/topstories/topstories_story_063203728.html
Mar 4, 2007 7:35 pm US/Central
"Terrorists Take Recruitment Efforts Online"
(CBS News)
ARTICLE SNIPPET: "That power is so menacing, General Custer wouldn’t say anything at all about how the U.S. is fighting the Jihadi Internet online. But 60 Minutes found other Americans who have started their own counter attack. Aaron Weisburd joined the battle from his home in Illinois.
"I'm in Carbondale. In the middle of middle America. Waging war against them. It makes a very small world. What works in a cave in Afghanistan, you know, works in a living room in Carbondale," Weisburd says.
Weisburd was so angered by what he saw on the Web that he quit his job as a programmer and now spends every day attacking extremist websites.
His goal is to mess with them online. "Absolutely. In as many different ways as I can," he says.
And he says he's "sowing seeds of distrust."
Weisburd cooperates with the FBI, Homeland Security and British police, all of whom know him as unrelenting. He blows the whistle on the Web sites and asks Internet providers to take them down. He says he’s helped shut down nearly a thousand.
Asked how he would describe what he does, Weisburd tells Pelley, "Part of it is, you know, rodeo clown, essentially. I jump into the ring and make the bulls angry and they come after me. And I do that to good effect. That's my own particular expertise, if you will."
"Tell me about that," Pelley says.
"Well, the Irhabi 007 case comes to mind. I simply publicized what he was saying, made fun of him, called him out and it worked," Weisburd says.
Irhabi 007 was the networking genius who helped al Qaeda regroup online after the U.S. forced them out of Afghanistan. With an ego to match, he was a legend in his own mind.
This is the kind of thing Irhabi 007 made possible for al Qaeda, posting videos long before it was common on YouTube.
"Well, he solved problems. They had content distribution. They had problems moving large files, he solved that problem," Weisburd explains.
He solved it by hacking into computers around the world and using them to store and share terrorist files. He even got into a computer system owned by the Arkansas Department of Transportation.
The Arkansas terror files were discovered and removed. And in 2005, so was Irhabi 007. Scotland Yard, raided a London house in a terrorism case involving credit card fraud. They arrested a 22-year-old Moroccan named Younis Tsouli. Later they discovered Tsouli was Terrorist 007. The network administrator was off line, but his network is still pulling recruits into jihad.
"If you want to go wage jihad, you've got to let them know that there's a jihad going on and lead them to believe that this is something they want to be involved in. And so these videos are essentially, you know, all recruitment films, you know, join the army, seen wonderful places, kill people," Weisburd says."
From the dailykos (needlees to say I did some editing)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/3/4/1960/08174
60 Minutes: Scott Pelley Blames Terrorism on the Internets
by inclusiveheart
Sun Mar 04, 2007 at 04:16:19 PM PST
Okay - this story goes into the "You're F**king Kidding Me" file. Sorry for the profanity, but you'll have to live with it.
The lead story on 60 Minutes tonight filed by Scott Pelley is about how the internet is responsible for the attempt on Vice President Dick Cheney's life when he was in Afghanistan last week.
The story IGNORES the fact that the Bush Administration has completely ignored Al Qaeda since they invaded Iraq. He is at this moment suggesting that - gasp - horrors - "posting videos" is contributing to terrorism.
Pelley claims that the immediacy of the internets is compromising national security.
inclusiveheart's diary :: ::
I don't know quite what to say at this point. I am still in the process of processing the "You're F**king Kidding Me" information that Pelley is trying to float as if it was a truism beyond a shadow or a doubt.
Here we go on the next assault on free speech. This one the media will heartily support so as to kill their competition - that would be "us" by the way.
My God. This country is totally screwed up. I thought we had a chance to bring it back, but I am not at all hopeful anymore.
UpdateWhen asked what set my antennae off here is what I replied to NPK and at the behest of joanneleon I am including my response in the diary for context:
The title for one thing: jihad.com...
Then the part where he started the story saying that the rise of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan was being fueled by the internet. Then the part where he said Cheney was a target only because of the rapid flow of information that was possible on the internet and then the part where he said that maybe Cheney wasn't the target. But still essentially suggested that had it not been for the internet that attack might not have taken place.
That is what she - me - reacted to.
I reacted to the fact that this story is an obvious attempt at deflecting the real sources of failure and probably offers the added bonus of convincing Americans that internet freedoms should be limited to protect against terrorism.