Net user group may aid terrorists

(P)MSNBC ^ | 2/06/03 | Lisa Myers

[Axenolith]

As the United States braces for a possible war with Iraq and the potential for renewed terror attacks, the NBC News investigative team has uncovered a disturbing user group on the Internet that terrorists could be accessing to mount new operations.

[Axenolith]

Religeon of peace at work alert!

Click link to peg your bogosity meter

[Jay D. Dyson]

I'd have to say this is a non-issue.

First off, let's consider where these people got this information: publicly-available data already on the 'net from various sources; many of them the U.S. government.

Secondly, while I definitely don't condone their anti-American rants, such nonsensical conduct is protected under the First Amendment. The main problem I have with those morons is that they haven't bothered exercising their right to free speech to do anything constructive.

All that said, God help those stupid sons of b****es if they promote, incite, or initiate any form of attack on the U.S. or its citizens...

-Jay

[Apple Pan Dowdy]

"such nonsensical conduct is protected under the First Amendment"

Perhaps so... but doesn't Yahoo have any usage policy that would prevent this kind of behavior?

[gaucho]

It could also be a nice source for LEO's to investigate who is participating and do followup investigations.

[Jay D. Dyson]

"such nonsensical conduct is protected under the First Amendment"

Perhaps so... but doesn't Yahoo have any usage policy that would prevent this kind of behavior?

That's a good question. It doesn't look like Yahoo has a prohibition against such nonsense by their users. See the Yahoo Terms of Service, Section 6 - Member Conduct. Judging from that, it looks like one would be hard-pressed to get them kicked off unless they cross the line between idle vitriol and violence.

-Jay

[Apple Pan Dowdy]

I don't know, but it seems like they are in violation of the following Yahoo terms of service:

You agree to not use the Service to:
a. upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any Content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;

e. upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any Content that you do not have a right to make available (all the stuff they posted was probably lifted from other sources who own the rights to it) under any law or under contractual or fiduciary relationships (such as inside information, proprietary and confidential information learned or disclosed as part of employment relationships or under nondisclosure agreements);

[Destro]

Evan Kohlmann is a senior terrorism analyst at the Investigative Project, a Washington D.C.-based counterterrorism think tank established in 1995. He is currently writing a book, The Martyrs of Bosnia: Al-Qaida's War of Terror in Europe.

[Jay D. Dyson]

All told, I would have to agree with your assessment of their violating the Yahoo acceptable use policy.

Try getting Yahoo to see it your way. God knows I've tried on several occasions.

-Jay