Free Republic

SCRANTON, Pa. - Shannen Rossmiller isn't a terrorist. She just plays one on the Internet. In the wee hours of the morning, while her family sleeps, the former Montana judge goes online and assumes the identity of a Muslim extremist — the better to strike up conversations with actual terrorists and, she hopes, ferret out their plans to harm the United States and its allies. Then the 38-year-old former Miss Congeniality and married mother of three feeds the intelligence she gathers to the FBI. Her moonlighting as a volunteer terrorist hunter has brought down two suspects in the United States...

COUNTERTERRORISM has become a source of continuing domestic and international political controversy. Much of it, like the role of the Iraq war in inspiring new terrorists, deserves analysis and debate. Increasingly, however, many of the political issues surrounding counterterrorism are formulaic, knee-jerk, disingenuous and purely partisan. The current debate about United States monitoring of transfers over the Swift international financial system strikes us as a case of over-reaction by both the Bush administration and its critics.

by Mark Finkelstein February 23, 2006 You know the old line: "find me a one-handed expert. The kind that doesn't say 'on the one hand, but on the other hand.'" The Today show found one. Interviewed this morning by Matt Lauer, terrorism expert and former National Security Council member Roger Cressey was single-handedly unequivocal in his support of the UAE port deal. Lauer: "Take the politics out of it. Will this really damage national security especially at these ports?" Cressey: "The simple answer is that it won't. We've had foreign ownership of the ports . . . for a number...

Roger W. Cressey is President of Good Harbor Consulting, LLC, advising clients on homeland security, cybersecurity and counterterrorism issues. He has recently been retained by NBC as their terrorism analyst. Previously, Mr. Cressey served as Chief of Staff to the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board at the White House from November 2001 to September 2002. From November 1999 to November 2001, Mr. Cressey served as Director for Transnational Threats on the National Security Council staff, where he was responsible for coordination and implementation of US counter-terrorism policy. During this period, he managed the U.S. Government's response to the Millennium terror...