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Quote: homeland.house.gov/hearing/subcommittee-hearing-jihadist-use-social-media-how-prevent-terrorism-and-preserve-innovation Subcommittee Hearing: Jihadist Use of Social Media - How to Prevent Terrorism and Preserve Innovation Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence | 311 Cannon House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 | Dec 6, 2011 2:00pm On Tuesday, December 6, 2011 the Committee on Homeland Security’s Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence will hold a hearing entitled "Jihadist Use of Social Media - How to Prevent Terrorism and Preserve Innovation." The Committee will meet at 2:00 p.m. in 311 Cannon House Office Building. Witnesses Mr. Evan F. Kohlmann Flashpoint Global Partners Mr. William McCants Analyst Analyst for the Center for Naval...

SNIPPET: "In July, the British government warned that Al Qaeda’s exploitation of social networking websites is on the rise." SNIPPET: "The massive and multifarious network of websites and social media has presented a challenge to authorities in trying to combat it. Additionally, civil liberty concerns have conflicted with government efforts to spy on communications. Reducing terrorist activity on social media sites has been particularly difficult because users have adopted new forms of communication to conform with the new formats. Many Arabic speakers on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and other sites use Arabizi, a form of colloquial Arabic written in the Latin...

SNIPPET: "There are some good reasons for allowing at least a few jihadi forums to operate." SNIPPET: "However, there are limits to our ability to exploit all the intelligence opportunities a forum may present. To put it another way, jihadi forums contribute to future terrorism in ways that are unpredictable and/or beyond our ability to control. This would be the view held by those other government agencies who prefer to seek out and destroy forums and to take down forum activists. For my part, I can live with keeping online those forums we have sufficient access to monitor and resources...

SNIPPET: "TERRE HAUTE — The announcement this week of an Islamic terror plot to wage attacks in Europe came as little surprise to Aaron Weisburd. He’s been monitoring jihadi websites since 2002, and is a field instructor for the West Point Academy, traveling around the nation to teach law enforcement about terrorism and jihad, or holy war. On Wednesday, Weisburd was one of the featured speakers at the International Crime, Media and Popular Culture Studies Conference, hosted by Conference Chairman Frank Wilson and Indiana State University’s Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice." SNIPPET: "He created a blog of terrorist website...

"CAN I INTEREST YOU IN A HIZBALLAH-SUPPORTING SOCIAL NETWORK?" SNIPPET: "Once upon a time there was a place called Lebanon. When Hizballah is done with it it'll look a whole lot like Germany circa 1945. If Shiite expats in Montreal and elsewhere want to call that "victory" that's their business." SNIPPET: "6. Wash, rinse, repeat. This is online counter-terrorism in the social-networking age."

I need to step away for a week or two, barring any truly calamitous events. So in the meantime, try this: Spook came around the Internet Haganah site from one of the three letter agencies here in the USA. They didn't follow any link to the site, but they also didn't give any sign of being familiar with the content. After briefly looking at the OSINT site, Spook moved on to sofir.org, where they took an interest in the pages below.

REPORT SNIPPET: "Reports of a commitment by YouTube to rid its service of videos promoting the global jihad notwithstanding, a recently conducted random sample of 100 links to such videos found that 100% of the videos were still available for download, even though they had been online for quite awhile. The videos were also relatively popular, with 100 files being viewed a total of one million times." (Read More...)

ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Successful counter-terrorism can be described as a non-event. Nothing happens because we are successful in identifying people who are intent on committing an act or acts of terrorism, and manage to somehow intervene to prevent them from doing so. When we fail to identify and focus our efforts on the right people, however, bad things happen."