Jihadi, USA
McQ at QandO did a little digging at MEMRI and discovered a disturbing development. As the NIE noted, jihadist websites provide both indoctrination and operational capabilities for jihadists around the world. It should be in America's interest to get these sites shut down. Who do we have to invade for victory on this front?
Apparently, Texas, Nevada, New Jersey, and Washington:
Today, in a briefing on Capitol Hill hosted by Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia and Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), ranking member of the Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, MEMRI's president Yigal Carmon spoke about Islamist/Jihadi websites.The briefing was based on a study prepared by MEMRI which highlighted the fact that all Islamist/Jihadi websites are hosted directly or through subservers by Western - primarily American - Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The study also discussed the question of what can be done about it, and stressed the fact that most - if not all - ISPs do not know what is the content of the websites they are hosting, due to the language gap, since most of these websites are in Arabic.
During the briefing, MEMRI announced that it is taking upon itself a public service - offering ISPs that want to know about the content of the sites they are hosting information regarding those sites within 7-10 days, so they can make an informed decision on whether they want to continue hosting these sites.
The sites involved aren't just jihadi-wannabe nutcases, little Adam Gadahns who lack travel funds. These sites are operated by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Jaysh al-Mujahideen, and al-Qaeda. They're recruiting, they're supporting operational terrorism, and they're doing it from our own back yards.
And I'm sure they're having a hell of a laugh over it, too.
MEMRI notes that the ISPs may not realize their involvement in hosting jihadi sites because of a lack of knowledge of Arabic. I suggest we make it known to them through our phone calls and e-mails. Take a look at the list at QandO and at MEMRI, and encourage your ISP to use MEMRI's volunteers to check through their subscriber sites for any further infiltration.
I'll start with Site Genie here in Minnesota, and get back to CQ readers with whatever I find out.
UPDATE: Haft of the Spear advises people to leave the sites alone, so that the government can track the traffic at the sites. Unfortunately, since these site exist within the US, they fall within the same laws that keep the NSA from conducting warrantless wiretaps. The servers would have to exist outside the US in order for Haft's argument to work. Besides, while the information might provide some assistance in locating Internet access points for visitors, those points are most likely to be Internet cafes in places like Pakistan, Iran, Yemen, and so on. Interesting, generally helpful, but probably not specifically good enough to find the terrorists.
Posted by Ed Morrissey on July 20, 2007 8:09 AM | Comments (29) | TrackBacks (1)
Comments (29)
Posted by Sue | July 20, 2007 8:46 AM
Thank you Captain, I'm on my provider now. Also, where in the hell is Homeland Security...this is truly a joke of an agency. Where is Congress? Oh, I forgot, they're having a pajama party. So sorry to disturb them! Children!
Posted by Gary | July 20, 2007 8:49 AM
Thought that the Pentagon's plans for asymmetric warfare included attacks against this type of information operation. Guess not . . . .
“military situation in which two belligerents of unequal power interact and attempt to take advantage of their opponents' weaknesses. This interaction often involves strategies and tactics outside the bounds of conventional warfare. The core idea is that "weaker" combatants will attempt to use strategy to offset deficiencies in quantity or quality.”
Posted by Immolate | July 20, 2007 9:00 AM
Ed,
It would be a public service, I think, to post the ISPs and their contact information so that readers can follow your example and let the companies know what they're enabling. They are (ISPs) profoundly interested in preserving first amendment rights, and rightly so, but the right to advocate, plan and train to commit murder is not as well-protected.
Posted by LarryD | July 20, 2007 9:12 AM
I'm sure the usual suspects would scream loudly, but it might be more useful to track activity on those sites. If not, shut them down, just be aware the jihadis would most likely reestablish them somewhere else.
Posted by dave rywall | July 20, 2007 9:38 AM
It's probably better to leave the sites up and operating so you can spy on them rather than drive the sites underground or onto ISPs outside the US.
Posted by Intrepid | July 20, 2007 9:43 AM
Hey Capt
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/ has been aggressively going after sites like that for awhile now. I've participated in email and phone campaigns to ISPs that the Jawa Report publishes. Just FYI
Posted by Howie | July 20, 2007 10:01 AM
We’ve been trying to get al-Qaeda’s Voice of Jihad website off Dreamhost for months.
The Dreamhost owner is leftist. Told us free speech call the authorities. So we did.
sawtaljihad.org
OrgAbuseName: DreamHost Abuse Team
OrgAbusePhone: 1-714-706-4182
OrgAbuseEmail: abuse@dreamhost.com
May the force be with you.
Posted by Howie | July 20, 2007 10:05 AM
We’ve been trying to get al-Qaeda’s Voice of Jihad website off Dreamhost for months.
The Dreamhost owner is leftist. Told us free speech call the authorities. So we did.
sawtaljihad.org
OrgAbuseName: DreamHost Abuse Team
OrgAbusePhone: 1-714-706-4182
OrgAbuseEmail: abuse@dreamhost.com
May the force be with you.
Posted by daytrader | July 20, 2007 10:47 AM
Captain
Another blog named ConfederateYankee has been on this case for months working to shut down them but it is proving to be a case of wack a mole. But he is still fighting the good fight.
His main target is the Islamic sites which are posting code to operate bot networks to attack other sites through denial of service attacks.
Posted by Quenton | July 20, 2007 10:50 AM
So, the good Captain is rallying for the government to tear down any and all protections that American's have against government intrusion into people's 4th amendment rights. I wonder if the call will be as loud when the government decides to use it's new found powers against sites like this one.
Don't think it will happen? Go read about the aftermaths of governments that have fully consolidated their power. In NAZI Germany, Soviet Russia, Communist China, Communist Cuba, and countless other countries in South America and Africa we find one common thread. The people that were the loudest proponents of those governments were usually the first ones the governments turned against. Go ask Trotsky if being a good cheerleader gets you special favors once "your team" gains power.
Posted by Intrepid | July 20, 2007 11:05 AM
ahahahah Quenton.. you're hilarious!!!
We're at war. Do you think we cared about the civil rights of Nazis in America during WW2?
Quenton obviously thinks terrorists' propaganda right are more important than American lives.
Posted by mrlynn | July 20, 2007 11:16 AM
Captain Ed: ". . . Unfortunately, since these site exist within the US, they fall within the same laws that keep the NSA from conducting warrantless wiretaps."
It shouldn't be very hard for the FBI to get a warrant to monitor these sites. And we shouldn't hear about it, either, though the NY Times would probably like to spill the beans.
/Mr Lynn
Posted by Michael | July 20, 2007 11:22 AM
Thanks for the reference/link Ed.
Ditto what Mr. Lynn above says.
Posted by Immolate | July 20, 2007 11:30 AM
There are limits to the freedom of speech that have existed for a very long time. You do not have the right to plan or advocate murder. You do not have the right to organize a group of people for the purpose of commiting a felony. If Ed were to try to gather a group of folks to go to Washinton and kill Nancy Pelosi, the government would have the duty and obligation to shut him down and to charge him with a crime. Nobody is recommending that people with stupid opinions be silenced or arrested, unless voicing those opinions is already illegal.
Posted by bayam | July 20, 2007 11:59 AM
This is a simple problem that should have a simple solution. It would be very easy to write software the can detect an Islamic militant site by looking for patters of Arabic words, or if the words are all presented as images- using OCR to analyze the images. This isn't rocket science.
Since no US operator wants to host these kinds of sites, you don't need a court action or laws to bring them down. When the bad guy's site is detected, an electronic notification (email) could be sent to the website operator.
The federal government has all the power it needs to do this. My guess is that any effort to shut down those sites would be seen as fruitless because there are unlimited other hosting options around the globe. It's probably more valuable to use some form of legal tracking technique to try and monitor traffic to those sites. There are more ways to do this than simply sniffing traffic at the ISP.
Posted by Jim C | July 20, 2007 12:25 PM
Man, what a mess. The Jihadi ba*tards are using our own freedoms and laws against us...
Jim C
Posted by Quenton | July 20, 2007 12:50 PM
Intrepid:
Glad I could bring some laughter to your life. I would much rather bring smiles to people's faces rather than stomp on them.
As far as "being at war" that is such a joke. Who are we at war with? When was this war declared? And the most important question of all, when will the war be declared "over" and we can all go about without the government run roughshod all over our personal liberties?
That last question is one that no one, not the Administration nor it's token opposition, can answer. And for good reason. If we are always "at war" then there is no limit to the number of horrid things that the people in charge can get away with. God forbid someone question them though, you might be labeled a terrorist sympathizer.
Democrat voters are now complaining that the people they elected to Congress aren't trying to stem the tide of war, nor rollback some of the more intrusive "counter-terrorist" incusions against our liberties like they said they would. Why should they? These measures benefit them just as much as the Republicans. I doubt anyone here will be pushing for an expansion of the PATRIOT Act should President Hillary become a reality in '08.
So many websites and blogs have fallen in to this "Democrat vs. Republican" mentality that it is sickening. Neither of these groups give a rat's hindquarters about you or your saftey. They just want you to be unquestioningly loyal to them while they ram all sorts of self-serving legislation through Congress.
If the terrorists are running scared and in remission all over the globe, as the administration would have us believe, then why does all this anti-liberty legislation keep pouring out of Washington? Wasn't victory supposed to mean we get to surf the internet, fly on a plane, or buy fertilizer without hassle?
Immolate:
Yes there are laws against plotting crimes. Deal with them using the existing legislation. The same legislation that, when originally passed, was touted as being able to stop this sort of thing. 9/11 could have been prevented using the laws that were already on the books. The idiots responsible for security let every availible opportunity to stop this tragedy go by and did nothing. Now they say that what they really need is more power (and money).
A car salesman sells you a car that he promises will do 120mph and you later find out it only goes 60mph. Do you go back to him and buy a model that really does what you need or do you go to someone else who didn't lie to you and give them the business? Why people keep going back to the same people for "protection" that lied to them about what was sold to them before is mind boggling.
Posted by lexhamfox | July 20, 2007 1:20 PM
I would leave them alone. They can be tracked despite being on US servers and indeed they are tracked and intelligence is collated and then passed on to multinational intelligence outfits which the US authorities participate in. These multinational programs are very successful. The operation works well precisely because they are able to by-pass the retrictions on how information in gathered.
Posted by Karl B | July 20, 2007 2:11 PM
Years ago when I started this collection http://www.pbase.com/kburch/the_picture_from_iraq_you_wont_see_in_the_news I put a simple tracker on my site - I wanted to see where people were coming from. I found my site linked to a site which also had linked to this http://eyeball-series.org/ - I was outraged (and its still up, been investigated - nothing they can do). I contacted DHS and they were aware of this guy and the site and said they couldn't take it down - but eluded to the fact that these things can work both ways. I was just disturbed that some disgruntled ex-military, professor, architect who was at ground-zero the day of the attack and voiced that there were 5 or 7 other buildings built the same way in the city that probably would come down just as easily, basically put a website up(and scroll down on the eyeballing series page to see when he decided to start this venture) that does our enemies recon for them.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=john+young+architect&btnG=Google+Search
http://cryptome.org/
http://jya.com/jya.htm
Posted by fightin'rite | July 20, 2007 3:23 PM
These home grown islamo-fascist sites lost their 1st Amendment rights, when they attacked us on 9-11.
Posted by samharker | July 20, 2007 4:09 PM
Are there any hackers out there who know Arabic? I'm picturing an ad for halal bacon but a good hacker could be much more subtle.
Posted by Intrepid | July 20, 2007 4:35 PM
"As far as "being at war" that is such a joke. Who are we at war with? When was this war declared? And the most important question of all, when will the war be declared "over" and we can all go about without the government run roughshod all over our personal liberties?"
ROFLMAO!!!
Wow.. its amazing.. what an intellectual lightweight.
Uh.. non-US citizens aren't protected under the US Constitution.
go back to school ar-tard.
Posted by ck | July 20, 2007 5:35 PM
If these are known to be jihadi websites, I think it would be beneficial to leave them up. The government can keep tabs on these guys very easily if they are communicating through websites. And the warrantless wiretapping wouldn't apply here. I'm sure it would be very easy to get a warrant for a site that advocates jihad against the U.S.
I don't think we should worry about this.--
Posted by jeffk | July 20, 2007 6:26 PM
I'm sorry, wasn't the post right before this one something about Democrats hating free speech? Quenton is exactly right - the only thing that would be accomplished by adding more legislation is restricting rights. Party of small government, indeed!
Posted by Rose | July 20, 2007 10:37 PM
Man, what a mess. The Jihadi ba*tards are using our own freedoms and laws against us...
Jim C
Posted by: Jim C at July 20, 2007 12:25 PM
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Just like the DIMS taught them to do and the ACLU is helping them to accomplish.
Posted by Rose | July 20, 2007 10:53 PM
If we are always "at war" then there is no limit to the number of horrid things that the people in charge can get away with.
Posted by: Quenton at July 20, 2007 12:50 PM
*****************
Even worse, as per the JOHN DOE Amendment, since we are at war, THERE IS NO LIMIT to the things the DIMS are prepared to allow to be done to us by the enemies.
Everyone always says, the job is easiest when there are inside men in on it.
And you keep showing your true colors every single day.
Just think of all the things you are asking for to come back upon your own heads. 100 fold.
Overflowing. Pressed down. Shaken together.
Harvest of the seed you sowed.
It's called "poetic Justice". Or, the First Law of the Land.
Posted by Rose | July 20, 2007 11:05 PM
Someone care to explain what FREE SPEECH has to do with CONSPIRACY, and INCITEMENT, and CONTRIBUTING to the delinquency, of those who commit CRIMES?
What these jihadists are spreading is NOT FREE SPEECH.
Posted by jeffk | July 21, 2007 9:23 AM
Rose, the point is that if it is indeed those other things, there's already laws to cover it. No use letting irrational fear scare us into making unnecessary laws, laws that could threaten free speech.
Posted by Intrepid | July 21, 2007 1:45 PM
"Rose, the point is that if it is indeed those other things, there's already laws to cover it. No use letting irrational fear scare us into making unnecessary laws, laws that could threaten free speech."
This about websites that encourage the murder of infidels and promote snuff films of hostages? That is an incredibly weak argument given the context of these jihadi sites.