Terror on the Internet: The New Arena, the New Challenges

Citation

Hannabuss, S. (2007), "Terror on the Internet: The New Arena, the New Challenges", Library Review, Vol. 56 No. 2, pp. 159-162. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530710730439

Terrorism has used the internet more and more in recent years to reach wide audiences, gather information, and disseminate propaganda. Most active terrorist groups, from Al‐Qaeda and ETA to FARC and Hezbollah and Aum Shinrikyo, have active websites. In a widely‐noted online report in 2003, Gabriel Weimann (professor of communication at Haifa University and a former senior research fellow at USIP) suggested that terrorists use the internet for psychological warfare, publicity and propaganda, data mining, fund‐raising, recruitment and motivation, networking, sharing information, and planning and coordination.

The work under review here, Terror on the Internet, follows up that research, reiterating and extending many of its conclusions and arguments. His argument, though familiar in the literature, is that threats should be (and are understandably) met with counter‐measures, but that these counter‐measures in themselves (security/surveillance like the FBI Carnivore, laws like the US Patriot Act, government policy and the like) pose dangers for freedom and liberty. The “golden path” between these two factors, with all its complex trade‐offs, is where he leaves the argument.

Academic and journalistic research and comment on cyber‐politics and cyber‐terrorism have been extensive in recent years, as the references to Bunt (2000) and Seib (2004) and Verton (2003), Stern (2003) and Latham (2003) and Arquilla and Ronfeldt (2001), Baker (2004) and Mazarr (2002), van de Bonk et al. (2004), and Jackson (2005) reveal. Increasing attention, too, is being paid to social science research methodologies on and for the internet (Hine, 2005).

We can approach this on several levels. First, there is the global debate about the form and growth of terrorism, its increasing use of the internet for communication, and the impact this has on policy and social awareness (often to increase security measures by the first and a sense of threat and fear in the second). Second, there is website analysis, the examination of who sets up websites and how they operate, who their target audiences are (terrorists target both friend and foe and no small number of websites attack other terrorists), what content and interactivity are provided, what data‐mining and market research facilities are employed, and where hacktivism (politically‐active hacking) becomes terrorism.

Third, there are issues about the counter‐measures – security measures and systems like Carnivore and Magic Lantern, attacks on terrorist websites, the proactive deletion or protection of publicly‐available information just in case, taking measures to censor and protect privacy, and the case made by civil liberties and other organizations. On any of these levels, the debate is topical enough for studies in international politics and policy, internet studies, information and communication, to make works like Terror on the Internet a “must” for any self‐respecting and topical collection on cyber‐terrorism. Weimann's study is a model of clarity, and, although his conclusions are to advocate a peace agenda, his views do not necessarily reflect those of USIP (which describes itself as an independent non‐partisan national institution, funded by the US Congress, to help prevent and manage and resolve international conflict such as that created by terrorism and religious extremism). A clear introduction maps out the territory – growing internet use by terrorists, psychological warfare and counter‐measures like censorship, websites and chat‐rooms, target audiences and impact, nature and scope of content, how real the threat is, and the balance between security and liberty.

What comes out as substantial and original in the book is the test of whether it is worth buying in what is now a crowded field. Indeed, for the cash‐strapped library, any of the sources cited at the end of this review will do, and some librarians will want to steer clear of exclusively US works. Of particular interest, then, apart from the clarity of the overall argument (good for students and the general public trying to make sense of it all), will be sections on the rhetorical techniques used by terrorists on their websites (displacement of responsibility, dehumanization of targets, distortion of the sequence of political events, attribution of blame), a timely reminder that websites like that of Al‐Qaeda target both Muslims and the West (though readers are led to infer that their agenda is very little different from that of the satellite broadcaster Al‐Jazeera), and some detailed research based on monitoring and analyzing terrorist websites (in Chapter 4 on communication uses of the internet by terrorists). Between pages 64 and 103 there is some illuminating material and comment on the websites of Al‐Qaeda and FARC, Hamas and Hezbollah, the IRA and the “Iraqi underground”.

Readers and researchers familiar with these (above all in their original languages, although many are multi‐lingual) will already have the information, but for the general reader this survey of some of the major websites is helpful. An appendix provides a fuller listing of terrorist organizations (as defined by the US State Department) active on the internet between 1997 and 2005 (the cut‐off point for Weimann's research). As a list it opens up some interesting implications about who is, can be and should be, defined in this way, and whether there is an ulterior (or even wrong‐headed) agenda about, above all, the US approach. Hamas is now legitimated in government in Palestine, and overtures between ETA and the Spanish government are gradually changing politics there. Some, like the Red Hand Defenders and the Tunisian Combatant Group, may be unfamiliar except to experts. Weimann, moreover, covers only some of the major ones, although website and other) references are generously provided in 30 pages of notes. There is a helpful index.

The standard criticism or scepticism about many works in this field is that they are leftist conspiracy theorists supporting American hegemony in the world and feeding the popular and media‐driven frenzy of fear about terrorism. A further criticism is that of getting the balance between security and liberty right, attracting neo‐conservative arguments about safety or 4th Amendment (the one about searches) sentiment about freedom in democracy. Weimann's “golden path” conclusions (advocating legislation and self‐policing, responsibility and international collaboration, being proactive and seeking peace) has that bland inevitability of diplomatic “solutions” that website controversy seems to contradict. For any serious student of the information trade‐offs for society and politics on the internet, Terror on the Internet is well worth buying, above all at the price.