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Archive for the ‘terrorism’ Category

FOXNews.com – Terrorists Targeting Children Via Facebook, Twitter

Updated March 15, 2010
Terrorists Targeting Children Via Facebook, Twitter

FOXNews.com

The Internet grew 20 percent uglier last year, with terrorists and racists increasingly turning to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter — and targeting children, finds the 2010 Digital Hate Report.

The 2010 Digital Terror Report from the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Tolerance found a 20% increase in the prevalence of hate-filled Web sites–notably in social media like Facebook and Twitter.

The Internet grew 20 percent uglier last year, with terrorists and racists increasingly turning to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter — and targeting children, finds the 2010 Digital Hate Report.

The CD-ROM report, put out annually by the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Tolerance, aims to assist law enforcement, public officials, educators, parents and the news media to better grasp the scope of hate.

The report, based on some 11,500 problematic Web sites, social networks , chat forums, twitter posts, other Internet postings, found that hate-filled language is increasingly filling social networks. In compiling it, researchers for the Wiesenthal center found such disturbing online content as video footage showing bomb-making instructions and hate games — including one about bombing Haitian earthquake victims.

The report found a 20% increase to 11,500 in hate-filled social networks, Web sites, forums, blogs, Twitter feeds, and so on (up from 10,000 last year). It notes that beyond its role in our social lives, the Internet often acts as the incubator and validator of dangerous conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11 and organ theft.

The lone wolf terrorist, once primarily a domestic extremist character, is now a role heavily promoted by terrorist groups, found the 2010 Digital Hate Report.

The Wiesenthal Center uncovered expanded ‘how-to’ posts for terrorists, including binary and laser technology. And even more disturbing, the Center found hate games, including one inviting the user to bomb Haitian earthquake victims, continue to target young people

It’s all part of a trend of terrorists targeting young people, the report indicates, a finding supported by recent news reports. Over the weekend, FoxNews.com reported that the 6-year-old son of a Colorado nursing student who ran off to Europe to join a terrorist murder cell was brainwashed into a hate-filled Islamic fundamentalist zombie, his family said Saturday. Her family said she struck up an Internet friendship with a Colorado radical.

And court records and other documents show that Colleen LaRose — or ‘Jihad Jane’ — may have used YouTube as part of her alleged trail of terrorist activities.

The report was presented at a press conference at the New York Tolerance Center by Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal center, a pioneer in digital hate and terror, and Mark Weitzman, the center’s director of government affairs. Representative Carolyn Maloney joined in the unveiling as well.

The report is used by the FBI, Homeland Security, military officials, hate crime units and joint terrorism taskforces in the U.S. as well as Canada and Europe.

Worth reading this one….

Terrorism Act 2006 section 3 Internet Censorship powers have *never* been invoked: “

Back in October 2005 this Spy Blog article Terrorism Bill 2005 – part 2 of our comments asked:

Why is there any need for regulation in this area at all ? The existing Acceptable Use Policies of all UK website operators, for example, already means that there are no public ‘terrorist websites’ operating from servers within the United Kingdom.

If the intention is to somehow stop impressionable people from falling into the clutches of terrorist recruiters, then this is already as effective as it will ever be.

If people are already moving within extremist circles, then private websites, especially those hosted abroad, are beyond the competence and legal jurisdiction of the Home Office or the UK Police.

Any attempts to ‘disrupt’ these systems, such as those hosted in, say China, could easily be interpreted as ‘cyber war’, which would damage the UK economy far more than the slight, temporary effect that ‘disruption’ of such sites would have on the terrorists. It would also remove the opportunity for covert surveillance of such ‘honeypots’ for intelligence gathering purposes.

It now turns out that this inept Labour Government’s scaremongering and controversial Terrorism Act 2006 section 3 Application of ss. 1 and 2 to internet activity etc.. which relates to section 1 ‘Encouragement of terrorism’ and / or section 2. ‘Dissemination of terrorist publications’, have never actually been invoked.

HL Deb, 10 February 2010, c168W

Terrorism: Internet
House of Lords
Written answers and statements, 10 February 2010

Baroness Warsi (Shadow Minister (Community Cohesion and Social Action), Communities and Local Government; Conservative)

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many times the police have used powers under section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2006 to seek the removal or modification of unlawful terrorist-related material from the internet in each of the last six months.

Lord West of Spithead (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Security and Counter-terrorism), Home Office; Labour)

The Home Office and ACPO (TAM) have set up a new unit, the Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU), which was launched in a pilot capacity on 1 February 2010. The CTIRU is responsible for the co-ordination and execution of voluntary and Section 3 take-down notices. Further details on the CTIRU, including statistics regarding take-downs, will be available in due course.

To date, the preferred route for removing potentially unlawful terrorist content is through informal contact between the police and the internet service provider. This approach has proved effective. As a result, it has not been necessary to use the formal powers given under the Terrorism Act 2006 to seek the removal or modification of unlawful terrorist-related material from the internet.

Note the creation of Yet Another Unaccountable Bureaucratic Quango, the Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU)

The legal powers under the Terrorism Act 2006, were, typically, and totally unnecessarily, made available to any Police Constable, no matter how ill trained, or ignorant of the internet or of free speech or religious freedom issues.

Why did the original legislation not restrict these legal power only to members of a properly trained unit, dedicated full time to the task, as, hopefully the CTIRU now is ?

Before the Terrorism Act 2006, UK based internet and telecommunications companies always cooperated voluntarily with the Police, and they appear to have done so since.

Before the Terrorism Act 2006, foreign based internet companies had no obligation to cooperate and neither do they now.

What was the point of it all ?

Why not simply repeal this Act, with no loss in effectiveness whatsoever against real terrorists, and thereby nullifying somewhat, the propaganda victory which these repressive powers handed to the terrorists ?

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(Via Spy Blog – SpyBlog.org.uk.)

Right to Free Speech Collides With Fight Against Terror: “The Supreme Court will hear a challenge to a ban on providing ‘material support’ to terrorist groups in a test of the constitutionality of a provision of the USA Patriot Act.”

(Via NYT > Freedom of Speech and Expression.)

UN issues call for international privacy agreement: “

Countering counter-terror powers

A UN watchdog has called for a new international agreement on privacy following a review of the expanding global array of surveillance measures and databases advanced by governments in the cause of counter-terrorism.…

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(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

Directgov battles terrorism with report-a-website page: “

Watch out YouTube

The Home Office has launched a page for people to report online extremism and terror-related content.…

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(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

Spooks scour gambling sites in terror finance probe: “

Money laundering with a poker face

The security services are running 23 ongoing investigations into the exploitation of gambling websites to finance terrorism.…

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(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

Police unit formed to take down websites suspected of breaking terror laws: “A police unit has been created to force the take-down of web pages which break the UK’s terrorism laws. The Government has set up a web page through which the public can tell the police about pages that they think are illegal.”

Note the Report terrorist, violent extremist and hate material online pages run by the Home Office. Note further the related Home Office pages: Reporting hate, extremism and terrorism online

The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) said that it had created a new unit to act on reports from the public and to look for material that might break the Terrorism Act. The team is part of its Prevent Delivery Unit which deals with counter-terrorism.

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

Only in the UK……

UK jails schizophrenic for refusal to decrypt files: “

Terror squad arrest over model rocket

Exclusive The first person jailed under draconian UK police powers that Ministers said were vital to battle terrorism and serious crime has been identified by The Register as a schizophrenic science hobbyist with no previous criminal record.…

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(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

Terrorism chiefs don’t know what they’ve censored online: “

You jolly well wanted records? Oh

Police are shutting websites without keeping any records, hampering government efforts to address online extremism, it’s been revealed.…

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(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

Tories research increased net censorship: “

Jihad.com 404

The activities, alleged activities, and destiny of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) are a constant source of controversy in these parts, so our interest was naturally piqued by a Parliamentary question from the shadow security minister Baroness Neville-Jones last week.…

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(Via The Register – Public Sector.)