Guerrillas In Our Midst (Updated)
MichaelW on Jul 20 2007 at 2:32 pm | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Foreign affairs, Law, MichaelW's Page, Notes on the war, Technology
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
– U.S. Constitution, Art. 3, Sect. 3
The crime of treason is notoriously difficult to commit in this country, as it should be. I don’t mean that there are numerous barriers to entry, but that having one’s actions adjudicated as “treasonous” requires meeting a substantially high bar. Thus, speaking fondly of Osama bin Laden would not in and of itself pass the bar, while taking up arms in his service would most definitely do so.
With that in mind, this sort of aiding and abetting certainly appears to be flirting with that line (HT: McQ):
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).
If true, then American internet service providers stand accused of actively supporting Islamic radicals, at least some of whom are self-declared enemies of the United States:
And there’s this nice blog called “Supporters of Jihad in Iraq,” whose page top caption says: “Kill the Americans everywhere.”
At first blush, then, it would appear that you could prosecute a real case for treason against these ISP’s. Ah, but not so fast:
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.
The bolded part tends to negate any ill intent on the part of the ISP’s (that’s mens rea for you, Pogue), and in fact suggests that they are completely unaware of what these sites are about, much less who is running them. Honestly, I’m not sure why they would be. Do we really want ISP’s routinely policing hour websites and telling us what they will allow and what they won’t? I know I don’t. Not to mention that fewer ISP’s would exist, and the costs of having a website would rise, if ISP’s were charged with responsibility for the websites that they host.
But that doesn’t mean that the ISP’s should be knowingly hosting jihadi websites, with extra emphasis on knowlingly. Here’s what McQ suggests:
Now MEMRI wonders what to do about this. And, apparently, so do some of our elected reps.
While they’re dithering over the fact that these websites exist and what to do about them, I’d suggest the following for the rest of us. If you’re doing business with any of these ISPs, you may want to advise them of your displeasure that your fees are helping support a company that is hosting websites of avowed enemies of your nation and culture. Granted, because these are in arabic, the ISPs may not even know what the sites are, but now you do. Point the ISPs to the MEMRI post. Tell them that websites which call for the killing of Americans, waging war against us and teaching radicals how to make bombs are unacceptable. This is not something which you must wait on government to do. These sites need to come down and they need to come down because of grassroots and market pressure to do so. Shut them down.
That looks about right to me. Frankly, I’m not sure what government can legally do, other than to place holds on bank accounts and seize assets here in the US. And I’m willing to bet that once these ISP’s become aware of whom they are hosting, they will take steps to kill these jihadi sites. Ergo, no government force necessary.
When putting pressure on the ISP’s, however, it is important that you keep a couple of points in mind:
(1) They are not committing treason. As I laid out above, it is easy to assume that the ISP’s are doing so, but only if you look at it superficially. It’s highly unlikely that the ISP’s are even aware that these are jihadi websites, so the way you enlist their help is by raising their awareness. If you want the ISP’s to stop hosting the jihadis, then what you don’t do is accuse of them of treason. The ISP’s will be much more co-operative if you don’t.
(2) Be patient. Even after the ISP’s become aware of the problem, they will have to step very lightly. Simply cutting off any of the allegedly jihadi sites could subject the ISP’s to liability for breach of contract or even discrimination. Each company will take its time figuring out the best way to extricate itself from the situation without fostering expensive litigation. It’s not as easy as you may think, so cut them a little slack.
(3) Not every Islamic website, nor every website with which you disagree, is a jihadi website. The website for Jaysh Al-Mujahideen? Yes, it’s run by terrorists who are enemies of the United States. The website for CAIR? No, it’s not. And I say that with the full understanding that CAIR most likely is ultimately supported by terrorists, Salafists, and anti-American jihadis (but I repeat myself), but that doesn’t necessarily make CAIR’s websites jihadi, and it doesn’t mean that ISP’s should be charged with shutting them down.
A few respectful consumer letters, and some blogospheric attention should be enough to deny the jihadis an American platform for the recruiting and propaganda efforts.
UPDATE: McQ links and adds this useful information:
“Another thing to let the ISP know is that MEMRI will give them a hand with translations if they have a question:
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.
That’s an important bit of info to pass along as you alert these ISPs to what they may have on their servers.”
Technorati Tags: jihad, jihadi websites, MEMRI, ISP
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The View From the Bluff: Lance’s Economic and Finance Blog
I remember, just after 9/11, when I was significantly more entrenched in the computer security realm, my friends and I would try to get extremist websites shut down, sometimes by defacement (though this would consist of running the Arabic through Babelfish and posting it on their homepage, with sometimes hilarious results). I’m glad I stopped doing that, as it was quite illegal, though I did continue to report as “offensive” any English-language boards I found actively advocating murder (which is a crime and does tend to negate whatever EULAs they signed for hosting).
But here’s a thought: while it is a major issue (especially when you look at the network effects these sites enable), has MEMRI given any thought to the intelligence value of these sites?
That is a good thought, Josh, and one that’s been raised elsewhere. The problem is, if these are American based sites, then American rules apply as to the legality of gathering information from them. The hysterics about the NSA surveillance and the FBI letters to librarians would pale in comparison to that which would erupt if these sites were surreptitiously surveilled for relevant user info.
Nevertheless, it is a good point, and one that should be considered.
Well, except the NSA does that already with AT&T. But I don’t think they’d have to break into the server logs to see what’s happening, just track the comm traffic, as it were. Open source and all source analysts rarely interact, but this seems like one of those cases where such cross-pollination could be useful.