Since 9/11/2001, we have been at war with radical Islamic terrorists.� But, they have been at war with us far longer.� Much attention has been given to the physical war, but there is also a war being waged in cyberspace.� For the terrorists, this has been an effort to turn the tools of modern commerce and communication against us, their originators.� It has served them for coordination, recruitment, indoctrination, training, intimidation, physical target evaluation, net disruption, distraction, propaganda, discussion, strategy development, and theft.� On our side, it has been a game of intelligence, infiltration, observation, evaluation, countering the spread of terrorist ideology, denying net/communications access, and providing alternatives to the lure of hate and suspicion.

As early as 2002, web-articles began appearing outlining the probable course of web-based warfare, particularly in the arena of opinion.� In “Islam Takes to the Web in the Aftermath of 9/11”, Reuters reporter Edmund Blair showed how radical voices began to vent their opinions and passions, made contacts and recruits, preached Jihad, and discussed means across the Internet.� The web enabled young Muslims and sympathizers to take part in Jihad without leaving the comfort of a parent’s home or college dormitory, and without having to travel to the Middle East.� It may be that they� absorbed ideas that found later expression in acts like the London Subway and Madrid train bombings, and in contrived rioting.� They found an alternative for continuing activities that could no longer be sustained at mosques and madrassas located within countries where terrorism is no longer condoned.� Where those places had been accessible, visible, and fixed, the net is remote, anonymous, and mobile.� The net plays an important part in inciting adherents at great distance, with little possibility of being stopped, and adapts new recruits to various roles in-place.� Thus, it may well have spurred free-lance radicals to action in pursuit of Al Qaida objectives.

In “A Web of Terror,” Sarah El Deeb of the Associated Press tells us something of the elusive nature of net sourcing radicals.� Although it has been possible to deny service or even close down some jihadist sites, new sites quickly crop up taking their place; and material once posted reappears at multiple sites.� A Qatar-based web-hosting company and the video of the Nicholas Berg beheading are cases in point.� Murad Alazzeh’s jihadist site was repeatedly hacked to deny it access, and to worm his servers until his subscriber base was cut from 48,000 to less than 4,000.� At that point, he simply shut down his servers and created a new site identity somewhere else.� Similarly, the Malaysian site hosting the Berg slaying was shut down within days of airing.� However, the video itself reappeared at numerous sites which savvy surfers have little difficulty finding via coded forum postings.� Contributors at forums and chat rooms alert one another to the latest and most sensational postings.� Addresses pointing to new locations are posted with missing letters and numerals, which the initiated can figure out by perusing the remainder of the posting or other posts at the same site.� Jihadists have also found they can hijack websites from others, including the unsecured sites of school-aged children.

On our side, there are web-based counter-groups, including GlobalSecurity.org in Alexandria, VA.� Global Security has posted expert articles detailing the methodologies of terrorism, including web use.� � Following Deeb’s lead to Global Security, I found articles detailing The Millennium Plot, Al-Qaeda money laundering, and Virtual Jihad.� The Millennium Plot describes the almost simultaneous attacks on the Los Angeles International Airport, SAS Radisson Hotel in Amman Jordan, and two Biblical sites in the West Bank.� The Internet and cell phones were used to coordinate the attacks, but were also used by anti-terror analysts to evaluate and thwart the attacks.� Six terrorists were arrested in Jordan before the attacks could take place, and the lead LAX bomber was fortuitously arrested as he tried to cross the Canadian border into Seattle.� The article "Virtual Jihad" richly details many of the ways Islamic terrorists use the Internet to plan, promote, and propagate physical and cyber attacks, and the technical, legal, and political challenges to countering them.� Because of the constraints on counter-activity, much of the effort and success has come by working through private organizations like Global Security, iDefense Inc., and the Jamestown Group.� It also details some of the resistance encountered to their counter-measures.� Postings of the Jamestown Group well worth reading are: New Forum Postings Call for Intensified Electronic Jihad against Government Websites, Internet Mujahideen Intensify Research on U.S. Economic Targets, Assessing London and Sharm al-Sheikh: The Role of Internet Intelligence and Urban Warfare Training, Jamestown Experts Monitoring Terror Attacks in London, and New Online Book Lays Out al-Qaeda's Military Strategy.

In “Terrorists Turn to the Web as Base of Operations”, Washington Post writers Steve Coll and Susan Glasser describe how nearly half of Osama’s followers in Afghanistan carried laptop computers in addition to their Kalashnikovs and other armament.� Driven underground, they’ve adapted to a new kind of warfare that avoids concentration.� Much of their training is now conducted electronically, including: how to mix ricin (poison), how to make bombs from available chemicals, how to infiltrate, how to shoot American soldiers, how to navigate by stars, and how to cultivate and deliver a virus.� In the article, Michael Scheuer, former chief of a CIA tracking unit points out. "It used to be they [recruits] had to go to Sudan, … Yemen, … Afghanistan to train," and, when they did, we could tag and trail them.� Internet use has substantially reduced that vulnerability.

In the 1970’s, Islamic terrorism was chiefly confined to the Middle East and Western Mediterranean.� In the 1980’s, frequent international hijackings indicated it had begun reaching outside the Middle East to more vulnerable and media-grabbing targets.� With the breakup of the Soviet Union in the 1990’s, the sponsor-client relationships that both nurtured and restrained radical-Islamic activity were gone.� In the same period, the Internet has matured from novelty to invaluable tool, serving hundreds of uses.� It is too valuable and too integrated in our business, information, scientific-academic, and security infrastructures for us to simply pull the plug on it to deny access to those who use it against us.�

With the Patriot Act up for renewal, those provisions most directly touching electronic surveillance and counter-measures are due to expire, and are extended only until Congress decides they are to live or die.� Concurrently, the ACLU and others (Patriot Act Abuses & EPIC Sunset) have speculated the government is violating the rights of millions of citizens (and non-citizens) every day, and are pressing to have Patriot revoked.� Despite the overheated rhetoric, only two provisions have elicited any real concern as “novelties” threatening our civil liberties.� By that, I mean they affect our liberties more than was the case prior to 9/11/2001.� I have always been a jealous defender of our liberties and privacy, and have not veered from that position.� Nor do I advocate giving government more power than it needs in the pursuit of its legitimate objects.� However, I have researched the text, history, and arguments made by all parties, and find the accusations fall far short of the “radical gutting of the Constitution” attributed to the Patriot Act.

The measures at the heart of this controversy relate to wiretapping� and net monitoring, co-opting internet service providers, delaying notice of warrants, and the withholding of information pertaining to national security from the public of what has been done.� With the exception of the last item, I can find little to complain of in the government’s application to date.� The one real abuse of a citizen was an arrest stemming from a fingerprint misidentification; an abuse that would have occurred with or without Patriot, and for which the FBI acknowledges it acted wrongfully.� Most of the questioned provisions have pre-existing analogues in laws governing spying, racketeering, and drug-interdiction.� The remaining (non-sunset) provisions are boiler-plated from existing laws governing investigating and apprehending lawbreakers, and there is nothing the least bit novel in them.� There is some potential in all these provisions for abuse, but it is clear that, given the nature of electronic-jihad, they or something close to them are unavoidable in fighting this new type of war if we are to prevent new acts of terrorism on U.S. soil.� � It is my hope that Congress will take the time to fix the problems without gutting those very provisions most needed for virtual warfare.

In World War II, the government violated the rights of far more citizens when it herded hundreds of Japanese-Americans into interment camps in order to neutralize Japanese 5th columnists hiding amongst them.� The Patriot act selectively targets hostile foreigners operating on U.S. soil who are not agents of a foreign government, and who are not covered by our existing espionage laws.� As such, pre-9/11, we had no laws for dealing with this new type of belligerent, no means of thwarting them, and no applicable guidelines for safeguarding their “rights.”� It is a necessary measure, in war, that we make provision for both disarming such agents and for protecting those inadvertently caught in the same net.� � I have never advocated the trampling of any true rights, and won’t now.� But those rights will be destroyed more by those who attack our philosophy and way of life than by those made responsible for our safety; and will be lost in any case if we do nothing.� The challenge is to find those restraints that best preserve our free exchange, while preventing attacks using those same means.