Cyber Vigilantes Track Extremist Web Sites, Intelligence Experts Balk at Effort

[Mugu]

MIAMI, Fla. — While the debate grows on how to tackle global jihadism on the Internet, some security experts warn that "cyber vigilantes" — people who track and help shut down terror-related Web sites — are compromising government investigations with their amateur sleuthing tactics.

Michael Radu, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and an expert on terror-related Web sites, said the government is already overburdened trying to monitor the thousands of sites on the Web believed to contain radical Muslim messages. These cyber vigilantes, he said, are not helping.

“It is very unlikely they will find something of significance in the Internet that the government doesn’t already know," Radu said. "They are redundant at best.”

Cyber vigilantes typically troll the Internet, searching message boards, Web sites and media sharing sites for incendiary postings from people with ties to terror groups like Al Qaeda. Using Arabic translation software, they monitor postings and even assume fake identities to join online conversations.


Read complete article at:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,340613,00.html

[bluerum]

1. ,,, even assume fake identities to join online conversations.

Joe - say it ain't so.

[annabanana]

2. won't they be surprised someday, to find themselves scooped up

in the Patriot Act and renditioned without recourse to counsel. . . .

[noamnety]

3. Can't help thinking of Sybel here.

Newflash: Half the time, US Intelligence Experts ARE the extremist hate groups.