Legal Internet Use by Terrorists

Introduction

One of the greatest features of the internet is that it is a powerful tool available to everyone. However, when such a tool falls into the wrong hands, there is little that regulators can do without threatening the very features of the internet that give it value. This short essay considers this inherent dilemma of choosing between a free and open internet and one that can be harnessed to further evil purposes.

I’m not talking about actual attacks via information networks (i.e. cyberterrorism), as such behavior is simply destructive regardless of who is doing it. Where the question really gets interesting is where regulation that would require some kind of discrimination—for instance, allowing online community organization efforts by the Obama campaign but not by Al Qaeda (see chart below). The ultimate question I seek to answer is whether or not peaceful and otherwise legal uses of the internet should be regulated based on the user’s purpose. I believe that unless there is violence or other extreme circumstances involved, it should remain as open and powerful a tool as possible.

Features of the Internet

The following list briefly considers (a) the internet’s value to both good and evil organizations and (b) what may be lost or significantly altered by counterterrorist regulation efforts.

1. Neutrality: There are much fewer discriminatory institutional and technological hurdles online than there are elsewhere. Size or stature does not matter—a personal blogger is as “online” as powerful corporate and government bodies.
2. Vast audiences: Once online, any website is available to all of the 1.5 billion people on the internet.
3. Financial and media capabilities: Such interactions are not limited to text or even hypertext—the internet offers a complete multimedia environment, as well as the ability to make online financial transactions.
4. Cheapness and anonymity: An online presence does not cost very much to create or maintain, and can be done by virtually anyone in an automated and anonymous manner.

Legal Uses of the Internet

Below is a breakdown of some of the legal uses of the internet that can be either devastating or beneficial depending on its user. For comparison, I discuss how terrorists use the internet to further their violent goals in largely the same manner that grassroots election campaigns further democratic principles during elections.

Discussion and Conclusion

Counterterrorism in many ways is simply a line-drawing exercise—i.e. what we are willing to sacrifice in order to preserve our safety. For instance, while we are not ready to ban air travel completely, we are willing to submit ourselves to restrictions on what we can carry onto a plane.

In a recent microcosm of the issue, Senator Joe Lieberman demanded that YouTube remove all videos from identified terrorist organizations. YouTube responded by only removing those that were violent enough to violate its own community standards while defending the organizations’ right to post legal nonviolent material as well as the total benefit to society from a diverse range of views.

I tend to agree with YouTube’s approach, and believe that content should only be regulated where there is violence, or the imminent threat of some kind of violence in relation to that content.

First, when it comes to criminal and terrorist activity, we should regulate the violence they may use to achieve their goals, rather than their beliefs alone. We do not fear people for what they believe or desire; we fear what they might do to us to achieve their goals.

Second, a line drawn too far would simply do more harm than good for national security. Regardless of intent, prohibiting even peaceful communications amounts to outright censorship, which would only strengthen the resolve and hatred of terrorists and their potential supporters. Also, the automated and decentralized nature of the internet would turn most efforts at regulation into a futile game of Whac-A-Mole, with new sites popping up every time another is quashed. Any gain in security achieved by such measures would likely be far outweighed by the sympathy and support terrorists would receive as a result of such censorship.

Finally, I believe the freedom and neutrality that the internet represents is something worth protecting. In many ways it is a technological embodiment of democratic and free-speech ideals, right now allowing me to publish my uncensored thoughts for the whole world to see, regardless of who I am and what I believe. Also, technologically, any filtering methods that successfully block all content from certain would have to be extremely invasive and likely overbroad (given the “Whac-A-Mole” problem stated above). And at the end of the day, the internet would be subject to the discretion of an unelected and largely unregulated body of decisionmakers.

National security is and should remain a top priority of our nation. However, any line drawn beyond violent content or imminent attack would not only be futile, but actually detrimental to both our security and the principles we’ve fought for since the inception of our country.

-- StevenHwang - 18 Nov 2008

Steven, I'm a bit confused by where you draw the line. You seem to be saying that violent footage should be taken down, but you're also arguing that filtering would be overbroad and subject to the abuse of an unregulated body. How do you reconcile these two statements? Even if you're only filtering for violent content, you still face the same general ills of filtration. Furthermore, how does a filter distinguish between CNN footage and an Al Qaeda beheading distributed for fear-mongering purposes? And in that case, should there necessarily be any filtration at all? Isn't that a fact for the world to see and scholars and politicians to cite?

Or maybe you want this line to only be applicable to content aggregators like YouTube? , but not the Internet at large? That would clear up the logical inconsistency in your statements, but I'm not sure that's a proper solution, either.

-- KateVershov - 05 Dec 2008

Your'e right, I don't think I was very clear on the line I drew.

I think the line should be drawn where the content actually causes or creates imminent physical violence (as opposed to simply depicting it). It would be very difficult to meet this standard--it would have to be something on the magnitude of outright instruction. For instance, if a terrorist organization were to post a call for its followers to riot at a particular time on a particular street or to assassinate a certain official, we should be able to take that down. I would take this even farther to say that even if the message were hidden--e.g. if the content was ostensibly innocuous, but the government had really good reason to believe it was some kind of "trigger" for a coordinated attack, we should also be able to take that down. On the other hand, if they say that America is bad or simply depict violent actions, I might dislike them, but I do not think that it should be taken down.

YouTube? 's own community standard is much stricter than mine, but I agree with their filtering based on CONTENT rather than by USER.

I'll clear this up in my rewrite. Thanks for the comment!

-- StevenHwang - 06 Dec 2008

Steven, have you considered the locality of the servers in your argument? If the content in question is located on a server outside of the United States, should they still be able to take it down (assuming arguendo that they could do so)? Should other nations have the right to do the same with content on US servers they feel incites violence against or by their citizens? What about differing views on what constitutes "imminence?" That is a concept that already leads to difficulties, both in our own criminal justice system's analysis of self-defense and in regards to the United Nations charter and lawful military action. See Bobbitt, Philip, Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-First Century (New York: Alfed A. Knopf, 2008), Pg. 452.

-- JohnPowerHely - 09 Dec 2008

Steven, I hope you won't mind if I follow up on your response to Kate above. In your comment, you say that you would take down content that creates imminent physical violence. This made me think of Jyllands-Posten's cartoons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy), which sparked riots resulting in over 100 deaths. Would you take these down? Does the user/intent ever matter? What if similar cartoons were posted by a terrorist group in hopes of causing rioting?

-- DavidHambrick - 10 Dec 2008

Steve, I posted a comment a few days ago, but for some reason it did not show up on the page. I don't remember exactly what I wrote (perhaps it is recoverable from the server?), but I will try again here. For the most part I agree with your paper. I do think that regulation would be mostly futile and could also possibly lead us to a slippery slope. Who is deciding what to censor? I do, however, think that clear attempts to instigate violence can be easily identified. But, as David writes above, there can certainly be gray areas. The beauty of an open forum website like youtube is that people can leave comments or post video responses to debunk hate speech, correct misinformation, etc. The problem is that video posters can choose to not allow comments and can block video responses. Do you think that a site like youtube could effectively deal with controversial videos (that might not be inherently violent) by mandating that all comments be allowed and all video responses be linked?

-- MarcRoitman - 10 Dec 2008

I have no idea why my comments aren't posting. Here is my response to John's and David's comments:

Thanks for the comments guys.

John, regarding the locality of the servers, I would think it would depend on how serious the threat--i.e. the ever-elusive concept of "imminence." I would say that if it were "the signal" for a coordinated attack or something like that, by all means we should block it to the extent we can. Even if we don't have access to foreign servers, we could block the incoming traffic a la China/Google.

As for imminence, I think we really have to decide it on a case-by-case basis, within certain guidelines. I think it absolutely does lead to difficulties, but such difficulties are not foreign to criminal justice or counterterrorism. That does not mean that it should be a blank slate, either. I think "imminent violence" as related to online content should be defined as violence that will take place in the future (especially near future) with a high degree of certainty, unless the content is removed.

As eluded to above, I think the trigger scenario (think "Relax" in Zoolander) is the clearest example of something that falls into this category. An angry person or group that says that America deserves to be bombed does not. Websites that recruit terrorists tread the line--on one hand, recruitment is not violence itself, but it might lead to violence in the future. I would say that for this scenario, we should not block general recruiting, but we should block recruiting that our other intelligence tells us is for the specific purpose of something big that will happen soon. A lot of the line-drawing really just depends on what other information we have, and how certain we are given all circumstances that taking down the content will save lives that may be lost if we don't.

David, regarding the cartoons--Thanks for bringing these up. I did not know about the situation, but it is very interesting question given my paper. As stupid as I think the cartoons are, I think that such speech should generally be protected absent an imminent threat. It's a complex question and a really slippery slope here. The violence was an unfortunate and unintended consequence of their actions. I think if they planned to repeat it or make a series out of it, that then it would be appropriate for the powers that be to have a talk with them and let them know that that's not a good idea. I feel like once you've done something that's already caused violence, you don't have the same liberties to do it again--you can't just claim non-intent if you know it will happen. But it looks like it was printed only once, and that beyond that it was other outlets that were reprinting it. The riots were sudden outbursts rather than planned attacks. The situations that I'm thinking of for taking down content is when you know that something will surely happen unless you take down the content--posting tasteless political cartoons does not fall into this category absent that knowledge.

With regard to your question about user and intent, I think that actual effect is always more important. For instance, I might protect the terrorists cartoons that are trying to start violence (but were failing miserably), but take down political cartoons if we knew they were definitely going to cause violence.

-- StevenHwang - 12 Dec 2008