Euro-View: Internet Policing

By Mark Burgess

This article was first published by SECEUR.

BRUSSELS – On the face of it, passing legislation to prevent the internet from being used to promote terrorists’ ideology or enhance their capabilities is a no-brainer. The European Commission should be commended and supported for its November 2007 proposal to make punishable any public provocation to commit terrorist offences or recruit or train terrorists via the Web. However, the Commission’s approach is not without its problems and risks rendering any counter-terrorism campaign towards the internet less effective than it could be.

Recent prosecutions for such offences in the UK seem to underscore the need for such legislation.  In one case, Samina Malik, a female shop assistant in the UK who is given to writing bloodthirsty ‘jihadist’ poetry was cleared of possessing certain materials such as “The al Qaeda Manual” or “The Mujahideen Poisons Handbook” intended for terrorist purposes. However, she was found guilty of possessing other ones “likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism,” as noted in the UK’s Terrorism Act.

In another UK example, three people in July 2007 were sentenced to jail terms of between seven and ten years for inciting others to wage jihad, while four students and a schoolboy were sentenced for having a collection of jihadist videos and documents which, in the UK court’s view, they intended to use for terrorist purposes.

The motives for possessing such documents are paramount. If it were only a question of possession, then there are many (including myself) who might risk being similarly accused under the relevant clauses of the UK Terrorism Act and any proposed EU equivalents.

Underlying this approach is the dilemma of how to ensure that prudent prevention does not become presumptuous pre-emption.  Or – taken to an extreme – will we end up with a society akin to that in the 2002 movie Minority Report where a special ‘pre-crime’ unit arrests people before they broke the law?

Such fears are often overstated.  The checks and balances inherent in most Western political systems, combined with the unceasing attention that Euro-sceptics and civil liberties watchdogs give to such matters, should go some way to preventing any irreversible, terminal, or un-noticed erosion of freedom of expression.

Yet terrorists have been able to use the internet too freely in recent years, and this problem is an urgent, if difficult, one to address. It is not merely a question of civil liberties.  Shutting down offending internet sites, as the EU has suggested, is a short-sighted and short-term tactic if used in isolation.

The internet is neutral.  Rather than trying, King Canute-like, to hold back the virtual sea in which the terrorists swim, the EU and other like-minded bodies should learn how to better negotiate the currents themselves.  Shutting down internet sites may be effective as a stop-gap measure or form of harassment but this cannot be the cornerstone of any online counter-terrorism campaign. Nor can policy based on tracking and locking up anyone who has ever looked at materials featured on such sites.

Too much focus on closing down websites could also be counter-productive since since it likely forces terrorist websites to go underground to the so-called ‘deep’ or hidden web or to simply move to another internet service provider. At any rate, the EU will be able to effectively control only a small slice of the ever-expanding internet universe.

There are other surveillance problems too. The West is often hard-pushed to deploy the right human assets for intelligence purposes as its agencies often lack the requisite ethnic, linguistic, and cultural assets needed.

The internet can be exploited by European intelligence agencies in effective ways, however, by using counter-propaganda, disinformation, or – when it suffices – the plain old truth.  The vulnerability of ‘internet jihadists’ to such tactics, whether real or imagined, was particularly evident in the first half of 2006 when frenzied online debates expressed fears that the Global Islamic Media Front, a distributor of much al Qaeda material, had been infiltrated by Saudi intelligence. Also, the West should do more to encourage moderate Islam to better engage in the online debate and to more visibly assert its place vis-à-vis the extremists who, after all, represent only a small faction in Islamic cyber-space.

Finally, wider general education campaigns can also play a role, particularly regarding the role of parents in assessing the vulnerabilities, temptations, and heresies their children confront when they venture online.  Saudi authorities, for example, recently launched a series of television advertisements that point out the hidden dangers of surfing the Web.

Such initiatives are welcomed and should be expanded.  They offer more counter-terrorist potential that trying to close down websites faster than they can be put back online or locking up people faster than they can be indoctrinated.  If twinned with measured legislative instruments and media-savvy ‘hearts and minds’ campaigns, they may work to make the internet a less neutral but more benevolent jungle.

Mark Burgess is the Director of the World Security Institute’s Brussels office. For information, see: www.wsibrussels.org.