UK Wants Net Companies to Fight Terror

UK Wants Net Companies to Fight Terror

www.physorg.com

(AP) -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown wants Internet companies to help stifle online terrorist propaganda, he told lawmakers Wednesday, as officials say they plan to meet leading service providers to find ways of putting a lid on extremist content.

But the providers argue they already do all they can to fight illegal terrorist material online, and experts say even powerful filters cannot block determined users from getting their message out.

(visit the link for the full news article)


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Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
Internet a threat, says new U.N. anti-terror chief

I'm all for any proposal that clamps down on extremism, but this proposal has the potential to be abused. Who determines what is to be considered 'terrorist material' and what isn't? And like the article suggests, what's to stop determined people from accessing such materials anyway? In the end it's the regular users that will end up being penalised.

It's a slippery slope indeed.

www.physorg.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by Beachcoma


Beach
I pretty much agree with you on this one. I am all for anything that will help fight terror. However using powerful filters will just punish the regular users like you said. I don't know how many ways there are out there to fight terror with the use of the net, but stopping the regular users just is not the way, as I see it.

It's probably another attempt at the erosion of our liberties by bringing it in as a war on 'terror', and then expanding their definition of whatever terrorist means to cover anything they dont want us to see.

Anyway, if a real 'terrorist' accesses real 'terrorist' websites, why ban them ? , can't that information not be used to track said terrorist(s) ?

reply to post by Gun Totin Gerbil


Gerbil,
That is kind of how I see it as being another way to fight terror with the net. All I can say about that is I hope the powers that be are wise enough to take all measures and advantages they can with the tools that they have.

Originally posted by Gun Totin Gerbil
Anyway, if a real 'terrorist' accesses real 'terrorist' websites, why ban them ? , can't that information not be used to track said terrorist(s) ?

Good point. The info can certainly be used to track down their location; it has been done before with paedophiles, the same can be applied to terrorists.

I know the topic is about the UK, but this article is interesting , in the way are viewing what a terrorist is :

House Subcommittee Presentation Equates 9/11 Truth With Terrorism

A House Homeland Security Subcommittee hearing on "Terrorism and the Internet" held last week, and broadcast on C-Span, featured a panel of "experts", including representatives formerly of the RAND Corporation and the Simon Wiesenthal Center who presented 9/11 truth websites sites alongside sites that celebrate the attacks and offer training in terrorist tactics.

The hearing was chaired by Democratic Rep. Jane Harman, and ranking Republican, Rep. Dave Reichert. It was supposed to focus on the use of the internet by "home grown terrorist recruiters" yet in a shocking move it blatantly related the 9/11 truth movement with so called radical "jihadists".

In a very poorly prepared and delivered PowerPoint splurge, Mark Weitzman (pictured far right) stated: "Some of these are conspiracy theories that present a closed view of the world, such as blaming 9/11 as an "outside job"(?) or blaming outside groups such as the U.S. government, or er the Jews etc, some of these are pro-Iraqi insurgency videos, some of them are media portals that people can enter into, ones that you saw earlier with the flags, the U.S. flags show that thy were based on U.S. servers..." Under the heading "Internet: Incubator of 9/11 Conspiracies and Disinformation " Weiztman threw in video of WTC building 7 collapsing on 9/11 as posted on various 9/11 truth affiliated websites, along with screen shots of the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth site and other sites, such as Killtown's, who raised awareness of this .

"We need to be aware of the empowering effect of the internet upon extremists, we must have researchers and responders for both the technical and and linguistic skills to keep us informed and to be able to respond to what is online. We must make users aware of the misinformation and of the techniques used by extremists." Weitzman continued.

Weiztman's presentation represents the latest disgusting effort to lump in the movement to uncover the truth behind the 9/11 attacks, a movement which includes hundreds of first responders, firefighters, police, former intelligence officials and the largest 9/11 families representative group, with jihad groups and real Islamic extremists in order to demonize it. Later on in the hearing, former RAND corporation director Bruce Hoffman re-iterated Weitzman's presentation, stating "These falsehoods and conspiracy theories have now become so ubiquitous and so pervasive that they are believed, so you have almost a parallel truth, and it has become a very effective tool for recruiting people."

Whichever way Hoffman dresses this up, it is plain fact that we have not been given the truth about what happened on 9/11. We have been subject to a "received truth", an official story that when compared with physical evidence does not hold water. In the absence of any real independent investigation, the evidence unearthed during six years of research by individuals and groups who want the truth has made the issue a phenomenon.

In recent polls up to 80% of Americans do not believe they have been told the truth about 9/11. Respected intelligence veterans agree with them. NIST, the body tasked with investigating the collapse of the buildings "cannot explain" why they fell. Yet corporate academics such as Bruce Hoffman continue to insinuate that the truth about 9/11 is and always has been set in stone and any deviation from the official story is a "falsehood".

To then implicitly suggest that the millions of Americans who have questioned the government version of events on 9/11 are synonymous with a vast minority of violent extremist radicals is either extremely ill informed or purposefully misleading.

www.globalresearch.ca...

[edit on 18-11-2007 by Gun Totin Gerbil]