Terrorism, counterterrorism, and the Internet: The American cases

Abstract

This article assesses the cases that have come to light since 9/11 of Islamist extremist terrorism, whether based in the United States or abroad, in which the United States itself has been, or apparently has been, targeted. Information from them is used to evaluate how the Internet (including various forms of electronic communication) has affected several aspects of the terrorism enterprise in the United States: radicalization, communication, organization, and the gathering of information. In general, it is found that the Internet has not been particularly important. Although it has been facilitating in some respects, it has scarcely ever been necessary. In some respects, the Internet more fully aids efforts to police terrorism – although this is mainly due to the incompetence and amateurishness of would-be terrorists. In other respects, however, the Internet, and the big data compilations it makes possible, greatly increase the costs and complications of the counterterrorism quest.

Keywords::

• terrorism
• counterterrorism
• Internet
• cyberterrorism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

^1. For a discussion of this issue, see Mueller and Stewart (2015, ch. 3).

^2. Marc Sageman (2008, pp. 74–75) has provided an arresting comparison with Jewish youths who felt called upon to go abroad to fight for besieged Israel in wars in 1948, 1967, and 1973.

^3. See also the bizarre case described in Risen (2014, ch. 2).

^4. And even that may not be enough. The Times Square bomber (Case 34) had weeks of direct training in Pakistan. His bomb is said to have “almost succeeded” by John Yoo (2011, p. 278) and Ali Sofan (2013). However, the bomb was reported from the start to be “really amateurish”, with some analysts charitably speculating when it was first examined that it might be “some sort of test run” created by “someone who's learning how to make a bomb and will learn from what went wrong with this”. Apparently because it is difficult to buy explosive fertilizer, the bomber purchased the non-exploding kind instead. It is not clear why he did not use dirt or dried figs for his explosive material since these are cheaper, easier to find, and will fail to explode with same alacrity as non-explosive fertilizer. He also threw in some gasoline – which does not explode either, though it does burn – as well as some propane, that will explode only when it is mixed precisely with the right amount of air, a bomb design nicety he apparently never learned.

^5. In early 2005, Richard Clarke, counterterrorism coordinator from the Clinton administration, issued a scenario that appeared as a cover story in the Atlantic. In it he darkly envisioned terrorist shootings at casinos, campgrounds, theme parks, and malls in 2005, bombings in subways and railroads in 2006, missile attacks on airliners in 2007, and devastating cyberattacks in 2008. He has now become an energetic figure in the escalating, and lucrative, concern about cyberterrorism (Clarke & Knake, 2010). For critiques of this position, see the sources arrayed at http://www.cato.org/research/cyberskeptics.

^6. Zazi also foolishly attracted attention by racing at more than 90 miles per hour across the country in his bomb-material-laden car (Apuzzo & Goldman, 2013, p. 10).

^7. James Risen (2014, p. 234) relays the joke that an extrovert in NSA is one who looks at your shoes when talking to you.

^8. However, there is also a danger that the common problem of confusing statistical significance with substantive significance will be embellished: the larger the data set, the more likely a relationship will be deemed to be statistically significant (on this issue, see Ziliak & McCloskey, 2008).

^9. Relevant here is a study finding that, as more information becomes more readily available to scientists, they can “more easily find prevailing opinion” and are “more likely to follow it”. This leads to “more citations referencing fewer articles” even as “findings and ideas that do not become consensus” are “forgotten quickly” (Evans, 2008, p. 398; see also Benson, 2014, p. 306).