Countering Violent Extremism - 5TH Worldwide Security Conference
Blairwatch has been invited to attend the East - West Institite's annual conference on security and countering violent extremism.
To start the conference a number of publications have been released:
Countering Violent Extremism - Videopower and Cyberspace by J Rami Mroz is a well written examination of how extremists use the internet and responses to this.
Although it does provide a good run through of activity and tactics used with case studies of al Qaeda and the US Christian Identity movements use and tactics for internet operations, some aspects worry me.
Firstly it calls on government and civil society to promote peace building and support initiatives to counter extremism. Fine, but do certain governments have any credibility with disaffected youth who may be targeted for recruitment by etremists?
It also looks at MEMRI, and whilst noting that they have a too heavy bias to have any real credibility, suggest that it does offer a model of a media watchdog that could be replicated in more neutral hands.
Finally it asks ISP's to suppress websites that directly promote terrorism but not other expressions of extremist thought.
I think they've missed something - weblogs aren't even mentioned in the pamphlet, and weblogs - or a meta-blog could be a real asset in noting individuals and groups of people involved in building a more peaceful world through conflict resolution and bridge building between communities.
Nevertheless, this is an interesting and thoughtful publication that our readers will find interesting.
From your www.ewi.info
From your www.ewi.info article...
Violent extremists use video and cyberspace in order to:
q inject ideological or religious rhetoric into political debates
q mold existing imagery from mainstream media to suit their purposes
q generate emotive responses from their target audiences to develop and/or amplify a belief-driven sense of purpose
q protect and control channels of communication
q operate diffuse networks
q build an “army of believers”
q recruit operatives, especially young people, to commit violence
q provide operational intelligence and information
q intimidate their enemies
q raise funds.
I find it moderately amusing that you can replace "Violent extremists" with "Murdochs News Corp" and it makes no difference. Personally I know which group I'm more disturbed by, I don't know about you. On a related note the PTB are not attempting to shut down extremist sites prefering to snoop on people who do.
Congress moves toward expanding government spying, with immunity for telecoms. We follow suit with a slightly more subtle Illegal downloaders 'face UK ban' which amounts to pretty much the same thing. However a controversial website that allows whistle-blowers to anonymously post government and corporate documents has been taken offline in the US.. A clear display of priorities and a finger in the eye for the First Amendment.