By This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , HSO Contributor
When five young American Muslim men were detained in Pakistan last week after allegedly planning to train in terrorist camps, then wage holy war against US troops in Afghanistan, the news media glommed onto one fact in the case and wouldn't let go: the Washington, DC-area quintet had supposedly used Facebook to connect with an extremist recruiter. "I think that the Internet was correctly seen by Al Qaeda and its fellow jihadis as a vacuum they could fill and they have filled it very well," NPR quoted one terrorism expert as saying. "And we are just now, unfortunately, paying increased attention to this particular new threat."
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New threat? Exactly one year ago, a British newspaper left little doubt about things to come with this headline: Al Qaeda plans to wage holy war on Facebook. As the story noted, the terrorist network's plans--leaked onto a message board--included a strategy to "invade" the popular social networking site and target young people with videos of suicide bombers and written accounts of martyrs. As one of the message board users noted: "If American politicians like Barack Obama can use it to win an election we can use it to take over the world."
The American intelligence community was obviously aware of the potential for mischief that Facebook could yield, although how rigorously it's been monitoring the site's users is anyone's guess. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has tried to find out, but the group's FOIA requests seeking details about agencies' data collection and surveillance policies have so far been ignored. So the privacy watchdog has filed suit against the CIA, Department of Homeland Security, and others in hopes of freeing documents that will answer their questions.
Even if that lawsuit is successful, we'll no doubt be left wondering whether those five would-be jihadists were in fact discovered by American operatives sniffing out Facebook trails, then passing along their information to Pakistani police. But whether or not our cybersleuths missed the obvious clues, we can only assume that they'll be paying far more attention to Facebook going forward. So if you get a friend request from someone whose profile notes that they're fluent in Pashto or Urdu, hitting the accept button will likely come with consequences: someone in Langley or Ft. Meade may be taking note of the fact that you're not only somehow associated with suspicious characters, but that you're also a fan of MAD Magazine, have a cousin who endured two root canals in a single afternoon, and are so pathetic that no one ever writes on your wall, even on your birthday.
Alan Green was formerly editor of investigative projects at the Center for Public Integrity, in Washington, D.C. His books include Animal Underworld: Inside America's Black Market for Rare and Exotic Species, which chronicles such issues as the threats to human health posed by the trade in pet primates.
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